The rpice of hotel rooms in Cochem was scary and I couldn’t imagone how we could afford to stay anywjere near for less than £100 – much more than I am generally prepared to pay. But Tess had a good idea. She had heard about a house which sheltered pilgrims walking on well-trodden routes through Europe to find themselves.
She found the place in Speicher, half an hour’s drive from Trier. We turned up in the private housing estate and Tess drove onto the drive. She then got a pang of conscience because she had not rung ahead. So she rang from where we sat on their drive.
Soon after she explained that we were actually on their drive we would hear laughing and then a fat jolly face appear at the front door beckoning us in. Karl was very friendl;y and is transpired had set up this pilgrims rest because he and he wife had done a long pilgrimage from their home to Spain and wanted to help other pilgrims.
In fact pilgrims stay for free and others pay. We paid the 25 Euros gratefully and both left a tip for poor pilgrims to help themselves to when they are passing through are skint. They will live a lot better on Tess’s tip than mine!
After checking in we dumped our bags and drove to the historic town of Trier. Yet more beautiful buildings, castle, churches. Even though we had stuffed ourselves with Schnitzel we still decided to buy some bread and cheese for dinner back at the pilgrims stop. Somehow we managed to eat the whole lot and get through several bottles of wins with Karl. Their garden was a lovely place to eat our supper and soon Karl’s wife came back from her job in Luxembourg.
In fact it gave us the idea to going to Luxembourg for breakfast the following morning.