Birds
down the Moselle, below the vines...
30/07/10 09:43 Categorised as: Holidays | Summer 2010
... lies the best kept secret in wine?
See wine writer Tom Canavan on Luxembourg’s wines here
We spent a day rambling down the Moselle valley, with the better-known German Mosel vineyards just across the river from us. In the village of Éinen, the vines come right into the built-up area, and there seems to be little distinction between horticulture and viticulture
The signs of wine-making are everywhere in Éinen
And the wine? Well, we tried some Letzeburgesch fizz, and found the stuff from Domaine Bernard-Massard in nearby Grevenmacher particularly agreeable. A fraction of the price of a champagne of comparable quality. Wish we could find it back in the UK. Maybe next time we’ll haul back a case or two...
A mighty river the Moselle! Markers on the wall behind Bamberg’s Hotel show heights reached by flood waters during past inundations of the Moselle (click the pic to enlarge).
Haven’t been able to find much about this, but the 1947 flood waters reached a depth of 4 metres. An idea of just how widespread the devastation this must have caused would have been can be seen from the shot below of the Moselle valley taken at an altitude of less than one metre above the river’s normal level, from the exact same spot as the picture of the Bamberg’s hotel (above left) was taken. A 4 metre flood would have submerged most of the buildings in this shot, and lapped over Bamberg’s flower-covered balcony.
Surprises in store on the ornitho front as well. We’d not expected to run into these critters again
Last ones we saw were in the dam in the Pilanesburg National Park in South Africa, and anyone who got a Christmas card from us last year may recognise these as Egyptian Geese, same as pictured on our card
There are some surprisingly large boats on the Moselle, too. Quite a lot of them, in fact, both barges and cruise ships. Here’s a couple of examples: it really is quite difficult to convey the sheer scale of these - don’t forget to click to enlarge...
To Remich, one of the bigger Moselle crossing points, for lunch. Jim looks like he enjoyed it
And finally : not all the geese were Egyptian. We ran into this stonker-honker after lunch
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a damp, but lively, start to the day
with dewdrops on the grass, and pheasants - all misty wet with rain -
in extraordinary colours, patrolling the field outside our windows. And...
...a woodpecker (Greater, and Spotted, no less) on the feeder outside the kitchen window...
... as dapper a chaffer as you could hope to meet...
...when he could squeeze the nuthatch out the way....
...squirrel permitting, of course...
And of course, being Yorkshire, soon as the sun comes out, there's these, everywhere
Just love that pheasant, though. Here he is again...
