The big 4-0, aka the Hackenberg

[Inside the Ouvrage Hackenberg]

Being the proverbial history geek, I celebrated my 40th birthday in fine style with a day-long visit to the Ouvrage Hackenberg, largest of the Maginot Line forts. Scouting out the place the day before, we followed some unusual GPS routing.

We are learning the ways of our respective directional devices. My iPhone and Google Maps team up to place us on the closest-to-motorway thing going when I have the lead, even when I have specified that Google is to avoid highways, tolls and ferries. And when I do select the grudgingly proposed slower route, Google will insistently offer any number of shortcuts or plain old U-turns to get us back on the fastest motorway because we all must want to arrive now, now, now rather than enjoy the journey, right? I am grateful to Google however for the reviews and direct connections to websites from the app, particularly at the point that arrives each afternoon when we seek a campsite or lodging for the night. I am beginning to collect an impressive array of SIM cards, and am learning the quirks of the various mobile data providers across Europe. I can only imagine that enrolment in pay as you go plans will become harder as we move away from countries fluent in English or French. But the internet is a lifeline… I feel lost without it even though I can sense that Adam enjoys our brief stays in countries that we intend to transit so quickly that I don't insist on hunting down a new SIM. Then my nose is not so easily buried in my phone.

[Campsite on the bank of the Moselle River]

Adam's GPS subjects us to its own perverse routing at times. We are regularly issued instructions to veer off a smooth-running bypass into the heart of a town because the GPS has perceived that the cramped and twisted town route is mere centimetres shorter than the bypass. Adam is running Open Street Maps on a Garmin Montana. I find the Garmin interface a bit clunky but I do manage to make do when it is my turn to search out a waypoint. The amount of data, including not just streets but points of interest, accommodation, food and fuel embedded in the Open Street Maps is impressive for freely available maps that can be cached and called up as needed without a subscription. The GPS does get a little confused from time to time however about what can actually be called a 'road' and we have at times found ourselves creeping along a private lane hoping our slow speed and friendly waves will be enough to deter the landowner from shaking a fist or taking more decisive action to eject us from their property.

The day before our Hackenberg tour, the GPS selected one such dubious route. It began innocuously enough as a gravel road but then as it swung uphill through the forest, became a deeply rutted clay track that was enormously challenging to ride (after being thrown off into the bank, I gave up and had Adam ride my bike to the top of the rise). What was to follow was truly spooky. The riding improved but we encountered steep-walled anti-tank ditches slicing through the forest and at various perspectives, great hulking concrete fortifications staring out of the gloom. Only at the end of the dirt track did we encounter a gate giving notice of the French military grounds, closed to all but foot traffic, that we had just crossed. It was during our underground tour of the Hackenberg the following day that we learned that all the infrastructure was part of the single fort, connected by kilometres of tunnels, and intended to provide crossing fire along this stretch of the German border. The Hackenberg tour was fascinating, and I hope to find other such interesting spots as we go.

[Anti-tank ditch]