BTW

BTW, we found a "camp" site that supplied us with unlimited internet acces which allowed us to finally upload some more pictures on our blog, upload all our pictures on Julie's facebook, and reply to all the comments that were made. Thank you to all our diligent readers and commenters. More stories to come...

Trier

This city is supposedly Germany’s oldest, ringing in at over 2000 years. It was once occupied by the Romans, so many of their buildings reflect this. They even have a amphitheatre, roman baths and this huge gate that is called Porta Nigra. We saw most things from the outside, as we had no desire in spending money on something probably more worthwhile visiting in Italy. The tourist office is in the city square, and right next to Porta Nigra. After some very stressful driving and navigating we managed to find free parking about 2 km from the square. It was late, but we decided to head out see the square anyway. It was quiet all except the ADAC going over the plans for the upcoming rally. I was so excited to see the rally I was hopping we could make it. But as it turned out, the main event was on Sunday, and it was Wednesday. We had already seen most of what we came to see, so it was hard to make it justifiable. We had also made list of places to visit in Germany, and we plan on being in Munich for Oktoberfest so we sort of have a schedule to follow now. The schedule is just a vague route with cities as the destinations, so it’s not like a real schedule. When we got back to our camper van, I noticed the people next to us were from Canada, as they were sporting the Canadian flag on their backpacks. Frank and Diane are from a city near Montreal, they told us they stayed the night before and had no problems and planned on staying that night too. It was settled, we were staying there too, for two nights actually. We ended up joining them in the morning, they wanted to know about what we had seen and tell us they had enough of Germany because they were tired of not being understood and were off to France. They gave us an extra French copy of listed rest spots for campervans. It’s funny, because we just purchased a German one the night before, as it was recommended in our camping guide. The German one is much more detailed, but in German whereas the French Julie can read, but it doesn’t have as many listed or any detail on them whatsoever. It turns out the one we stayed at in Hans-Sur-Lesse was a Stellplatz listed in the French book. Oh, and we drove back to Eschterach (10 mins) on the day we left Trier to get gas and food. Gas in Luxembourg is €0.92/L whereas Germany is €1.17/L. Also the alcohol is cheaper and we finished the last of our beer. Groceries are in French, so we know what we are buying and how to cook it. This didn’t deter us from buying pate and salami from a grocery store in Germany though. On our last day in Trier we went back into the city centre to go explore. Compared to the first night, it was absolutley crazy. Tourists were eveywhere, I felt like I was walking out of a concert that just finished. The city was nice, but it's not one of our favourites so far. The Porta Nigra is worth a visit though.

Echternach

We stopped here for a hike. Echternach is right on the border with Germany and has some really nice hiking trials. Nothing too advanced though, as the hills had steps. It was a 6.7 km hike and it was great to see something other then cities and towns. We were exhausted however, as the day before in Luxembourg City, our campsite was 4 km from the city center and we walked it both ways. The walk back was the worst for Julie as she needed to use the bathroom. The town also had a very huge Basilica which we checked out on our walk to the tourist office.

Luxembourg City

Before we did the long drive down to Luxembourg (2hrs on back roads), we stopped by another castle that was “worth a visit” Chateau Borshied. This castle is currently going under extensive reconstruction but still allowed visitors to view it. This castle did give us some stunning views; it is perched on top of a hill looking down on the town. In its time, it would have been great to see, however, like most reconstructions we’ve seen; they go too modern and take away the rustic nature of castles. We typically enjoy the ones that haven’t been touched. We arrived at the same time as a motorcycle gang, and I found it quite funny to see the typically dressed and groomed gang speak about the history of the castle with a quite proper English accent. The group had a 3 wheeled bike that might have been in one of the Mad Max movies. We did notice the drastic change of scenery going from north to south. Darren and Kelly, you two would enjoy the northern part the most. The north is covered by the Ardennes forest, great hills and valleys and plenty of rivers, whereas the south is flat like Belgium, but with so much industry. This is probably why they have such a healthy economy. The two reasons we made this stop in Luxembourg were to view the Casements and go to an internet café. What’s left of the Casements isn’t much, that’s probably why it cost us €2 to get in. The casements are what is left of the strong fortifications this country once had, apparently it was called the Gibaraltar of the North. But when France and Germany declared them Neutral ground, they tore down the fortifications and were later invaded by Germany in WW1. They could house up to 30 cannons and 200 men, a series of tunnels and loop holes allowed them to defend up to 300 meters away. The casements were built by the Romans when they were in control of the city. We were off next to the internet café which was about 3 blocks away. During our walk we passed through the very full square, the only thing that seemed odd to me was the McDonalds. Normally you see fancy restaurants, café’s and brasseries, but nothing like McD’s. I asked the guy at Cyber Beach if they had a wireless connection. This would allow us to upload photos, more blog entries and use a keyboard we are familiar with. He lied to me and said no, I needed to turn on the laptop so Julie could copy the blog’s onto the other computer only to find their wireless signal. Well, we left shortly after, sat about two doors down and connected outside. After about 20 minutes of sitting there, I suggested moving to the city square and use the internet there. We would have stayed as long as we could, but we could only stay for 30 minutes as the laptop was about to run out of batteries. So we learnt something new, from now on, we check for internet access in the town squares. The picture below means "We want to remain what we are" and can be found on buildings throughout the city.

Vianden

This town was supposed to be our second of 3 stops for the day. The first was Clervaux Castle, Vianden castle was second and then lastly Boursheid Castle. We found free parking nowhere near the castle, but we could walk it easily and we could see the castle from the parking spot. Once we landed on what we thought and later confirmed to be the road to the castle, we found ourselves puzzled. For what did we see? Well we saw numerous vendors trying to sell their wares dressed up in medieval customs. One bar had rough looking benches and tables with hay strewn about it. I thought at first, that some of the people walking in the crowd were employees to the castle tourism, because they were all dressed up too. But this wasn’t the case, they were all here this weekend, dressed up, to be apart of the annual medieval fair. The walk up the winding street was extremely tiresome. However, when we reached the castle entry, we learnt that the cost of admission went up €2 to €6.50. This didn’t deter us though. On we went into the castle’s court yard to see more vendors and games. Some of the games included archery, crossbow, axe throwing, an old sort of roulette, and a game where you crush an egg on a stump with a round rock. Once we made our way through the masses and vendors, we turned around to actually enter the castle. When this happened, Julie, not holding my hand, was grabbed by a guy in costume asking her if she was married and he basically, wanted to take her away with him. The best part was, we didn’t know what he was saying at first, when I clued in I told Julie and she screamed “No! I’m with him” and clutched me even tighter. The same guy approached Julie 3 times – all off which when she was apart from me. I think she learnt her lesson though, because she rarely let go of me after. It was pretty funny. Since we are on a budget, heading for a drink doesn’t usually happen. But we passed a stairway heading down into what was labeled as a Tavern (it was). We almost skipped it, but decided to go have a quick peak anyway. We were rewarded immediately. There were lines of benches filled with people drinking beer and laughing, amongst this were kegs either standing up on end to be used as tables or on there side for decoration. We made our way to the bar and ordered two beers. One thing I like about Europe so far is that Julie actually found a beer she likes (it’s a fruity beer). We sat right in front of the band that was playing when we entered, but never got to hear them once we sat down. So after our second beer (we had one in the van with lunch before we stepped out) we continued our tour of the castle. The first set of doors had even more “hand-made” wares for sale. While we were walking up some steps we heard drumming from behind us, we turned to see 5 guys dressed up as knights walking through the castle to their own musicians beat. So naturally we turned and followed the group. In a very large room, they all put on a performance of fighting and more music. If you have ever been to medieval times, the fights were like that and they were fighting to the river dance song if you were wondering. So on we went to explore the rest of the castle. In a smaller room, but with very high ceilings, (church part of the castle) a violinist played some lovely music. We proceeded to the upper terrace, to find another band with bagpipes, drum, and two belly dancers, all very entertaining. We finished our tour of the castle, knowing that we spent about 4 – 5 hours longer then we planned too, and we learnt that the town had a medieval parade going on that night so we decided to use our parking space as a free camp zone (we weren’t the only ones with this idea either). On our way out Julie was looking more closely now at some of the venders, most notably, the ones with robes/dresses (€150) and a blacksmith shop. After much convincing by me that she wasn’t spending our bread money, she purchased an iron rose. It was €18, so you could understand her resistance. It was the happiest I have seen her on the trip. We then made our way back to the van to have dinner, drop off the rose and backpack; it was here we confirmed that the other campers were spending the night too. Dinner ran us later then expected so we had to rush off to make the parade for 8pm. However we didn’t see any sign of a parade until nearly quarter after. Feeling still hungry, I purchased French Fries and we split them, found a curb, sat and waited. We couldn’t understand the signs being carried in front of every group, so I’ll just mention the ones that stood out. I guess the first that comes to mind is the “Bring out Your Dead” group, probably because the guy that was approaching Julie all day was in it. They had a little wagon with arms and legs hanging out of it being pulled by a guy with giant scabs throwing a rubber rat. The next group I remember is a band. They were dressed up to look “evil”, you know Mohawks, peircings, etc. They did put out the best music and we tried to capture it with our camera but ran out of batteries. Then they had a group of Knights that periodically would put on shows of sword play. They also had a riffle group that would fire off 3 load bangs, which of course scared the horses directly behind them. Two of the horses had to be taken out (I think the girls riding them were scared about being bucked off). The guy on the first horse stopped for a beer at one of the restaurants, and later when the parade was over he had to take the horse away from the crowd because it was so terrified, Julie was particularly worried. Once the parade was over I convinced Julie to join me in a drink. We walked up and down the strip, but couldn’t find a bar we both liked, so instead we stopped at an outdoor retailer and picked up a beer there, I would like to say that Julie had one with me, but they didn’t serve anything she liked. Not much was going on, so we retreated back to our van, had another beer and talked about our plans for the next few days.

Clervaux

A pleasant 5 minute drive and we were parked and out to explore this town’s castle and to view a famous Black and White photo exhibit, called “The Family of Man”. The castle itself appeared to be more of a manor and was so restored that it seemed modern. 503 photos later and we had finished walking through the Family of Man exhibit. I am very glad we did this, as it wasn’t so much moving, but it did show that everyone’s life is the same. They had pictures of people dancing, laughing, crying, playing and working from all over the world, and most of it seemed to be done in the same way. I would suggest visiting it, but only if you find yourself in Luxembourg.

Bastogne

Here we visited another museum on war. This one catered towards the WWII, focusing on the Americans and the Germans. Both the museum and the large monument were shaped like stars and probably would be best viewed by air. The museum itself was very informative about the little details mostly skipped over. I took many pictures only to find out on the way out I wasn’t supposed to. Oh well, their loss for not signing it properly on the way in (I did look on the way in, as most museums prohibit photography). It was late by the time we finished at the museum and we had a decision to make, either stay in Belgium one more night or head off to Luxembourg. Originally, we intended to go to Luxembourg City that day, as a base site to visit the country, but due to the lateness of us arriving in the northern tip of the country, we pulled over at the first campsite sign we saw. It happened to be near one of the stops we were going to make while visiting, Clervaux. We are staying at a campsite here (Camp Woltzdal) and the people are really friendly and the food looks and smells delicious. We are still planning on heading to Luxembourg City as our base site, but we figure we will visit the northern towns first, before heading south. We know of an internet café, so we hope to be able to upload some pictures, because we have had difficulty in the past. So we are now off to Clervaux to see its castle, Vianden to see its castle, and Chateau de Boursheid which is somewhere in between the two.

La Roche-en-Ardennes

We drove off to La Roche to visit a really cool castle, after we left the maze. We were going to go for a hike through the forest Ardennes as well, but it costs money for a trail map, so we decided to take it easy and just view the castle. The town itself is caters directly to the outdoor enthusiasts. There are so many biking and hiking trials, kayak tours down the rapids, that almost every one we saw was there just for that. The Ardenne forest runs through out Luxembourg, SE of Belgium and the NE part of France. The area is beautiful, surrounded by hills covered in trees. This is such a change of scenery as the parts of Belgium we have seen before have been so flat. The castle, Chateau Feodal, dates from the 11th century and is in a state of ruins. Despite its condition it was easy to access most of the building’s site. Every night except when it rains, which it did on both nights we spent in La Roche, they have a performance depicting the death of the Countess Berthe said to haunt the ruins. Julie and I were surprised by the costume the actor wears during the nightly performance, as it was straight out of a KKK manual of how to dress; this was mainly due to the white pointed hat and matching sheet ensemble. We would have enjoyed seeing the show nonetheless. They also have an archery activity set up in one of the smaller courtyards, but it costing €1/shot we passed on this. The highlight for Julie and a little bit for me too, was the bird show. This was held in the bar room due to the rain, they had about a dozen birds flying back and forth and talked about them in Dutch and French, so once again Julie translated for me. Due to the room size, the birds flew very close to us, enough to move the hair on my head. They were also letting people in the audience have a chance to handle the birds, I insisted to Julie to have a go, but if she couldn’t pet them, then she didn’t want to handle them either. In 1944 during the 2nd World War, 90% of La Roche was destroyed. This seems to be the case for most of the towns and cities we have visited in Belgium thus far and it’s remarkable that they have been able to rebuild and keep some of their history. We are off to Bastogne next, which is known for “The battle of the Bulge”.

Bevaux-sur-Ourthe

We stopped by this small town to visit its giant maze. Well two mazes actually. We arrived at 10 am realizing that it wasn’t open for another 30mins we took a walk over to a market we passed on the way to the Labyrinth. As most markets seem to be, with the exception to the one in Amsterdam, are over priced. We find we can get cheaper food at the super markets, for example, a whole pizza for 1.80 euros. Not bad. The smaller wooden maze was fun, normally you had to answer questions right in order to pass through the barrier to continue on the maze, these weren’t working, but it was still fun to get lost in it. The other larger maze was in a corn field and had plays telling a story about a dragon throughout the maze. This wasn’t as fun, as we didn’t follow the plays (language issue) and we weren’t using the map that was provided, like everyone else. The maze was huge though, and it was based off an artist’s picture of a dragon, every year they change it. When we were talking with the girl at the gates, one apparently went up in Canada this year.

Han-sur-Lesse

Han-sur-Lesse was actually our destination, not Rochefort. Han-sur-Lesse is known for its huge caves and the cave formations. Now, I have seen this type of cave before in Germany with Curtis and Anna, but this one was amazing compared to that one. The largest chamber was 110 meters tall, they actually have plays in this room, we missed A Mid-Summer nights dream by a few days. This cave system has a river flowing threw it and the tour ends with you in a boat inside the mountain, too cool. Our guide was approached by a Polish man wishing to know if they could do an English tour (they had French and Dutch), so he brought out a sign with “English” on it to gather enough English speaking people to warrant a special tour for this language. Julie and I were at the front of the pack, and the Guide spoke to everyone in the group and found out that Julie and I were the only true English speaking people of the newly formed group (English being Julie’s second language, it’s almost like I was the only uni-lingual person there). Kind of funny we thought. Part of the package we bought, also provided us with a wild life tour, which Julie kept thinking the animals were underfed due to their size, but later guessed that they were not North American animals, but European, which is why they were smaller. To me, it could be a little bit of both. The package also included a 4-D cinematic game about the caves we just went into. This is typically for kids, but we went in anyway and Julie kicked my ass at it. There was also a museum we could have skipped, but again since it was apart of the package we walked through it. When we arrived in Han-sur-Lesse, a very small town, around 5500 people, we stumbled upon a parking site for RV’s, for 2.50 euros we could park for the day. We, among many other campers, chose to believe that our day pass lasted until opening time at 9:30 the next morning. It was here where we had a great conversation with a guy from Holland on vacation with his family. So far, all the campers we have run into, have been around this age group, so it feels a little weird to talk to them when they are out on vacation with their families (even though we know it shouldn’t).

Rochefort

There was a dirt cheap campsite here we were going to stay at, but it was going under extensive reconstruction and we found ourselves with out a place to park our van for the night. We saw a small parking lot that had one camper van in it, so we decided to park there and go have a look around. We made our way to the tourist office to collect information on the surrounding area and to see if they have the internet. Finding places with internet has been very difficult lately, so sorry for any delays. After that we walked back to the camper and leafed through the campsite section in the book we just picked up at the tourist office. Most campsites were too expensive for us, so we made a decision to try and free camp in the parking lot that night. We weren’t alone in this ambition, we found 5 others with us come morning time. Julie said she was woken up at night hearing the other campers having a conversation with the cops. According to Julie the jist of it was they wanted to know what we were all doing there. To which the other campervan owners replied that the campsite we had planned to stay at was closed, we had nowhere else to go and that we would be gone by 9am. The cops seemed o.k. with this answer and moved on. Now, I thought I made a huge mistake when we parked that night. I set the fridge up to keep cool while we drive, but didn’t switch it back to run on the propane when we are stopped. We ended up losing power to all our lights and the tap on our sink. I was not looking forward to getting a boost come the morning. But luckily the car started up fine. It does have two batteries, one I now know is just to start the engine, and the other to run everything else (Pim at BW’s didn’t know for sure at the time that we bought the camper).

Namur

The drive to Namur was supposed to be pleasant, but our GPS didn’t put us on any backroads and we ended up driving on the very hilly highway from Brussels, this wouldn’t normally be a problem, but the amount of black smoke created by our van during acceleration causes all motorists to honk at us as they pass. Not a very nice feeling. After finding the campsite, we learnt that it was full. However, after speaking with a resident lady there, she had us park in someone’s “yard” for the one night (This seemed to be fine with the camp manager who returned at 7pm). This campsite was nice and simple, we didn’t get a chance to top-up our water reserves though (the condition of the place didn’t convince us of drinkable water). I say it was nice because of the view of the rock-face directly in front of our window. Since there were only two things to see in Namur, the citadel, and a gothic treasure collection that “shouldn’t be missed” which tour is guided by nuns, we took the day off to relax and have some beers. That day I sat and finished reading the last novel in the Harry Potter series and tanned while I read it. Julie had three naps as she was bored, having already finished the book last week. The next day we took off to see the Citadel and were waved off and wished a “Bon Voyage!” by the camp manager. The Citadel is said to be the greatest in all of Europe, with how long it took us to explore and get to the top of it, we can see why. It offered great views of the city of Namur. We made our way to the gothic thing, but found out it wasn’t going to be open for 2 hrs, as it was lunch time. Well, it wasn’t that important to us, so we headed off to Rochefort.

Waterloo

The city square of Waterloo reminded me of downtown Milton, only with a little bit more history in the buildings. Julie and I were talked into buying a package deal to tour all that was offered in Waterloo. The museum itself, right across the road from the tourist information center, was a detailed history of the Battle of Waterloo. I won’t get into all the history here, you can read about it on the internet if you want to learn about it, or head to Belgium and take the tour. After that, it’s a 6km drive to a giant hill(first hill we have seen since arriving in Europe) called Butte de Lion that was constructed where Prince D’Orange aka the Duke of Wellington was injured during the battle. It was a long and tiring 226 stairs to the top. Once on top, you got a great view of the surrounding landscape, unfortunately, not of the 28 ton Lion at the top. The third and final stop was not to come, as it was 5 pm and it closed then. It was a museum of Napoleons last head quarters before he fell. The pass we purchased is good for a year, so if we’re in the neighborhood, we can drop by later.

Brussels

We stayed at another campsite recommended by our book, based on it’s transportation to Brussels and its amenities. The campsite itself is located in Grimbergen, which is about a 40 min bus ride into the city center of Brussels. The bus stop is right on the door step of the campsite, so it was great for that, driving in Brussels with the big rig didn’t do my nerves well on the first go through. However, we didn’t know this bus stop was for the bus we needed and walked to the bus station which was about 3 kilometers away, but when you make a wrong turn, it turns out to be about 5 kilometers away. Never once did Julie and I get off the bus at the right time. For fear of traveling too far past our destination, we got off twice too early, the first time, wasn’t bad, and we ended up on a huge shopping center walkway that took you directly to the centre square. The second time was not so, 1 ½ hr walk later and we were at the correct destination. The reason for this mistake, we didn’t have a map, bus route and we took two different busses, both ending up near the city square. Oh well, walking is good for us. The first day I wanted to go and see the statue Menneken Pis (I just say Maken’ a Piss, but oddly Julie feels the need to correct me?). A statue of a little boy taking a piss, it apparently even gets dressed up from time to time and is a big tourist photo-op. The statue was funny, but all the stores making money off the statue made me laugh more. The city center was huge, filled with tourists and had museums, chocolatiers, snack bars, and restaurants. Persuaded by free samples at one particular chocolate shop, Julie and I took a browse inside and tasted, probably the best, chocolate we have had since being over here…..and we bought some boxes, although one melted later in the van (Julie’s solution to the melted chocolate was to dip strawberries and blueberries, that we got at a fruit stand, in the mess of delicious gooey stuff). Before we headed back on the bus to the campsite for the first night, Julie and I stopped at a fritter and had some French-fries and sauce. The next morning we needed to set out early to have all our plans work for the day. Julie read up on a market held near the town square. Our plan, was to be awake at 6am, on the train at 6:30, be at the market by 7:30am and then back to the campsite by 10, then off to Waterloo. This did not happen though. First, the bus arrives 20 minutes later on weekends. Second, we weren’t up until 6:30am. Third, we realized that we needed to do dishes in order to eat breakfast. On the road at 7:50am, got off the bus too early, which resulted in a 1 ½ hr walk to the market. This time out was the first time I didn’t bring the camera, and I missed out huge. Lesson learned, treat the camera like your wallet or your keys to the van, bring them everywhere you go. On the walk we saw lots of interesting statues throughout the city. A couple stand out, one with a lady carrying a sword and shield dressed in armor and a convict tripping a cop from underneath a sewer drain. The market turned out to be a bust. It was a garage sale with basically everything no one wants left. Just awful. So after that, we made our way back to the city square and saw that the little guy was wearing a green suit, whereas the day before, he was in his bronze birthday suit. Since I had some cash on me, I decided to look for a cheap place to have brunch. It turns out, the same place we went to for fries the day before was the cheapest for breakfast. We both had sugar waffles, Julie had whipped cream on hers, and I had my best cup of coffee ever. At first blush, Julie and I did not like Brussels. It was after spending that long walk through the town that we got to appreciate its charm. Brussels is famous for its shopping areas, and we can only tell you that they are there, just not if it’s good or not. The campsite manager is a dictator. Check out time was 11:30am, it was 1pm when we “tried” to check out. Every campsite we have stayed at has had very flexible check out times. The manager wanted to charge us for another night of camping, so Julie and I canceled our plans to switch campsites and stayed the night anyway. We still made it off to Waterloo to have a look around.

Tournai

The drive to Tournai would have been quite uneventful if it wasn’t for Julie’s determination for poppies. On this one particular back road, Julie was spotting poppies left and right. When I pulled over for her to get the poppies she was already out the door and near the ditch. I figured she could easily jump over the ditch but Julie disagreed. However, before she could even attempt anything, she slipped into the ditch which was about as deep as Julie is tall. I helped her out, and it was here that she started complaining that she has fallen in a patch of stigning nettle. She rushed back to the van started applying sting relief and took a tablet of an anti-allergen just in case. Julie broke out in bumps and a rash, but was fine by the next day. The campsite we stayed in Tournai was very poorly labeled, if it wasn’t for seeing another campervan, it might just as well have been someone’s driveway. The campsite itself is a three kilometer walk into town, so we ventured in that day, found a shopping mall, grocery store and a store just like Rona. It was at Hubo (the Rona like store) that we picked up an outdoor table and chairs at ½ price, we also picked up an umbrella, but it wasn’t part of the summer sale. The downtown square took us longer to find, about 1hr or so due to reading maps incorrectly. We didn’t mind though, because the day was warm and sunny, and we got to see more parts of the town. The square seemed to be divided by the large belfry at the entrance. We took a stroll through the square, took some photo’s and it was the first time I really wanted to sit out on the patio at one of the restaurants. Because eating out is very expensive, and the market restaurants are more expensive then a typical restaurant, Julie and I ate at the campsite snack bar, and enjoyed a hamburger, fries and a beer each (all for 14 euros). Tournai was a nice small town without many tourists, which made it a great visit, the fact that the campsite and its owners were really nice helped out too.