I've been meaning to talk about the trip we took to Trier for a long time, but I couldn't share the pictures until the end of February so it's very delayed. Both the Trier and Luxembourg pictures display my new hobby, "fun with Lightroom". Over time I have picked up a hobby here and there, one of which is photography. I don't take awesome pictures, but I have fun doing it. A photographer friend introduced me to Lightroom and I now have a whole new area of playing with pictures to explore. Just keep in mind that most of the hobbies I've had (knitting, sewing, and decoupage come to mind) have had really, really unattractive results. In fact, Tom has pretty much banned my efforts at decoupage. I really do not have a lot of artistic skill and I am reminded of this virtually every time I try anything that remotely requires it. Point is, you don't have to think the pictures are good. Just know that I had fun playing with them :)
Trier:
In January, before the weather took a turn for the worse and before we had internet by which to share the pictures, we took a trip to Trier. It's a city on the German-Luxembourg border, known for its Roman ruins and being the birthplace of Karl Marx. Oh, and as I discovered a few weeks after we went there, my great-great grandfather. It also has a lot of really cute French architecture (well, it looks French to me. I'm no expert) from the 17th-19th centuries (again, my best guess). There's a lot to see: the ruins of Roman baths, Constantine's Basilica, a large Roman city gate called the Porta Nigra, the old downtown area with lots of shops and cafes, the Karl Marx house, some museums... actually, if you just look on Wikipedia you can get a better idea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trier for your convenience). Although we didn't know this at the time, we didn't even see half of what's there. We didn't have a tourist map at the time (no real internet, remember?) so we were really just kind of winging it. When we got to what looked like downtown, we found a parking ramp and started walking. After some getting lost and a yummy lunch of Turkish doner kebabs, which are like gyros, we found the park with the Basilica and Electoral Palace. The Electoral Palace is only open a few times a year for tourists, so we didn't see the inside of it. The Basilica is still used as a church, but we didn't go in that either... I don't know why, now that I think about it. Beyond the park is one of the Roman baths. I think there are at least two locations with baths, but the one we saw was probably the biggest. It's also under excavation so the scaffolding kind of ruined my pictures. But you can walk around in them, and go down into the tunnels that would have carried water from the fancy-people hot baths to the lukewarm regular people baths. Yes, that is my professional history-major explanation! Anyway, it was very cool and the kids loved running around in there. There's also a small museum showing recreations of what the baths looked like back in their more functional days. Outside of this museum is a big disgusting statue of a foot, which the kids loved and reminded me of that nasty Tinactin commercial where the gremlin flips up the toenail. I did not personally take a picture of it, but it looks pretty much like a foot. This is for Jacob, who asked where the picture of the foot was the other day as I was going through the pictures.
 |
| Courtesy of Wikipedia, whose photographer was not grossed out by disembodied feet. |
After we saw that area, we got back in the car in search of the Porta Nigra, or "Black Gate". We found another parking ramp and walked through the gate, which is also the entrance to the old downtown shopping area. It's also right in front of the visitor's center, where one might find maps and a complete list of things to see. Note to self, start there next time! It seemed like it was far from where we started because we drove, but it was really within very close walking distance. We walked around the shopping area, which is very picturesque though the stores are all chain stores you can find anywhere and not cute little shops like one might expect. By this time, Norah had had a breakdown over not being able to go into the "castle" (the Black Gate, which you can explore but we didn't because I don't like heights) and it was getting chilly. So we walked around a little bit and headed back to the car. Travelling, even short day trips, with the kids can be frustrating and exhausting. Once the weather gets really nice, I would love to go back and see more of the city-- but with a map and a plan. It's only about an hour from where we live, and definitely place to go more than once. Pictures of Trier:
 |
| January 12 |
Luxembourg:
Last week we had some really nice days, with sun and temps up near 60. Saturday was supposed to be the nicest day of the week, and we picked that day to drive up to Luxembourg to see the sights. There's not really a whole lot to do there, to be honest, but then again we're limited by the kids on the number of things we can do during a day's trip anyway. We decided to drive to see a castle in Vianden, which is in the northern part of the country and roughly 90 minutes away from us. When we left around mid-morning, it was partly sunny and not too cold. When we arrived at the castle, it was very cloudy and decidedly chilly. Blerg! But we trekked up the hill and toured the castle, which was thankfully warm in most of the rooms. It's been highly restored and was a lot of fun to explore-- we followed the numbered signs that direct tourists around, but I'm not sure we saw everything. There was a lot of information about the history of the castle, which I guess was originally started in the 300s and kind of evolved from there. All of the written info was in French so my understanding was a bit limited. There were dioramas and models all over the place that showed the different eras of the castle. Again, it's worth checking out what Wikipedia has to say. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vianden_Castle I kind of wish I had done that before we went, since I might have had more of an idea of what we were looking at.
The castle overlooks a very nice village with many restaurants and it's probably a lot of fun to walk around and look at. I love looking at the buildings, especially the ones with the dates over the doors (very common in Germany, from what I've seen). I saw one that was built in the 1500s, and most dated from the 18th-19th centuries. I know it's dorky and American of me, but I think it's fun to see. We don't have old stuff in our country, and I'm a history nerd anyway! Unfortunately, it was getting colder and colder and the sky looked like it was thinking about raining. So back in the car we hopped. We didn't have lunch/supper in Vianden, though I'm sure it would have been fun, since we didn't have time to walk around and find a place that wasn't 25€ a plate. Instead we drove back through Luxembourg city with the intention of stopping when the kids complained :)
The layout of the city of Luxembourg is very interesting. The old part is kind of built into a ravine, and there are old ramparts and a bridge that are World Heritage sites. There's probably also a nice town square or something. I suppose on a pleasant, warm, not raining day it might be worth walking around and checking it out. You could see everything in Luxembourg in just one day, since it's very small and there isn't much to do besides just "see". The new part of Luxembourg, which we drove through on our way to our next destination, is very different. It's a long, long line of very stark and modern commercial buildings. Heavy on the steel and glass and light on the personality of the older part of town, which gave it the effect of almost being empty or abandoned... very strange. I didn't take any of my usual lovely "pictures from the car", since it was so very crappy out and since they rarely turn out well anyway.
So we didn't really see much of the city of Luxembourg, and even though it's only like an hour away I don't think I'd purposely go back unless I was really bored and looking for a day trip. Sorry L-town, get a museum or something.
After driving through the city we headed to the American WWII cemetery nearby. This is one of (I think) 20 or so cemeteries in Europe for American soldiers. This one has over 5000 soldiers and is the burial place of General Patton. By this time, it was really chilly and it looked like it was going to rain any minute, plus we were all getting a little hungry. This is probably why I forgot to look for Patton's grave. The cemetery is very well tended and is the roads and pavements are currently being renovated. Apparently very near to the American cemetery is a German WWII cemetery where it's a little less nice and the soldiers were buried four men to a grave. I would have liked to check that out as well, but the weather was really becoming an issue. It started raining a few minutes after we got back in the car.
So back to Germany we went, stopping at the delicious Presswell's Fish and Chips in local Ramstein for dinner. They have fish and chips, pasties, and curries-- I want to try some of the other dishes, but I can't tear myself away from the yummy fish!
I wish the day had been a little nicer, or that we had worn snowsuits to keep out the cold. It would have been nice to explore more than we did. But the castle was a lot of fun, and we're still getting the hang of travelling in Europe with the kids anyway.
Pictures of Luxembourg:
 |
| March12 |
0 comments:
Post a Comment