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The steepest part of the Moselle Gorge between Brem and Eller (Stage 13)

Background

Geographically, the Moselle has three distinct sections:

 Haute-Moselle (Upper Moselle, Stages 1–4) is the non-navigable part of the river running through the limestone Vosges foothills from the source to Neuves-Maisons, south of Nancy. Below Épinal, the river is followed by the Canal des Vosges.

 Moselle canalisée (Middle Moselle, Stages 5–8) is the navigable, partly straightened section through a broad, partly industrialised valley from Nancy to the Franco–German–Luxembourg border.

 Moseltal (Moselle Gorge, Stages 9–14) is the lower part of the river where it has cut a tight, meandering gorge between the Hunsrück and Eifel Mountains. This is the section famous for the production of Mosel wine.

Nowadays the point where the Moselle reaches the Hunsrück is the national border between the French region of Lorraine, the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz and the small independent Duchy of Luxembourg. But historically, political control has seldom replicated geography. Indeed the history of the Moselle basin for the past 500 years has been of control passing back and forward between two often bellicose nations.