Three Countries Gravel-Tour - Day 6 - From Arlon to the Muellerthal

First thing in the morning we had to stitch up one of our pannier bags that had started to fall apart. Then after we had a short breakfast we rode into Arlon to resupply for the next days.  Arlon turned out to be a lot more hilly than expected! After shopping groceries we continued out of town on some bumpy trail between fields towards Clairfontaine. At the monastery there we took a short stop, but decided not to really look around.

We followed a side street, then turned onto a forest road near Eichach, and next we knew we were already in Luxembourg. We came upon a "Fitness-Route" with stations to do pull-ups and similar exercises, that we followed for a bit, then turn onto a single trail. The next bits continued in a similar manner, riding on forest roads and trails, until we reached the first town. From there we mostly rode along country roads, some of them avenues lined with beautiful old trees.

When we passed by the Grande Chateau d'Ansembourg we chose to take a break and a stroll through the nice castle gardens.

Our next intermediate destination was the town of Mersch. The Route we planned to take through town through a large park was unfortunately closed, so we instead had to ride through the town center. On the way we stopped a few times to take some pictures and watched some tree climbers cutting the trees. After we had crossed a large red bridge across the Alzette river, our route led up a really steep road - the steepest ascent of the day - into another forest.

By now the day had gotten really hot and we were glad whenever we got to be in the shade of the forest. Once again we switched back and forth between roads and forest tracks, making our way first through Heffingen and then to the Muellerthal. There we came by the parking lot to the "Kalktuffquelle" and since the short hiking trail was basically on our route, we chose to follow it.

The trail was mostly a stretch ob boardwalks between the large rock formations, and you're not supposed to ride your bike there, so we instead just pushed them. The Kalktuffquelle is like a widestretched waterfall across a rockface into a pool below. There's another pool above, which is also where our route continued, so we hiked our bikes up there, then took a nice little break dipping our feet in the cold water of the pool.