Kyllburg

We opted to take the Koblenz to Trier autobahn to reach Kyllburg. It was very quiet, an uneventful journey apart from the odd Merc and BMW that streaked past taking full advantage of the speed unlimit. I have to say we pressed the pedal to the metal too, reaching 64mph on one downhill stretch. I've become quite used to sedate travel and have to remind myself when I hop back into the car at home that I am allowed to drive faster than 48mph. Then there's all the messing about with the gear stick and clutch, and you've got to get out of the vehicle to have a pee, really car design has a long way to go...

The autobahn skirts along the eastern fringe of the Eifel area. We had no idea quite how extensive these uplands on the German/Belgian border were. It's an area of ancient volcanoes, you can see this from the conical shaped hills and circular crater lakes. It has a bit of the look of the Auvergne about it. Next time we come this way we'll have to check it out.

Kyllburg is typical of the area, a small village tumbling down a steep wooded gorge by the river Kyll.

The campsite itself is mainly static caravans. The touring pitch facilities are a bit unkempt by German standards and the whole place has that slightly odd feel that you get when residential pitches predominate. Mein host is very friendly, but quite possibly slightly bonkers. Difficult exactly to put your finger on it...  think of the Dylan Moran character in Black Books, but running a small campsite in rural Germany. The position is glorious though, we have a pitch right by the river, with a little footbridge nearby that leads to a path up through the woods to the village centre.

The weather forecast is still a bit iffy. We toyed with staying one night or two, partly because the sun seems to be shining in Northern France, but it's cloudy here. Another reason for our uncertainty about the place is that the local bike trail following the Kyll, unlike the  Moselweg, does not run alongside the river, but meanders around the valley sides. The bike signs in the village centre warn of 10% ascents in each direction. Our 60 year old knees are not up it, especially as Gill is on a non-electric bike.

In the end we decided to stay-put and find a nice riverside walk. That proved trickier than we imagined, the information boards were confusing, and the explanation of Mein Host definitely could have been scripted for Dylan Moran. At the second attempt we found the local  Tourist Information actually open, though the receptionist in the Rathaus where it was situated explained the person who ran it was missing for half an hour. She managed to give Gill a photocopied map; while they conversed I took a photo of the relief sculpture in the Rathaus foyer. What are the children doing at the rear end of the goat? It all looks a bit unsavoury to me.

Armed with a map we managed to find the riverside walk to the nearby village of Malberg, and lovely it proved to be - sparkling river, late spring flowers in abundance, sunlight slicing through the mixture of lime-trees, beech, and tall dark firs straight out of a Caspar Friedrich landscape.

We more or less had the place to ourselves apart from a couple of people tending riverside allotments, and anglers standing mid-stream fly-fishing.

Wordsworth called angling "a symbol of hope's foolishness." I'm sure that the anglers we observed were being hopeful rather than foolish, though I don't think any of them had actually caught anything. Perhaps they were planning on popping into the Kyllburg Lidl fresch fisch freezer on the way home.