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….cont.
Monday 19 April 2010: I’m woken by Emmet reacting to a dream. It’s an abrupt awakening, but after a satisfying nights sleep I’m not fussed. Outside is the hum of people biking and boating their way to work. The clothes I washed in the hotel sink the night before have dried on the radiator. Emmet and I pack the bag before deciding to stay another night in our hotel. We’ve learnt from experience that we’re unlikely to be able to book any mode of transport out of the city for the same day, so plan on another night of comfort before we’re back sleeping in our seats. We trek back to the library but not before stopping off to have a pancake and omelette for breakfast. At the library I spend time Googling transport options while Emmet emails all and sundry to let them know we’re stuck but okay. I manage to coordinate three buses, one from Amsterdam to Brussels through the Dutch Eurolines website, one from Brussels to London through the Belgian Eurolines website, and the final leg from London to ol’ Dublin town through the UK version of the Eurolines website. With no direct route available, this was our only option. Emmet handed over his credit card as his is in Euros, mine is in Aussie dollars, and I made the bookings. Emmet runs back and forth between me, the printer, and the print voucher machine until we have all of our tickets in our hot little hands. It takes a few hours to coordinate, but when we’re done we can spend the afternoon relaxing in Amsterdam.
We walk down some shopping streets as Emmet has wrecked his jeans around the ankles. He wears jeans almost every day so it’s no wonder they die quite horrific deaths. He tries on a pair and we take them. He also has a look for some shoes but the prices are quite high and we can’t seem to find anything decent on sale. Never mind. We stop in at a Waterstones and pick up some reading material for the onward journey. I get a colourful magazine as I can’t read on buses without getting a headache. Emmet gets something far more intellectual. We both get a left over Easter egg on sale at the counter. We wander through the streets and along the canals until we’re back at the hotel. We prepare ourselves an in-room picnic and eat sandwiches, cheese and salad. Emmet drinks a beer he has been lusting after for some time. It tastes like chocolate. We check the news and hear that airports may begin opening from tomorrow. I hear the sound of what might be a plane and Emmet opens the window. The plane! At least another three follow it before we fall asleep.
Tuesday 20 April 2010: Back in our travel outfits – trackies, t-shirts, cardigans and coats – we load up the backpack with supplies and head on over to Amsterdam Amstel for our 12.30pm bus to Brussels. The woman at the desk tells us there’s an earlier bus and offers us a seat, which we take. She also informs us that she had a number of spaces on a bus to London this morning. Bugger! When we arrived in Amsterdam there was quite a crowd, and anticipating the same today we had opted for booking online rather than just arriving at the ticket office to see what services were going in our direction. Never mind. We get on the bus and leave Amsterdam behind us. There’s a fellow on the bus who seems to be stoned. He’s making nervous movements that are making me a little nervous too. He keeps taking to the driver and seems to have trouble operating the toilet door. Soon he relaxes into his seat and we’re half way to where we need to be. The driver has his own issues going on as he follows the GPS a little too faithfully and takes us to a pedestrian street with an overpass his bus is too big to pass under. He puts the bus into reverse and sends a passenger out to make sure the road is clear. It’s anything but. We have to negotiate trams, bikes and less than impressed Mercedes drivers, none of whom care to be inconvenienced for the few minutes it would take our driver to turn around. Eventually he’s out of the tight squeeze and we’re off again.
We arrive in Brussels and check with the Eurolines desk to see if there is an earlier bus to London. Ours is scheduled to leave at 10.45pm. It’s around 4pm when we arrive in Brussels. It appears not. We walk into town and grab a bite to eat in a shopping mall. Brussels is not my favourite place, although Emmet has a soft spot for it. We buy the newspaper and read up on all we have been missing without access to English news. Emmet buys some comfy, and less smelly, shoes and I consider purchasing a radio for the next leg but opt not to.
Emmet calls home from the train station before we head back to the Eurolines waiting room. It begins to fill with people and we’re glad we have a ticket. There’s a rush to join the queue when it hits 9.30pm. A young lass has an epileptic episode and is taken away in an ambulance. Fortunately she makes it back in time to take her bus home. We are checked on bus number 12, which is one of the latter buses to leave even though it was the first to be allocated. We get seats together and the journey continues, but not before some hiccups with passengers leaving their luggage on the footpath expecting someone to place it in the hold rather than doing it themselves! Six or seven buses left Brussels bound for London that evening. All full.
Wednesday 21 April 2010: It’s dark and I’m tired. There’s not much to be seen on the way to the ferry in Calais other than other buses and trucks passing us by in the same direction. Emmet is watching, excited and curious as to whether we’ll be taking a ferry or going via the Channel Tunnel. We’re headed for the ferry. We get off the bus briefly for a passport check by both French and UK authorities. The French guards are a little intimidating. I’m shaking like a leaf from the cold hoping it doesn’t make me look too suspicious in from of the man holding my passport. The British lady on the other side was much more upbeat for someone working at 1 in the morning. We board the ferry and have to stay awake for the duration of sail. Tea is welcomed, as are some Lindt chocolates Emmet had picked up in Brussels. The sea is dark. There’s nothing to see. We get back on the bus and drive along the Dover coast until we pick up the road into London.
The stop-start of London’s ample red lights wakes us both. A wave of joy passes over me, quickly followed by the dread of having to wait 12 hours for our connecting bus to Dublin. I’m too tired for anymore of this. The five hours to Brussels, the five hours waiting time and the seven hours to London have taken it out of me and I get the shakes from exhaustion. When we arrive at London the bus station is full of lost souls. It’s difficult to tell the difference between stranded travellers and the homeless. The toilets are locked, which does not please me as I’ve been holding it for quite some time. We arrive ten minutes ahead of the scheduled check-in time for the next bus to Dublin, leaving at 6am. We wait. Emmet jumps in the line and hands over his ticket to the lady, who subsequently hands him our boarding cards. I’m pleased and have a new-found burst of adrenalin keeping me upright. Emmet worries that the Eurolines lady hasn’t read his ticket properly and not seen that it’s actually for the 6pm bus. He rejoins the queue to make sure we’re not taking the place of someone else on the bus. We’re not, so we take our seats and wait to depart. The driver allows eight additional passengers to board. They’ve been in the bus station a while now waiting as stand-by passengers. I’m glad to see them join the bus. Within twenty minutes of boarding we’re bound for Dublin and I am happy that our homeward journey is now some 12 hours from coming to an end.
I’m not envious of the couple in front of us having a blue. They’re going to be spending the next 12 hours together and she’s totally ignoring his pleas. A random Irish lass boards the bus and begs the girl in front for a sip of her water. She’s perished, apparently. She remains obnoxious for the remainder of the journey. Thankfully Emmet and I are far enough away from her to listen in without having to enter into any direct contact. Somewhere along the way she mentions how lucky we are to have been trapped in such ‘civilised’ countries. I’m not sure what she means by that but feel I should be either ashamed or embarrassed on behalf of someone. This journey’s discomfort is also physical. It’s the tightest of all the buses so far. It’s also the coldest. A woman in front of us complains to the driver who turns up the air conditioning after a short pit stop. We’re in Watford. I think. It’s soon too hot on the bus as the sun beats down through clear skies and the massive bus windows. The whole journey there has been nothing but sunshine and I wonder how far up this ash cloud is supposed to be if there’s absolutely no sign of it from the ground. My suspicions are confirmed as my Irish companions begin to melt…the Irish don’t cope well with heat. The same woman who asked for the temperature to be raised asks for it to be turned back down again. The air conditioning is stuck. The driver can’t pull over as the bus too is stuck, in traffic. There’s only just enough time to get to the ferry before it leaves so we make do with random bursts of cool air and slowly warming bottles of water.
The English countryside is glorious in the sunshine. The contrasting green fields and blue sky are stunning. Wales too. Especially around the coastline. Spring is truly in the air, with the leaves of the trees breaking through and flowers blooming. I entertain my inner child and announce ‘sheeps’ and ‘cows’ as we travel along. There are youngsters and mothers hanging out in every species. Soon enough we’re an hour from the ferry’s scheduled departure time. 40kms to go. Wait, no, it’s 40 miles! Damn it, there’s no town nor port in sight! It’s a photo finish but we make it in time to be waved on board, minutes before the ferry pulls away. We’re so close!
The inscription on my wedding ring reads ‘…and yes I said yes I will Yes’, quoting Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Emmet’s has it too. And that day, Wednesday 21 April 2010, the Ulysses brought us home to Dublin.
On 15 April 2010, my new husband and I were due to fly back to Dublin from a brief sojourn in Budapest. That didn’t happen. As with thousands of others, our flight was cancelled due to an episode of force majeure caused by the unpronounceable Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland. At 6pm on Wednesday 21 April we finally returned to Irish soil, but not without enduring some six days of heavy Googling for spaces on trains, busses or ferries and a good 44 hours on the road. Here is how we got home courtesy of the lovely people of Eurolines.
Thursday 15 April 2010: Arrive at Budapest Airport to find that Aer Lingus flight EI 679 has been cancelled. Having been in a virtual news vacuum, we have no idea why. The woman at the desk tells us the next Aer Lingus flight is a week away. We cancel and head to the Malev desk where one woman is sitting behind the counter dealing with a growing queue of stranded passengers. A man in the line is whingeing about ‘only needing to pay for excess baggage’. He’s not even flying Malev, but is rushed to the front of the line and accompanied by another staff member to his flight. She laments that he should have arrived on time and observed the baggage restrictions. He appears to have little concern for those of us who have already been in the line, and should be ahead of him, for some time. The Jewish lady (this is how she identified herself) behind us in the line tells us all about her day spent in Budapest…we’ve already been there three days and seen everything she talks about. She is just passing through. The young blonde in front of us is trying to get to Helsinki. She makes the last flight, but is confused by the mixed messages her airline is sending. We get to the front of the line and I’m about to burst a blood vessel due to stress. The girl at the desk says there’s a flight to Berlin that will close in 15 minutes, in that time we’d have to get to the gate in Terminal A, we’re currently in Terminal B. We decline and thank her. She’s stressed, we’re stressed, but she did her best.
We take a taxi to the train station to see if there may be a way out from there. It’s now raining. The woman at the station’s travel desk says there’s a train to Munich, but she can’t check us in at that time. The train isn’t scheduled to leave for another two and a half hours, so we’re not sure why we couldn’t be checked in. The woman is clearly sweating and struggling with her English. She too tries. There are many other people stranded at the station. We decide to try and find a hotel as it’s getting late, and no one gets anywhere when they’re too stressed to think straight. We wander over to the Best Western Hungaria and check in. Emmet and I leave Mum and Eileen to rest and head back to the information desk at the train station to see if anything is available tomorrow. There are some trains leaving for Germany, but most have upwards of four changes. I can’t justify that with Mum and Eileen and their bags. Running between connections is not a goer. We head over to MacDonald’s to use their free wifi. Still nothing. Maybe the bus? A couple of Quarter Pounders later and we head back to the room for a night of highly disrupted sleep.
Friday 16 April 2010: Awake from 5am. I try to take a shower quietly so as not to wake Emmet, but I manage to dislocate the shower head and it crashes into the bath. I eventually get my shower, but now Emmet is awake. We ponder what to do before collecting the ladies for breakfast. They too have been up since the crack of dawn, if not before. We decide that it’s probably best to have the day free for finding a route out and book an extra night at the Hungaria. Emmet and I take the Metro to the bus station, where the Eurolines girl is able to offer us four tickets to Amsterdam leaving the following afternoon. Nothing else is available for days. From what we can see, no additional services have been scheduled as yet. We take the four tickets to Amsterdam, which will see us arrive some 22 hours later, on Sunday afternoon. The challenge is now to see whether we can get Mum and Eileen to Paris to connect with their Trafalgar tour, which is due to leave London on Sunday. They won’t make London, but Paris is a chance. We go back to the hotel, but not before making an emergency stop for clean undies and socks, and tell the ladies we have a way out. Emmet is all cuddles and moral support as I try desperately to find a way to get from Amsterdam to Paris on Sunday evening. I manage to get half way through a booking with Thalys, the high-speed train linking the two cities. The hotel’s internet browser shuts down halfway through. It’s available, and I need to book the seats. My Mum needs to get to see Venice. We head to the train station to look for an internet cafe. It’s seedy. It doesn’t work out – for the better in the long run as who knows how secure those computers were! The four of us walk into town, to three travel agents, none of whom can help us. Two don’t do train tickets. One can’t sell us a ticket for a journey beginning and ending outside of the state. We go to a second internet cafe where, finally, the ticket is booked! And printed on a printer that allegedly hasn’t worked for days. A sigh of relief. At least the ladies get to their tour. As for Emmet and me? We book a hotel in Amsterdam, knowing full well we’re going to need somewhere to lie down after 22 hours on a bus.
Saturday 17 April 2010: Packed, checked out and with a backpack full of ham and cheese bread rolls, apples and water we board the Eurolines bus and wave goodbye to Budapest. Being on the bus is somewhat of a relief, but I’m already worried about the next leg for Emmet and me. I’m also concerned that we haven’t been able to print out the tickets Mum and Eileen need to take their train. We watch as the scenery changes around us between Hungary and Austria. I enjoy the site of wind farms along the way. To me they’re like dancers. In Austria we stop in Vienna. The bus station is packed. There are people wanting desperately to get on a bus and go just about anywhere, but preferably London. A strange fellow gets off our bus and onto one going to London. He seems to have been confused in Budapest and boarded the wrong bus. He had insisted on putting his seat right back into Eileen’s lap so we were glad to see him go. Whether he found his bus, I don’t know. The fumes in the bus station gave Emmet a headache. I was already popping pills trying to avoid a migraine. Drive on, driver.
Sunday 18 April 2010: Where are we? What time is it? Is it Euros here? Overnight we experience Europe via its truckstop restaurants and toilets. There are some very clean ones, let me tell you. There are also some in need of a good clean. Fortunately I picked up some wet wipes before we left Budapest. We stop on the border between Austria and Germany and hand our passports over to the immigration patrol. Our bus is cleared, but the one in front is not. Four passengers are hauled off into a small bungalow beside the motorway. The fellow is handcuffed, but still allowed to stand in the doorway for a cigarette. He is accompanied by three young women. One is pregnant. There are dramatic stories being told. I cannot hear them, but I can see arms flailing and desperate gestures. We drive on.
Following a number of power naps and constant readjustments in seating positions we eventually reach Amsterdam, where the weather is glorious. We take the train into the city proper and leave the ladies with the bags while Emmet and I run over to the library. It is the most spectacular library I have ever seen, and features some 200+ computers for use by patrons, free of charge! We log on and print off the tickets for Mum and Eileen. It’s sitting here I realise how smelly I am from spending 22 hours on a badly air-conditioned bus. I desperately need a shower. My hair feels horrible and my face is covered with a thin layer of grease. We run back to the train station and get the ladies in a taxi to the airport – the trains aren’t running from the central station today, as there’s track work taking place. They go. They text from the station. They make their connection.
Emmet and I get lost. The free map from the tourist information lady is close to useless as only random streets are named. We walk through the red light district, on the opposite side of town from where we should be. Emmet doesn’t like it. He encourages me not to look left and right. His head is down and his eyes focused forward. I look up as I hear tapping on one of the many windows lining the street. I see two women standing in adjacent windows. One is in worse physical shape than I am, falling out of the skimpy bikini she is ‘wearing’. The other looks as though she is well and truly dependent on some sort of illegal injection. She does not look well, thin and a pale yellow colour not caused by the window’s lighting. She has dark circles under her eyes and her hair is thin. I only saw her for a few seconds, but her ghostly image has stuck in my mind. We walk on. Eventually finding another library where we’re pointed back in the right direction.
Sweet relief when we get back to the hotel, even though the room has a ceiling too low to allow Mister Emmet to stand upright. We shower. We’re clean. We dress in the clothes we bought in Budapest – they are all we have that is clean – and head out to find a proper meal, one not involving ham and cheese bread rolls, or takeaway suitable for in-transit consumption. And that night, we sleep.
Originally Emmet and I had planned on taking the ferry to Holyhead, Wales for the day. However, having being enlightened by Mr Bird that that really wasn’t the best of ideas, and being begged not to go, we decided to take a bus tour of Wicklow instead. For those of you into geography, Wicklow is the county directly south of County Dublin, and may otherwise be known as the garden of Ireland.
We woke up early on Saturday morning so we could meet the tour bus, a service which was provided by Coach Tours of Ireland, to be greeted by possibly the worst morning weather I have seen since arriving here in June. Contemplation was given to staying below the bed covers but the tickets had been paid for and the house was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic. So we took Dublin Bus 46A to the Burlington Hotel, where we would meet our fellow tourists and driver, Kenny.
The drive heads along the Dublin Mountains which are connected to the Wicklow Mountains. There is a apparently a walking trail that leads all the way along, for those adventurers who enjoy a bit of a hike. It’s called the Wicklow Way and is about 130kms. There are three hostels along the way that take in weary travellers, and if you ask nicely, will have your baggage moved on to the next hostel so you don’t have to lug it along with you. The bus tour generally follows the Wicklow Way intercepting it where the roadway meets the trail paths.
The first stop on the tour was for a cup of tea at the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation. Set in the Glencree Valley, which is almost literally the middle of nowhere, and was founded in 1974 in response to the violent conflict occurring in Ireland. The Glencree Centre was instrumental in the peace negotiation process and the eventuation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Prior to its establishment as a Centre for Peace, the site at Glencree was a barracks, built in 1806 and housing some 100 soldiers, to protect Military Road on which it lies. Following the Famine and in response to rising juvenile crime the site was transformed into a reformatory school for boys, and remained so until 1940. After this time, the site at Glencree became a refugee centre for German and Polish orphans. A significant history covering only around 200 years.
From Glencree our tour took us along the Military Road through the Wicklow Mountains. The landscape there is unlike any I had seen elsewhere. The bog land covered in blossoms ready to bloom. Kenny told us that by September the whole place would be a vivid purple from the blooms. The drive is pretty torturous, as with most other roads in Ireland, this road was very narrow. We even came across a car that had not quite negotiated a bend in the road and ended up lodged in the foliage. To be honest he must have been travelling at quite a speed as the car was a significant distance from where the road ended! I also learned about turf, which I had always assumed to be what you call grass and the soil that keeps the grass together, which can be cut up and moved…for purchase if you can’t be bothered laying runners or sprinkling grass seeds. Forgive my confusion when the Irish begin talking about turf they mean the peat they cut away from the bog lands and use as a fuel. Unfortunately, the rain had once again caught up with us and it was way too wet to get out and take any pictures. The waterfall flowing down the bus windows also meant that photos of the bog weren’t going to turn out.
We managed to get ahead of the rain for a short while and stopped at a site where a scene from the film PS I Love You was shot. Now, I know the film and this particular scene bugs the hell out of Emmet, because, in the scene she’s asking directions from a kind passer by, to Dun Laoghairie. Now, the problem is, at the location at which this scene was shot you are unlikely to come across any passer by unless they are accompanied by a big red tour bus or they are riding a mountain bike. Secondly, according to Google Maps, she’s at least a good 50-60kms away from Dun Laoghairie! Of course Emmet’s other big issues with said film is that it was written by Cecelia Ahern, fellow Dubliner and daughter of the former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland of whom, lets just say, he’s not a fan. In any case, I took a photo of the bridge on which Hilary Swank’s character sits or walks over, can’t recall myself, en route to Dun Laoghairie. Unfortunately, the zoom lens slipped a little and this is the best shot I got, because the rain made an unexpected come back and we got caught in a very short but very heavy and cold downpour.
The water in the streams around the bog land is Guinness brown, but entirely drinkable, just with a few added vitamins and minerals from seeping through the turf.
Our next stop, as we tried to outrun the rain, overlooked Lough Tay, a small lake on a significant plot of land owned by the Guinness family. Just a quick ten minute stop to take in the glorious views, nothing but green for miles. It really is no wonder Ireland is called the Emerald Isle.
Onward and downward, down from the Wicklow Mountains, we stopped at Glendalough, the valley of two lakes, and the site of the monastic settlement of St Kevin during the 6th century. Yes, there’s a St Kevin. The remains of a number of churches litter the former monastic village, as well as old headstones the inscriptions on some long since eroded away, and a round tower some 30 metres high which once served as a highly effective look out and place of protection during an attack. A short walk through the forest lead us passed the lower lake on to the upper lake where we would meet Kenny and the big red tour bus. The walk was eventful, in that I ended up on my bottom slipping in the mud left by the rain, which had thankfully left us behind.
By the time we were back on the bus, I have to say, I was a little bit peckish. Thankfully our next stop, although still some 20 minutes away, was the wee town of Avoca. Now, for those of you who enjoy inoffensive BBC drama, you will no doubt be aware that Avoca is probably better known a Ballykissangel. Not wanting to offend the locals, we did the done thing and went into Fitzgerald’s Pub for a bite to eat and a pint of Guinness. The restaurant is towards the back of the pub, it’s light and homey with home made cakes and desserts on display. As is Ballykissangel on a DVD playing on a loop, though fortunately with the subtitles and the soundtrack muted. I wasn’t anticipating much from the meal, as there were only two obvious options for a sit down meal in the town, and so was pleasantly surprised with my chicken and sweetcorn pie, made fresh, and possibly the best chips I’ve had in a long time. Emmet’s roast of the day – lamb – was tender and nicely flavoured with mint jelly and gravy! Like a home cooked meal without us having to home cook it! Whiskey bread and butter pudding made for a great dessert and meant that dinner would not be needed. On our wander back through town on the way back to our bus we stopped by the post office, which subtly lets you know it was used as a Ballykissangel location. There no doubting this town has a gimmick, and although it is a lovely little town, were it not a television set I sadly can’t imagine anything else bringing money into Avoca. There are at least three signs pointing the way from the main drag to the post office, we figured that amount of effort needed rewarding with a photo. Avoca is peaceful and quiet. It’s not somewhere that would make an easy place of residence, as I’m not really sure what you’d do there, but it would make for a relaxing break away from the city for a week or a weekender.
The next hour is spent driving back the motorway to Dublin City. Kenny advised we take a short nap on the way as he took a break from narrating the journey. He also advised us that he too would take a short siesta, just until we got back to town.
The great thing about Brussels is that it’s relatively close to all other towns and cities within Belgium, as well as those over the borders in the Netherlands, France, Germany and Luxembourg, all of which are serviced by regular rail, bus or tourist providers. This makes Brussels a fantastic base from which you can take a few day trips. On the Thalys Paris is around an hour and a half away, Amsterdam around two and a half hours. However, you need to book and fix your passage ahead of time or else a return ticket to Paris can cost you around 180 Euro for a comfort 2 seat, compared with 50 Euro return if you book over 30 days ahead of schedule.
An alternative, if you only have a day to spare for traveling outside of Brussels is to take a guided tour, which will provide you with the mode of transport, visits to some attractions you might have otherwise missed along the way to your destination, and a background of the country, cities and towns you’ll be visiting. With neither of us having been to Luxembourg, and with some scepticism about there actually being something worth doing there – it is tiny and really only good for banking – we decided that a guided tour might be the way to go. We booked the Luxembourg and Ardennes tour through City Discovery, basically because it let me choose to pay in Australian dollars, which contracts a local company to provide the tour. Our driver was Michael and our tour guide, Marc.
Before you do decide that a guided bus tour is for you there are a few things that might be worth considering. Most significantly, you are on a bus full of people you probably otherwise would have absolutely no interaction, by choice or otherwise. Generally speaking you don’t have to associate with them too much, but depending on the distance to your destination and the number of rest breaks you have en route, you may have to consider just how much you can take of the large American fellow in the adjacent seat going on about what happened during the Second World War and how much he has been affected by it even though he is obviously too young to have served any time. He’ll also yell at the guide up the front to find out which side Luxembourg’s only synagogue is on. It was on the right hand side, and to be honest not all that impressive in the scheme of synagogues worldwide. Then there are the obligatory two fat ladies, who, during the walking tour of the city, are audibly complaining through heavy pants, distracting from the interesting tidbits the guide has rote learned just for us. I truly think the sample of people you find on any tour is the same – there’s the elderly couple spending the kids and grandkids inheritance, the young couples who keep to themselves and general wander around holding hands and taking photographs of themselves, there’s the two fat ladies whose husbands are long gone or never were, and the middle aged parents with the grown up kids on that last family holiday. Can you guess which stereotype we were?
Our tour took us out of Brussels and through Namur province with our first stop in the cliff side town of Dinant. The town of Dinant is steeped in history with its territory much sought after due to its apparently strategic location. It was the site of much atrocity particularly during the First World War, but is also the home of the creator of the saxophone, Adolphe Sax. Two options were given to us during our short visit to Dinant, first, a visit to the Citadel perched high on the clifftop overlooking the township, or second, a visit to the House of Sax. Okay, I don’t think it was actually called that, but apparently it literally is the house in which Adolphe grew up.
Emmet and I chose the Citadel visit at a cost of about 6 Euro each with a group discount, which began with a scarily cramped, some 17 of or new best friends from the bus, trip on a cable car to reach the clifftop. The view from above is pretty spectacular. You can see or miles, beyond the town itself an on to the farms and fields in the distance. There’s a river running through the town, which has been the border for significant division between settlements over time. None the less, the cable car journey was worth it when we arrived at the top. The Citadel is an interesting place. It’s walls are some 5 metres thick and there would have been very little light inside as the only windows are those wide enough to fire a 2 metre rifle from. It’s cold and imposing, the ceiling is low and the smell is damp. Being hauled up inside there with hundreds of other soldiers would have bee quite a harrowing experience. It’s understood that the Citadel itself was the scene of at least one brutal confrontation, unfortunately I haven’t been able to locate more detail of what the guide told us online, but it involved the French and German soldiers and the use of bayonets. The ashes of the soldiers who’s lives were claimed were cremated together just days after the massacre occurred. Somehow the divisions of nationhood that existed in their lifetimes were diminished after death. The Citadel now maintains a museum containing artifacts and displays on that period with guided tours provided by locals who appreciate a tip at the end of your tour if you’re willing to give one.
Dinant is also famous for its cookies, or croques, which we discovered after the fact are Europe’s hardest biscuit! They’re flavoured with honey and have the consistency of a gingerbread biscuit but are obviously bound with some sort of eating cement as they are impossible to bite, sucking on them doesn’t seem to loosen the dough and are probably really only good for hitting a mugger over the head. Although here I am making assumptions and do not advocate anyone testing this theory.
Onward from Dinant and we stopped again at Rochefort, a small town with a population of just over 12,000. Here we stopped in for a taste of the local produce, a beer produced by the Trappist Monks of the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy.
The tour arrived in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg around lunch time, with a brief tour provided before an arranged lunch or the opportunity to find your own alternative eating arrangement. The tour covered the basics of Luxembourg City, the likely named capital of the Grand Duchy, with some interesting tidbits worth taking away. For example, the vast majority of the population of Luxembourg are Catholic, followed by Protestant and Jewish in the minority. Luxembourg has a high income economy and is well known for its banks, which appear to be on every street corner, and if not the street corner then every other building along the street. Allegedly one in twenty of the population of Luxembourg is in someway employed by a banking institution. Apparently, it takes five years to become a citizen of Luxembourg, with one of the first requirements employment within the Grand Duchy. If you are to become a citizen the Grand Duke himself is require to provide you with permission.
There really isn’t much to do in Luxembourg, especially on the weekends when most stores and all of the banks are closed. Tourist locations such as the town square will have a selection of eateries that may be open for the tourist trade. However, the view of the valley gardens is spectacular, and while shops may not be open all that is needed is a pair of walking shoes, a picnic blanket and a good book. The city is divided in two, with the older town on one side and the newer EU buildings on the other. Either side is linked together by a series of bridges with a valley full of green space in between, a truly unique experience and a welcome change to the traditional set up of European cities.
Next time…In Bruges.
