Christmas in Luxembourg

The journey from Trier to Dudelange, our destination in Luxembourg was uneventful, along motorways, but we have no real opinion of scenery as we were in a fog, all the way. Crawled into the first services we saw, diesel is only €1.11/litre

We arrived to be van three of four able to access free electricity, hurrah as it was wet and cold. Odd place, but seemed safe, free services, and we weren’t alone. Aire location: 49°28'17.0"N 6°04'42.3"E. One minute walk to the railway station, €4 for all day travel. First stop Bettambourg to

waiting for the train to Luxembourg City

change for Luxembourg City. Our first train was very old rolling stock, really reminded me of the carriages we used to have where you had to lean out of the door to open it. It all added to my overall impression of Luxembourg being a slightly poor/run down country, but he says it’s not.

Luxembourg City was great, three bits of Christmas market, much food, last sausage in a bun, but this one was wrapped in cheese and bacon, mmm. Shared one of those, then found a stall with fondue, a big cup with gooey cheesiness, a pile of bread cubes, and more cheese. Come back if you need more

Christmas market in Luxembourg

bread. I sent him back twice, and it was still a cheese overload. And that was meant for one person... did enjoy it, but it reminded us why we only have fondue once every two years....

The City itself was interesting, and we will have to go back to explore further, when more is open and it’s not sleeting!

We decided on a second night as it was forecast for more cold, and we didn’t actually want to move on a Saturday in case it was difficult. Dudelange was actually more interesting than expected with a

The old and the new in Luxembourg

Christmas market and a medieval market, though we did get there at 12.00 and nothing was open. It was just starting to rain, so back to Ted for a movie, we’ll come back later. Got back to Ted to find water along the back of the kitchen sink and onto the floor. Hmm second time this has happened. No leak from above, we convinced ourselves the first time I’d spilled some, but not this time. We were completely at a loss.

Han-sur-Lesse in Belgium our next stop, a big site, good services, but sadly the caves and animal park were shut, oh well, the weather wasn’t really up to it anyway. Pleasant enough and it was the first of our ‘none’ stops getting us to the ferry with sensible drives. Aire location: 50°07'39.5"N 5°11'18.9"E

That vertical column you can see is actually a free to use lift that takes you from the upper part of Luxembourg down into the ravine and the lower part of the city. The lift is glass sided and is on the outside, so the views are great. We went down, had a little look round and then went back up. Other people were going up and down several times snapping pictures 

The old city walls looking down into the ravine

Our second was in Thieu, free park up by the big canal. Doris had put the fear into us, 3.5 tonne weight limit, whichever way we came in. Ok we’ll avoid the bridge, just in case, though due to an error we ended up following a bendy bus over it, no warning signs, don’t know what she was talking about. Said she was losing it! Parking location: 50°28'17.4"N 4°05'25.2"E

Looking the other way from the old city walls

We set off for the bakery in town, but decided it wasn’t raining so we’d go and look at the boat lift. He’s doing lots of reading and making a little video, so he can tell you about it! We timed it really well for viewing, though it was raining and blowing a hoolie by the time we left it, finally for the bakery, which was shut! It was interesting, and I’m really glad we saw it, but then I am a bit of an anorak too! While bending to get the chopping board out I could see a stain below the kitchen window, and wetness, so looks like we have a leak. This is not good news with damp being the enemy of motorhomes and little time before we go away again. Hmmm. Here's their website: https://voiesdeau.hainaut.be/en/placeofinterest/the-boat-lift-of-strepy-thieu/

A bit of medieval music at the Christmas and Medieval Market in Dudelange

Han-Sur-Lesse, sadly closed but, with its caves, buzzing in the summer

Today we are in France, Grenay, and an hour and a half from Calais (or an hour up the toll road if we oversleep). Aire location:  50°26'53.4"N 2°44'18.3"E.We had to have a stop in France to stock up with wine boxes, well it might be the last time, and duck in a tin. Again free electricity, and it’s cold again. Ferry tomorrow lunchtime so hopefully it will be an ok travel day, as we’ll be doing our normal hour and a half drive to get to Calais and will then have the three and a half hour drive back to Alvechurch!

The Strepy-Thieu boat lift. More on the Youtube video below

No sooner had I sent him this to post, his phone bleeped with a text message “your 12.35 sailing tomorrow has been cancelled, just turn up as expected for this sailing and we’ll get you on the next available ferry “. Not what we wanted. An online chat later, during which I offered to go before, after, from Dunkirk and we are sailing at 11.05 tomorrow morning instead. We can change our sailing to one before or one after free of charge, so that’s what we’ve done. I offered to go today, to get us out of their hair, it would have meant a mad rush, an unfinished blog and probably rush hour traffic to get on a sailing with much bigger seas.... For that they wanted to charge us £56.00! Just as well it was an online chat, I was speechless “I’m doing you a favour!” No lying in bed with coffee tomorrow then, up, dump grey and toilet and whiz up the road. We’ll have breakfast and make our sandwiches when we arrive, sitting at the terminal!

This is one of the old (historic) boat lifts that was replaced by the new one in 2002. Not sure if it still works or not, but it has the appearance of still working

This was our parking area at Thieu. Fairly isolated and we were the only people there until another van turned up after dark. That was after 13 cars pulled into the car park further down after dark. Feeling a little apprehensive we watched them out of the window all gather together, put on headtorches, red lights on their backs, get out walking poles and then stride off into the night in one long line of white lights. well, you've got to have a hobby I suppose.

As you can see in the above photo, we'd backed up to the edge of the canal and, as we sleep in the back it felt as though we were overhanging the water. This morning when I started the engine Jackie said 'make sure you select first and not reverse!'. This was the view through the rear view camera, just water! It just feels a bit unnerving and makes you double check the handbrake and double check first gear!

This is our Aire camping tonight, for our final night. There's only three spots (and we got the last one) in an area specially prepared and reserved for motorhomes. It is absolutely free to stay here and there is a separate area to service your vehicle, drain off the grey water, empty your toilet and fill up with fresh water. In each bay are electrical sockets you can plug into and wifi is available. All this for no charge! 

Here's our Youtube video of the boat lift. (Its just over 2 minutes long):