Vianden

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Tired and homesick after the freak storm in Blois, with both of Zak's hands now suffering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, plus tennis-elbow, golf-elbow, and now even claw-hand and trigger-finger in the mornings, we had decided to head home as fast as we could. We drove from Blois through to Luxembourg, hoping to make it into Germany, through ever changing weather, rain-sunshine-rain-sunshine...

We had picked up a hitchhiker, a grasshopper from Blois, and Zak named him KwaiChang Caine, after the TV series of the 70s called Kung Fu, which starred David Carradine as a character who was known as "grasshopper" as a child.

We were literally meters away from Germany, when we arrived in Vianden late at night, driving through misty, foggy, icy roads through winding mountain passes. It seems all the drivers there were a**-holes acting like they were on a race track. We had booked ahead, taking a chance on a hotel we found listed in the Lonely Planet guide. Yep -- hotel. We had given up on camping, seeing as it would be too much of a procedure setting up camp and then having to dismantle it, when we were trying to get home in a hurry. We needed a decent night's sleep, to eat out. It wasn't time for cooking and cleaning and camping anymore...

The hotel we settled on which was out of town a bit, was fully booked, and the rooms were extremely pricy, so we drove back thru the winding, icy roads to look for a decent lower-priced hotel. But everything looked rich and pricy in that town! Luckily, we found a vacancy in a place more within our budget, and we took it eagerly. We parked the bike in the back of the hotel and left KwaiChang there.

After a shower, Zak stashed his horrible toe-jam boots away, and we decided on his insistence, to head down to local pub. People seemed friendly and respectful, saying hi as they walked by. That was so different from the arrogant, unfriendly way they drove! We had a chat with some locals, including the receptionist of the hotel, and learned about the lifestyle of the bored-and-rich in this interesting country overflowing with money.

The next morning, we had breakfast in the hotel, and noticed several people staring at us. At this point we were pretty irritable, and decided to challenge their stares by staring back :-) We had had enough and just needed to get home. :-p After packing and getting on the road, we immediately saw how beautiful the country was. Luxembourg is a must-see place, and we have got to come back.

It's a biker's paradise, if you happen to like winding roads, which we don't for some reason, and a lot of people die every year, usually tourists, believing they're experts at negotiating those horror curves. There are lots of macabre roadside monuments marking the spots where these fatal accidents occured.

We noticed that KwaiChang Caine left us.

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Photos

Kwai Chang Caine a.k.a. Grasshopper
the hitch-hiker who rode with us from Blois to Luxembourg