Week 52: Ex-Pat Meetups!

Wow! Week 52! We've been here in Germany for a year now and are still quite enjoying ourselves. There are still more castles to see...

We've been participating on-and-off with an ex-pat group in Luxembourg for events such as Burgbrennen and a hot air balloon festival. A few weekends ago we participated in two events. The first was a hike through some of the hills and villages of Luxembourg. The hike ended up being about 22.5 km and resulted in some fantastic blisters on the backs of my heals due to my boots, which, evidently, weren't quite as worn in as I had thought. (I had to wear shoes quite sparingly for the two weeks following the hike--things are almost back to normal now...)

Despite the pain that tends to cause to such large blisters, we both had quite a good time, as can be seen in the picture below. The group we were hiking with included a couple Germans, a South African, a Canadian, a Bulgarian, a Luxembourger, maybe people from a couple other places, plus us Americans. (Luxembourg is great like that--there are people from absolutely everywhere.) And the weather was perfect. Oh, and the place where we ended our hike was having an opening celebration, which included free aps and drinks.

Enjoying the Hike

The hike was on Saturday. I spent much of Sunday keeping the backs of my feet away from just about everything. I do have to say, though, that Spyroflex coverings work really well, though it seems they are no longer manufactured (based on my Google search) and makes me wonder just how long I have had them in my med kit. By the evening, Jason was able to convince me to try my sneakers, which wasn't much more comfortable than the boots, but we made it to Luxembourg City, to join another group of ex-pats for a pub quiz.

Our group had a Moroccan, an Italian and Jason and I. We did alright in the first round, coming in 3rd, but blew everyone away in the second round, and ended up winning 18 EUR apiece! Nice! One of my personal contributions was knowing who William Cody was better known as. I don't think a single other person in that bar knew that answer--I've been to a ranch of his in North Platte, Nebraska many years ago.

This was only the second pub-quiz I have ever been privy to. The first was a little less than a year ago in Norway. The entire pub quiz was in Norwegian, though, so my coworker and I didn't participate. This didn't stop him from getting two questions right, despite not knowing a word of Norwegian. He was lucky, though--he's Canadian and the answer to both questions was Canada.

All-in-all, a very good weekend, meeting some people from all over the world. With the bonus of coming out 18 EUR richer and with (hopefully) a pair of boots that are a bit more worn in and ready for the next hike.

Week 27: Short Days

As winter is creeping up on us, our days are growing remarkably shorter, with the sun rising around eight in the morning and setting around 4:30 in the afternoon. We've also been having quite a bit of fog, which tends to last until around noon-time then comes back again after the sun sets. This gives us all the more reason to get outside while the sun is up. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, many of the towns in our area have hiking/walking trials that take you through the countryside around the town. In our area, there are a series of nordic walking trails (yes, you use poles--it is crazy...just look at the link). Our town, like many of the other sites, has three: a 3.6 km, a 8 km and a 15.9 km. We decided to do the longest, which passes near our apartment, works its way down a significant hill, then follows along the Kyll River before coming back through the village of Preist and through fields back into our town.

One road proceeds through a yellow wood...

The weather was perfect for being out hiking: nice, crisp fall weather, with no clouds and bright sun. As the afternoon wore on, we noticed the moon in the sky...

...which stayed put as the sun set.

The last part of the hike was through the woods. With the sun setting, it was getting dark very quickly. Luckily, I had asked Jason to throw his headlamp in the bag we were carrying. He was very excited to use it, and tried many of the settings as we were walking along. For your own reference, a blinking-white headlamp does not give the best view of the upcoming trail.

This portion of the trail was well known to me, as it is where I go mountain biking during the week. Right near the main path into the woods, there is a shrine, as you often seen throughout the countryside here in Europe. This one looks like a tiny church and is very well maintained. It includes a small pew and some kneelers, along with some long burning candles and a number of plaques thanking for the help of Mary and Jesus. I have passed by it many times, but had never stopped for a close look. It was a nice place to rest for a few moments with the quiet autumn darkness closing in around us.

Our total hiking time was about 4.5 hours. We started at about 2pm with the mid-afternoon sun, and by the time we were back home, it was completely dark out.

On Sunday, we went to Vianden Castle in Vianden Luxembourg. You may recall that about a month ago, we were in Vianden for a hike. This time, I was flying out for a work trip for Luxembourg in the evening, so we decided to stop by and visit the castle itself. The castle was completely rebuilt in the 1970s and 80s from a complete ruin. Now it is quite nice, with a number of spaces that look like they are used for events and possibly even royal occasions.

Vianden Castle

In the castle, there was an exhibit about Charlotte, the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. Unfortunately, we could only understand snatches of it, as most of it was in Luxembourgish, with a smattering of French and German. Anyway, Charlotte was the leader of Luxembourg during WWII and, from what we could gather, she lived in exile during much of that time in England. From looking at the history, that makes sense, as the Germans invaded Luxembourg on their way to France. She later abdicated in favor of her son. The current ruler of Luxembourg is Henri, her grandson. The castle was a good visit and had some great views of the surrounding area.

Week 24 & 25: More Hiking in Luxembourg

The fall has been really nice here, with the trees slowly changing color--I think we are close to peak now--and some very warm days mixed in with some much cooler ones. As a result, we've been doing our best to spend a lot of time outside. This has resulted in me doing some mountain biking during the week as an option for my daily workout and us taking regular hikes in the area.

Two weeks ago, the intent was to go out on a hike for a couple hours in the afternoon, so we choose this one, which starts in Germany, crosses a river and heads into Luxembourg then loops back across the river into Germany. It was a beautiful fall day, with just a bit of crsipness in the air--just the type of weather I like for hiking. The valley we were hiking around was very pretty. There were a couple of small villages and a castle. Throughout our hike, we came across a few nice vistas, such as the one below.

Germany on the river's right, Luxembourg on its left

Now, one thing about the hikes from the site I linked to above, is that they (1) don't always follow well marked trails and (2) don't always include good trail descriptions. This particular hike had both of these problems. We found, though, what we thought to be the right trail marker to follow and did our best.

We generally thought we were on track. We found the bridge to cross back over the river. Seemed to be able to find the behavior of the trail we were on on the map and when we couldn't, we just figured the map wasn't very good, as we had run into that with other hikes. Then our 3.5 hour hike was becoming 4 hours...no need to panic, we lost some time on a false trail a bit earlier on...and then we passed another bridge. And about 10 minutes later it dawned on us. That second bridge, that is the one on the map. That was where we were suppose to cross. We had been lost and never realized it. And we agreed that often we'd rather be lucky than good.

 So, our 3.5 hour hike turned into about 5 hours. We breathed a sigh of relief once we saw the car. I was very glad I packed the extra water and food. Despite that, our feet were sore and our stomachs quite empty.  After a quick stop home, we cleaned up and headed out to a local Oktoberfest where we filled up our stomachs with meat and numbed our feet by drinking beer. It was great. I can't imagine what the scene looks like in Muenchen.

Based on our close call on the hike I described above, the next weekend, when we went out for a hike, we decided to follow one of the clearly marked hiking paths. In many towns in our part of Germany and in Luxembourg, there are well marked trails that start in the center of town and lead you out into the countryside before bringing you back into town. Generally each town has at least three: a short 2-3 km route, a medium 5-8 km route and a long 12-17 km route. We decided on the town of Lieler, Luxembourg, which is very close to the triple-point of Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium (more on that later).

The hike was very nice. We chose the medium distance. It took us along the edge of pastures and through the woods. Through our many encounters with cows, we found that Jason may have become an unlikely cow messiah: every time we came to the edge of a field and stopped to talk to the cows, then all gathered around him. Hopefully he will use his new-found power responsibly...

Jason tending to his flock

His notoriety has quickly spread to another field

On our drive back home, we came across the aforementioned triple point. There is a small brook that serves as the boarder between Luxembourg and Belgium and a small river that serves as the boarder between each of those and Germany. We found the marker and snapped a few shots.

Three countries at once!

Hopefully this good weather will hold out a bit longer and we can get out in the woods some more.

Week 21: Hiking and Biking

The weather in our corner of Germany has been pretty spectacular for the last few weeks: sunny, but cool (I'd say in the 70s). The trees are starting to change, there is a bit of a nip in the air in the morning in evening and it is getting darker much earlier.

In celebration of the weather, we spent this weekend (Sept. 24th & 25th) mostly outside, first with a great hike in Luxembourg, followed by a bike ride on closed section of roadway. The hike was in the city of Vianden. We started at the Chateau and worked our way up the hill behind it. This page shows the profile of the hike (in German).

Vianden Castle

You'll note around kilometer 4 the very sharp drop. At this point, we were descending along the ridge line. The path had been well used in the past, but definitely was not used quite as regularly recently: there were a number of instances were I looked on either side of the ridge--quite steeply down to both my left and right--more than once each before I found the trail again. The picture below gives you a sense of this downward climb. Yes, we are both on the trail.

Hiking the Ridge

The trail looped back around to the castle, passing through an adventure park. (Kristin, there are at least 3 of these within 90 minutes of our place--they are really big over here!) For those of you unfamiliar with an adventure park, it is also known as a high ropes course. You are strapped into a harness and then work your way around different elements at different heights in the trees. They are tons of fun if heights aren't a problem for you. Jason and I have gone with friends to one in the US, but have not done one here in the EU...yet.

On Sunday, we went out for a bike ride from Dreis to Kluesserath. The area was having a biking festival, with a total of five towns participating. There were lots of people out on the bike paths and the section of the road between Rivenich and Kluesserath was closed to traffic, so you could really get pumping going down the hills into the river valley. This section of the ride was edged by vineyards. The grapes are about ready to be picked, I would hazard to guess, but we haven't seen anyone out among the vines yet.

The ride was mostly flat, except for the trip down into the river valley. The hill was deceptive, though, as on the way down it seemed very steep and I was dreading the mere idea of riding back up. But, either it was a bit of an illusion, or I am stronger than I think, as it turned out to be quite a manageable incline. The ride was a total of 36ish kilometers round trip--about 20 miles. I found that my tailbone was still not completely healed from my fall in the bell-tower, but I made it and the weather made it a perfect day to be out.


View Larger Map

Shortly after the end of the ride, I was off to the train station for work, headed to Afschaffensburg, just outside of Frankfurt. Such a shame to have to leave a day like that as early as I did, but the need to demo called, so off I went.