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”.