The houses and buildings in Luxembourg towns are mostly built together in rows, and distinguished from each other by color. Not very many stand-alone buildings. All the buildings are made of concrete or stone (no wood). Houses are generally not air conditioned (the concrete/stone keeps them cooler, and the temperatures are mild). The windows are open most of the time here, day and night, and it feels very nice. There are no screens on the windows. At home we would have 7000 mosquitoes in the house, but here I haven't been bothered by any. Not many bugs come in, as long as the lights aren't on at night with the windows open. Here is the view from our window:
Inside the house there are four levels: the bottom level is the garage and laundry area; the first floor is my daughter and son-in-law's (self contained) apartment; the second floor is the general living area; and the third floor has bedrooms. There is a circular staircase going all the way up. Here is a view from the top:
On Friday we went to the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial. It is American land where thousands of American soldiers from WWII are buried. To see a more in-depth history of it, check out my daughter's blog from when she visited it the first time. It was an awesome place.
Some of the soldiers are unidentified.
General Patton is also buried there.
In contrast, here is the German military cemetery on the other side of the highway. In the American one, each soldier has his own grave, and the place is very light. Here there are mass graves. and the place is shaded and dark. It is half of the area of the American cemetery and twice the number of bodies.
Next we drove to Trier, Germany. The building are still in a row, but the architecture is different than in Luxembourg. More German, maybe.
Some of the roads in Germany have no speed limit. We did up to 175 kpm (approx. 108 mph) a couple of times. It would be fun to drive like that all the time, but not in the traffic that they have here.
When we reached Trier and found a place to park, this was the first interesting thing we saw. It is a Roman ruin called Porta Nigra (black door). There are a lot of Roman structures/ruins still standing in random places around town, surrounded by newer (but still old) buildings.
Saint Gangolf Catholic Church. The churches are all very old, ornate, and beautiful, inside and out.
Here is part of a church that shows bombardment damage from the war.
A fountain and garden in Trier.
Roman baths.
This is the building Karl Marx was born in. Now the lower floor is a euro store. Talk about ironic...
I was struggling with the sun and heat, so I bought an umbrella. I wanted to get a purple one (duh), but the salesperson suggested that a brighter one would reflect the sun better and not get so warm (double duh). So I got an orange, pink, and white one. Amy is holding a little personal fan shaped like a person (get it: "person-al" fan?). We each got one of those. Walking around Europe in the sun with a bright umbrella and a little fan-dude. Helps a lot. Maximum dork mode. Look for me on Google Earth.
Here is the cheesy picture for Friday with the Porta Nigra in the background.
The smaller towns in Luxembourg and Germany are little clusters of houses/buildings nestled in the hills and valleys. It looks like they have been there forever. There is always at least one steeple. It is very quaint. (Do people even use the word "quaint" anymore or is the word itself quaint?) Every once in a while I would see solar panels on a roof, so there are modern touches. In some of the German towns there was a lot of damage from WWII bombers, so the buildings have been rebuilt and are obviously "newer", but still are done in the same ageless style. In the larger towns, there are more modern-looking buildings mixed in with the ageless ones.
We saw a lot of these in Germany. They are vineyards planted on the hillsides (for the sun), and some of them are almost vertical. They are all harvested by hand. A field can be split into various owners (by inheritance, etc.) so a person could own half a row in one field and two rows in another. Occasionally they will regroup the fields so that all of a person's rows are in the same field. We also saw large fields of squash, pumpkins, and cabbage.
There are several lakes in Western Germany that are made in the craters of inactive volcanoes. If they ever become active there will be a lot of water running down to lower ground.
We saw a lot of castles. They are awesome.
Our walking "mileage" for Friday was over 4 miles, but I'm not sure exactly how much. I have a Fitbit which tracks steps/mileage and flights of stairs, but bouncing in the back seat of the van counts as some "steps", and sometimes changes in elevation count as stairs. The totals were 13000 steps and 47 flights of stairs. I will need to record before and after increments when riding in the van to get a more accurate number.
On Saturday we took the train to Köln (Cologne to us Americans). It was a 3-1/2 hour trip through very scenic country. This is the train station in Köln. Most of the trains are electric, and there are a LOT of trains.
Just outside the train station there is the Kölner Dom. It is a massive cathedral and was the only building still standing after the Allies got done bombing the town.
Inside the cathedral spire there is a spiral staircase with steps going (almost) to the top. 553 steps! The guys made it all the way up, but I wimped out at around 150 steps. Major fail! Amy thinks she could have made it up, but she came back down with me. I might have made it, given enough time and asthma medicine, but then I would have been toast for the rest of the day. Here are some pictures from the top:
After the tour we walked back to the train station because we were all wiped out. We stopped at the Dunkin Donuts there, and I found some popcorn for Dick. Here is Saturday's cheesy-pose picture.
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