Читать книгу The Moselle Cycle Route. From the source to the Rhine at Koblenz онлайн

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The modern era

The 500-year history of the Moselle basin being a pawn between French- and German-speaking nations may now finally have ended with the entry of France, Germany and Luxembourg into the European Union (1958), as well as the highly symbolic 1985 Schengen Agreement, a treaty signed on a boat on the Moselle near the village of Schengen, at the point at which the borders of French Lorraine, German Rheinland-Pfalz and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg meet. This treaty led to the free movement of people across European borders and the removal of border controls between countries. As a result, many of the residents of Thionville in France now work across the old ‘border’ in Luxembourg or Germany, and the borderlands have been designated as a European cross-border super region called Saarlorlux.

The birthplace of Karl Marx in Trier, now a museum (Stage 9)

River transport

The river itself has a history independent of the political struggle happening around it. Navigation has been going on since at least Roman times. At Neumagen a stone carving of a Roman wine ship was discovered in the 19th century. This is now in the Landesmuseum in Trier, but a concrete copy stands in Neumagen and a full-size replica wooden Roman galley is moored nearby.