21st Sept – Luxembourg and Western Germany – “Give it Away B**ch”

Now friends of mine know it’s most unusual to swear and for those family members reading this, do NOT be horrified that Europe has corrupted me. This was the blaring song that was coming out of the loud speakers after Mark and I sat down in a lovely (tranquil until that point) square in Luxembourg the other day when we discovered a bike festival was going to start 10 mins after we sat down for lunch. Great we thought, we lucked out as it was a really sunny and fairly warm day (20 degrees).

Luxembourg bike festival

Other than this 40 mins episode of heavy Black American style rap music blaring out, we really enjoyed Luxembourg which is a lovely city (and country). Now don’t think I’ve gone the other way and being conservative and boring but this was a complete contrast to everything else going on (music wise) in Luxembourg.

Luxembourg Street

After arriving there, we wondered the streets at night and found some gorgeous bridges, hotels and official buildings lit up. The following morning we spent 3 hours walking all over the old town (Grund) and newer areas and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Luxembourg Hotel Albert Premier

Then we hopped in the car to drive to Trier and after 4 attempts to enter the city via the crazy freeway signs, we finally got there. We had nearly decided to skip the town for the next place – lucky we didn’t as it was really lovely. It’s actually very important from a Roman history point of view, given that it was first adopted as a Western European Roman capital in 30AD! It’s got an amazing Porta Nigra (Black door, entrance to the city), Roman baths, churches built on top of or around Roman foundations and many Gothic and Renaissance architectural wonders as well. Mark was very “snap happy”. Trier has six UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites which made it a wonderful stp-over.

Trier Catherdral & Trier Porta Nigra (Roman City Gate)

Trier Markt

At night in Trier, we found a lovely spot just in the shadow of the Dom (Cathedral) and it seemed to be the ‘happening place’. We both had ‘daily specials’ and tried several different Mosel’s and Feinherb’s (styles of wine from the area). They were only 2 Euro each a glass (extremely cheap).

Trier dinner venue

The next day we drove to Erfurt (500 kms) in one massive day and then explored the town which is quite large for several hours in the late afternoon/ evening and Mark enjoyed a Braugold local beer (although couldn’t finish a half-litre bottle) and I discovered some more Mosel related wine.

Erfurt Damchen & Erfurt Dom

Erfurt Tram & Erfurt Fischmarkt

Still a bit more road travel before we reach Berlin - can’t wait.