Blogs from Luxembourg, Belgium, Europe
Bingen am Rhein – Ardennes. Father’s day German style and getting loaded on Rhine wine.
Published: May 21st 2012Europe » Belgium » Luxembourg
May 21st 2012
So we settled in to our nice friendly camp site, nodded to our neighbours as you do and watched the pleasure cruises and commercial barges passing on the Rhine. Then a caravan arrived with four men in and were going to pitch in front of us blocking out our view. I asked in my best German sign language if they might pitch further over and they heartily agreed. There are no set pitches on this site you just grab a piece of land or platz and set up camp. The men next door then unloaded a domestic fridge from the van, set it up in the awning and plugged it into the mains feed. Beer was unloaded from the car and placed in the fridge and they hung around doing chores waiting for the beer to ... read more
February 6th 2011
De wintertocht 2011 beloofde weer een leuke ervaring! Exact om 06u15 reden we het afspreekpunt op in Borsbeek. We telden uiteindelijk 16 deelnemers, waarvan een groot deel oude-getrouwe. Leuk om deze mensen (vroegere scoutsgenoten van Erik) terug te zien. We vertrokken al snel richting Daverdisse, we parkeerden er onze auto's en vertrokken gepakt en gezakt voor een weekendje 'stappen'! Het weer was zeer warm voor een wintertocht, maar we genoten er even goed van. De eerste dag was afwisselend stijgend en dalend door de mooie loof- en dennenbossen. Menig everzwijn of hert passeerden op deze paden. We hebben er zelfs enkele mogen aanschouwen. Het everzwijn was weliswaar dood, maar nog niet zo lang. En de herten vertrokken zo snel als ze konden met hun witte kontjes door de lucht. Zalig zicht.. Maar het gebrek aan training ... read more
May 13th 2010
Today we headed to just outside the city of Luxembourg to another American Cemetery. This one holds the grave of General George S. Patton. This cemetery is probably the smallest we have seen with only 5,076 graves. Patton’s grave looks just like every other grave except it had to be moved to an area closer to the walkway because the grass around other graves was being ruined because of the amount of people viewing Patton’s grave. Each of these cemeteries has a chapel and a listing of names of those that were missing in actions. If there is a star by a name on the wall of the missing, it means the remains have been found. Just two weeks ago remains were identified in Germany along with part of an airplane. The remains were returned to ... read more
September 5th 2009
Beautiful forests, rolling mountains, this is another gorgeous part of Belgium. We spent Saturday night in Durbuy, a pretty little town that is very popular with the Belgies for holidays also. As it was a speciality, and in season, we tried some wild boar... It was in a stew and very tasty. Then on Sunday Marty had me cycling from Rochefort to Houyet and back. This is a round trip of about 40kms... The track was really cool though. They'd laid bitumen over a disused railway track, so it was away from the main roads and through some beautiful country. ... read more
August 29th 2009
What a buzz!! Superb location, amid the beautiful forest. It took a long time to find - all the signs leading off the freeway were great, but we had about half a dozen junctions after that to navigate purely by guesswork... Eventually we arrived and had a fantastic time. We lucked out with a B&B - accommodation is booked out usually, and stayed the night rather than drive home and back again on the Sunday. Earplugs are an absolute must and those cars fly!! We walked the outside of the circuit on the Saturday to determine the best place to sit on the Sunday, which is when the finals were held. We ended up on a little peninsular that was quite narrow, so you could go from side to side to see them approach the corner, ... read more
July 19th 2009
It looks like changeable weather doesn't just exist in the UK. After enjoying a good nights sleep on a real bed after our hectic first day on the continent where we had gorgeous sunshine, we arose to rain belting down out of the sky. Looking out of the window at torrential rain dampened our sprits just a bit. Thomas had gathered the ingredients for an amazing continental breakfast with lots of brotchen (bread rolls), smoked ham and kase (cheese). The rain had stopped and sun was shining down on us. Great. We'll walk up to the hill above Thomas' place to the revolving restaurant and see if we can get some pictures. We started out and quickly removed our jumpers, as the blazing sun was quite warm. The hillside was covered with trees and someone a ... read more
October 22nd 2008
Christmas Tree Capitol ! The Ardennes, it's green, REALLY green.....well red, orange, yellow & brown now, but you know what I mean :) One could scarcely guess by looking @ these photos, Belgium is one of the most densely populated countries in the world with a density akin to that of Japan or India ! This statistic must be taken from Vlaanderen (Flanders) as the homes in villages are connected one to another with little to no property (backyards-front yards). Not everyone of course but many. This is far from the case in Wallonia & we are glad of it! The Ardennes took it's name from ancient Arduenna Silva, an enormous forest in the days of the Romans. Stretching from the river Sambre (France/Belgium) to the Rhine in Germany, the forest was named after the pagan ... read more
September 5th 2008
Last time i wrote we were set to head on to Brussels and then decided to drive on down to Luxembourg where we heard there are good campsites. I got to drive the car for the first time that morning. Later that day, after leaving Brussels - about 45 mins into our journey, the car started overheating. Problem is we were flying along the motorway and you can't really tell until the front of the car is engulfed in smoke. We stopped on the hard shoulder and let it cool for almost an hour, before deciding it was probably the waterpump or the thermostat that was causing us problems. So we headed for the nearest town (Achene) which was only 1km away. This took us over an hour! Basically if we let the car cool for ... read more
September 5th 2008
RIP Mitch After a rough night in the car it looked like the garage had finally opened as someone pulled in.. We scrambled ourselves together and knocked on the door (also forgot to mention noone in either town spoke english), a woman answered and after a few minutes we got the impression the garage had shut down a LONG time ago.. She directed us to a breakdown service who after realising we had no cover kind of started ignoring us, but we did get an address for a Misubishi garage in Ciney.. So back to Ciney we rolled.. We eventually found it and got someone who spoke a little english to look at the car.. He then told us that the gasket had overheated because the thermostat wasn't working which made the water pump leak which ... read more
26th Aug - La Roche en Ardenne
Published: August 28th 2008Europe » Belgium » Luxembourg » La Roche-en-Ardenne
August 28th 2008
Howdy from Belgium this time. Today I didn’t see any Ferraris so no Ferrari photos for you. You will just have to be happy with my usual buildings and scenery pictures. Sorry. This morning after I finally managed to coax Monique out of bed by dismantling the tent around her, (she has gotten her hands on a book) we had a bit of a wander around Luxemburg city. We managed to find a car park along a one way street which I reversed the entire way up to get to. We were looking for parking buildings previously but that wasn’t working out so very well as there’s one sign stating that there’s one down a particular street and then nothing else. So you only realize where they are (a small ramp disappearing under a building and ... read more
