Today we rode on faith. We knew we wanted to go (somehow) from Neuerberg to the Vennbahn, but we didn't know how. The Vennbahn is a former railroad bed converted to cycling path. The southern end is at Troisvierges in northern Luxembourg and the northern end is at Aachen in the Netherlands. Our Bikeline books, which are our detailed cycling guides, have a gap between the route we'd been following north from the Mosel (the Prüm cycle route) and the Vennbahn. We knew it was possible to ride across but didn't know the precise route. (I'm sure this is all included in another Bikeline book, but not the one we have.)
One possibility was to follow Google Maps bike route directions, which showed a relatively direct 40 km to Troisvierges. But we've learned that Google routing is generally on roads rather than the excellent bike paths and we preferred to stay on the paths. We decided to continue north on the Prüm bike route we'd been following and look for a connection over to Sankt Vith on the Vennbahn. It was a bit of gamble because the intermediate towns are small and it didn't appear that they had any accommodations. Our fallback was to go about 10 km out of our way if we needed to find a place to sleep.
It was quite cool when we left Neuerberg, and we were soon passing through the first of several old tunnels.
We climbed steadily (but at a gentle railroad grade) for about 15 km to Arzfeld. We were mostly in forest with occasional glimpses of farmland (mostly grazing cows, some fields of grain). It was beautiful and peaceful riding. Shortly before Arzfeld we passed a row of painted totem poles.
After Arzfeld we had a gentle descent to the next town, Pronsfeld. We were hopeful that we'd find another cycle path there toward the Vennbahn, and our faith was rewarded. Bleialf (on the cycle route sign) is on the way to St Vith, so we knew that would be the correct path. We stopped for a quick banana snack at the small railway exhibit alongside the bike path. In addition to a couple of picnic tables and a very complete repair stand with tools there was an e-bike charging station.
Our route continued through forests and small farmland, all on excellent cycle paths. From Arzfeld we descended gently for about 10 km.
As we crossed the Our River we also crossed from Germany into Belgium. No border check, but new language, new signage.
After crossing the river we had about 10 km of mostly gentle climbing to St Vith. In the village of Wiesenbach there was a boy sitting with a lemonade (actually, grenadine juice) stand outside his house. Of course we had to stop. We each had a cup of juice, and then spent a few minutes trying to talk with his grandma in our very fractured German. She was amazed that we came all the way from America to bike tour.
Today's ride was 52 km with some gentle but sustained climbs. Virtually all on excellent and quiet paths. An outstanding day.
St Vith was quite bustling but we found a hotel in the center, and then a filling pasta dinner with some excellent Belgian beer.
Wow! A dry lighted tunnel on a bike path. All our tunnels are pitch black with cold water dripping on you.
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