Forty years after a tiny Luxembourgish village paved the way for border-free European travel, a series of scenic bike paths whisk travellers through the area's vineyard-studded landscape.

I pedal faster and faster until the bike glides over the wet tarmac. Vineyards rise up on my left, curving inward like the belly of a giant wave. On my right, the river trembles in the downpour. A sudden hiss from a brown-bodied goose leads me to nervously clench my handlebars, but bird aside, I'm all alone on the cycle path, and so I do something I haven't done since I was a child: I stand on my pedals, open my mouth and look up to catch the raindrops on my tongue.

I didn't come to Luxembourg to cycle. I came to look after two cats in Grevenmacher, a small town on the banks of the Moselle River. But with a few days to spare before my cat-sitting duties begin, I'm following my local hosts' advice and exploring the region by bike.

The Moselle River twists and turns for 545km from its source in eastern France's Vosges Mountains, flowing north to form a watery border between Luxembourg and Germany before joining the Rhine in Koblenz. On either side, beginner-friendly bike paths let travellers dip in and out of three countries without ever showing a passport – a freedom made possible by the Schengen Agreement, which abolished internal border checks and allowed for passport-free movement across participating European countries.

"I don't go to France as much, but I go to Germany to shop for cosmetics… and cheap strawberries," smiles my Schengen guide, Tessy Klopp Sowa, pointing out a yellow buoy in the Moselle River – a rather nondescript marker showing where Luxembourg, Germany and France meet.

This summer, the small Luxembourgish village of Schengen marks 40 years since European representatives signed the treaty in 1985 that paved the way for borders to open across the continent a decade later. Today, the agreement affects some 450 million people, including citizens of the 29 nations within the Schengen Area, as well as non-EU nationals who live there. But as border controls begin to quietly creep back into Europe, it's interesting to think about how the continent's borderless travel all started in this quiet, picturesque, 680-person village – and it's here that I begin my cycle.

"On the Luxembourg side, you'll pass more small villages [on the bike paths], but on the German side, it's quieter – at least for the first 10km. Of course, if you change your mind, you can just cross over one of the bridges," Klopp Sowa suggests, as I wonder which direction to start pedalling.

The Moselle region's cycle network is a choose-your-own-adventure dream. National routes, such as Luxembourg's PC 3 and Germany's Mosel-Radweg, link up with regional, themed and mountain biking trails, allowing you to choose sections, skip hills and stitch together your own customised route. In Luxembourg, cyclists can rent and return bikes (including e-bikes) at various points along the river. Services such as luggage transport,........

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