Germany

Another Trip to Elsewhere

by Arne Nilssen

    As you may recall last year's spring trip should have taken Morgan and me to Poland but we ended up in southern France. This year's trip was better planned and, perhaps because of that, turned out to deviate even more from our original intentions.

    My brother and I had decided to ride a couple of spectacular Norwegian railroads, and then drive eastwards to visit some of our favorites in Northern Sweden. However, like so often in

    To go to France or any other part of Continental Europe from Sweden you have to pass through Germany. One rarely stops there other than for refueling the car and its passengers. This time, however, we needed to spend a night in Germany, and decided to take a look at a possibly abandoned railroad a few miles from the autobahn.  And wow, our first try was a hit!  It turned out, there were many more to come.

Scandinavia,  the weatherman was not on our side (it doesn't help to be the proud father of a meteorologist).  So on departure day, we turned right instead of left when leaving my driveway in Gothenburg.   We were on our way to Alsace in northeastern France, where we were to find new rails and enjoy the good weather, scenery, food and wine.

     We actually found so much good rail on our way to France that we never got there. Every day we could try a new line in nice surroundings giving us our daily exercise (about 50 kilometers). We spent most of the whole week in the Ardennes, a mountainous area on the border between Germany and Belgium. The Belgian side had plenty of rails as well, and we crossed the border at two different locations by railbike.

    France has always been at the top on my list of railbike countries. It now seems that Germany is a strong contester, at least as far as availability of rails goes (Germany still has to work on the food, for one thing).

    My next railbike trip is scheduled for late August and early September this year. Morgan and I have plane tickets for Seattle. We will be in the Pacific Northwest and are in the process of deciding where to go in more detail. But who says one has to follow the plan?

    Anyway, I hope to see as many of you as possible in August and September.

                                 Until then, best whishes - - - - -  Arne