Thursday 14 May 2015
| Distance (km) | 20 kms | |||
| Distance (time) | 5 hrs | |||
| Climb / Descent | 360m / 430m | |||
| Hard / Soft surface | 30% / 70% | |||
| Landscape |
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| Weather |
 21° 2 Bft
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Today is Ascencion Day and it appears to be rather difficult to find public transport. The first bus to Fontoy leaves at 11:05 and buses to and from Rombas are non-existing today. Rombas does have a railway station and so yesterday after our walk we asked already about the possibilities to take a train. There are 2 trains from Rombas through Hagondange to Thionville: at 13:45 and 17:45. That's it. The first one we will never make and the second will still be tight considering we won't be able to get to Fontoy until just after noon. But that can be solved by the French railroad as well: from the railway station in Thionville there is a bus of the French railroad at 8:25 to Fontoy. Great, we take it! And so we are at 9 in the morning in Fontoy, I don't think we ever left this early....
The road climbs steeply out of the town (as usual) and enters the forest. It's a great forest track and before we know it we walk the 8 kms to Neufchef. At the church here there is a bakery and we decide to treat ourselves with some chocolate rolls. In the sun at the square Francois Mitterand we eat our rolls and since we have a train at 17:45 from Rombas we're not in a hurry. We doze in the sun and almost fall asleep when we realise that we are here for an hour now and maybe we should move on. The first 2 kilometers pass through fields after the track again enters the forest over a wide and straight path that is in pretty bad shape due to mud and deep tire tracks. We leave this track rather sudden and change to a narrow path to the right. A bit further Lupita would like to have a bathroom (too much lemonade during the last stop I guess) and so we decide not to follow the GR5 around Rosselange but walk into the town. What a sadness! Dirty falling apart houses, some of them just made out of grey concrete blocks with plaster. Broken lamp posts and sidewalk.....it more look like Latin-America (with all respect). But no bar or so. We almost walk out of Rosselange again as we pass through a street with older looking houses....and guess what? There are two bars here almost next to each other. We take the first one (bar El Toro) and order two panachés. A local in a good mood asks as where we from and where we're going and we explain. He first thinks we're joking that we are on foot going from Rotterdam to Nice but when he notices we are really serious he gets curious. We have a very nice talk and close to 3 o'clock we leave the bar for the last piece to Rombas. We now discover that is only 2kms and flat and straight along the river over a cycle path. So we are there very fast. After we found out where the railway st ation is we look for something to eat but that is not so easy: all restaurants are closed until 17:00. Finally we find a baker who's willing to make us a baguette with chicken, tomatoes and lettuce and boy that goes in fast. After that we're bored for another 1.5 hours at the railway station until we're kicked out of the waiting room at 17:30 because the station manager wants to go home. The last 15 minutes we have to wait at the platform where there is nowhere to sit until the train comes. Right on time, I have to say. And so we're back in Thionville half an hour layer. A long day, mainly due to the public transport. |
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Download track FonRom.gpx