Mercure Esch sur Alzette Esch-sur-Alzette

There is still over a month until our journey starts but still so much
to do...hopefully we'll get everything done and we'll be ready for this
incredible trip!

So a little update for our dear followers, the RTW ticket as now officialy been paid for! We leave on November 2nd from London to Sydney.

... hike and we took the dogs with us. It was very nice. It was a small cascade and it was very quiet and peaceful there. She said in the summertime it is very crowded. I imagine it would be like the waterfalls in North Carolina in the summer.

We got back home and I started working on uploading pictures. I had 5 days to catch up on. We chatted with Karyn while she prepared a dinner of pasta with broccoli ...

Of course I needed to visit Luxembourg, hiding away there between France, Germany and Belgium. It is the fifith smallest country in the world. It is very hilly and surrounded by trees. The hostel is down at the bottom of a cliff, yay! The city of course is quite small, but it is surrounded by ruins and forest which makes it quite a unique city in amongst the hustle and crowds of all the other major cities. The people there speak French and their own language, Luxembourgish I suppose.

... my parents worked for those years. It was pretty awesome to see where my dad was a firefighter so many years ago. Also it was weird because the base brought me back to my youth were I spent lots and lots of time on the base in Great Falls. It was really cool to have that feeling again. After we were done with Spangdhalem we meet up with Mo and went to Trier to walk around and look at ...

... hole allowing you to see the history of the city through it's geology. Am I losing you? You know a lot of new cities are simply built upon the old city, so I'm guessing this is what the museum was trying to show us. The -5th floor started with early man in this part of Europe and each floor you went up to the surface, time advanced. There was a floor about bronze age, the roman period and so forth, all depicting what happened over time where current Luxembourg stands today. They ...

... buildings. I guess having the gorge surround most of the city back when marauding thieves were abundant provided a natural defense. Most of the old city walls still stood. Three bridges got you across. The old town is really fairy book stuff. Over a thousand years old. The buildings are a big part of the attraction. Turrets and towers puncture the skyline. It's very easy to imagine yourself living in the 18th century. Just ...

Yesterday we decided that since we were driving through Luxembourg, we would stop and have a look. We drove into Luxembourg city and were really surprised at how nice the town was. It is over 1,000 years old and there were so many old buildings and churches, as well as a castle. We went into a church that was built in 963…it is so crazy to think of something that is that old ...

... Daar zagen we de vorige keren nogal tegenop. Naar bleek terecht, want die afdaling viel niet mee. Hellingen van 14% enzo. Beneden aangekomen trilden onze knietjes van de inspanning. Het eventuele plezier in Esch was dus al danig vergald, vooral bij de gedachte aan de klim terug. Maar goed, wij dus lopen. Op naar het voetgangersgebied. Nou dat viel dus ook niet mee. Best sjieke winkels, maar daar hebben wij niets mee. En verder dus eigenlijk niets. Pittoresk? Ho maar ...

... dreigde een totale zenuwinzinking. Alle vijf hadden zo'n blije glimlach en dan weet je het wel. W keek meteen of er een visje op hun auto zat, maar dat was vreemd genoeg niet het geval. De pappa kwam zich later nog voorstellen ook, ja echt! Kees. Wij zijn beleefd dus kwetterden we wat spreuken voor sprakelozen, daarna droop Kees af want hij moest eten. Tafelmanieren kenden ze alle vijf niet ...

... and huge Dexia building (the red one in the photo). It's all in the middle of nowhere with construction work all around. We decided to take the train so that we could all have a drink - also it had said on the website that parking was limited and that we had free train and bus travel with our ticket to the venue (what a great idea!). It was two trains and it took about an hour all in all from ...