Okay so ...,
last weekend the eighth Annual Mosel (Moselle) Pagoda tour Event took place
starting from Peter's hotel in Enkirch, a scenic little town at the river Moselle in Rhineland Palatine.
The Moselle is one of the most beautiful and winding rivers in Germany through the Moselle valley heading into the largest river, the Rhine in Koblenz, which is about an hour down the river from Enkirch.
Peter invited us in January and a total of 25 Pagoda teams signed up to participate in and celebrate the wounderful gatherings including some nice tours around his Moselle home - now for the 8th consecutive year.
A four-day Event provided all what the Pagoda teams could expect,
staying at his wonderful and first class hotel with excellent food throughout but also and especially great tours starting and ending again in Enkirch, which Peter with two helpers (see below) meticulously had organised.
Some 8 teams or so arrived already on Wednesday (22 July) and met at the "Zylinderhaus", a very nice private-collection museum of classic cars, motorcycles and other technical contemporary stuff, like a full old-style gas station, etc., located in in nearby Bernkastel-Kues. You may remember the painting "Gas" by Edward Hopper?? A gas station like that has fully been recreated in the premises of this very fine museum.
If you once happen to be around in that region..., don't miss this spot!!
https://www.zylinderhaus.com/en/All the other remaining Pagoda teams gathered up on Thursday, 23 July, so that a total of 25 Pagoda teams arrived at the hotel and headed for a nice wine tasting and Barbecue dinner with great welcome conversations.
The wine tasting with Andreas Weirich is already well-known among the participants and this young wine-maker has already earned some highly-marked wines with silver and gold medals but still, Andreas does not claim this and keeps himself very modest!
A very fine Barbecue dinner hosted by Peter was held thereafter and finalized in well-motivated discussions with and around Pagoda stuff and other important things in life. Remember, most or many of us haven't seen each other in a year or so ....
Next day we started a 100 kms (~ 62 miles) tour through scenic routes near Enkirch and along the Mosel towards the very nice scenic little town Beilstein with its old half-timbered houses and a very nice and cute castle on top of its hill.
Here we had some time to visit the town, the castle or just to strech the legs and have a nice coffee or ice cream in one of the little restaurants there - out in the sun on this very nice and summerly day - with view on to the Mosel river.
After a short trip the next destination this day was the "Marienburg", another nice & scenic little chateau on the top of another hill. After a short walk to a nice watch tower, we celebrated here some fine coffee and cake, which Peter brought with us, and then celebrated altogether a phantastic look over the beautiful Moselle valley.
Finally, we headed back to Enkirch on the afternoon - again on scenic routes along the Moselle - for the more sociable part of our evening.
For the next day (Saturday) Peter and Alfred (Facelvega) had prepared another and not less interesting tour - this time about 140 kms (90 miles) on scenic second-order country roads along the Hunsrück panoramic road towards Idar-Oberstein.
Idar-Oberstein is known as a gemstone centre. Until the 18th century, the area was a source for agate and jasper.
While in the 18th century, though, gemstone finds in the Hunsrück were dwindling, emigrants from Idar-Oberstein discovered the world's most important agate deposit in Brazil's state of Rio Grande do Sul and within the following years, delivery of agate from Rio Grande do Sul had been made to Idar-Oberstein. These found agates were especially good for making engraved gems. Using locals’ technical knowledge of chemical dyes, the industry grew bigger than ever at the turn of the 20th century. Until today Idar-Oberstein has redefined itself and developed into a leading hub in the trade of gemstones from Brazil and Africa. That in turn provided local artists with a large selection of material and the region experienced a “third boom” as a gemstone centre.
We visited a very nice prepared local gemstone mine and were impressed by the agate and jaspers almonds and druses, which are just "growing" in the wall-rocks down there!
A well worth experience!
After a nice lunch nearby with very fine spit roast, later the afternoon we headed back - again on nice an rural roads - aside the hectic public traffic - but still along the beautiful and winding Moselle river roads along Bernkastel-Kues and Traben-Trarbach back to Peter's hotel.
A very long evening full with great conversations and exchanging experiences began, not to forget about a perfect five course dinner.
Almost unbelievable, no major repair work had to be carried out on any of the Pagodas during the Event.
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On Sunday morning we celebrated a great leave-taking in a form of an extended breakfast. Just wonderful.
Only then some rain came up to accompany us in a weeping manner that we had to leave.
Until then, we had only nice weather throughout the Event - which made top-down driving mandatory all the time.
All in all this was clearly one - if not the main Pagoda highlight for many of us German Pagoda owners taking place in this Event.
The hospitality, the day tours, Peter's hotel itself and all side effects of the gathering are outstanding and remarkable, all organized by Peter with the help of his family (for the hotel/retaurant-associated well-caring) and with the help fo Alfred Simmet and Roman Spiess for and on the tours.
Thanks a lot, Peter, for all your and your family's efforts and a lot of thanks also to Alfed and Roman! Chapeau !
We are all looking ahead for the Moselle Pagoda tour 2021 !
Achim
