Week 5 - BE and DE

 

 

Dinant:

·         Birthplace of the saxophone (his name was Sax and he held dozens of patents.)  There’s a museum in his honor that is small enough to visit in the time it takes to play Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.  I think printing the Wikipedia entry for him would have been more informative.

·         We visited the Leffe Brewing Museum, with a decent sample beer and outstanding cheese.  The brand is Belgian but part of the Anheuser-Busch empire.  The museum is in a former convent, which is now a hotel and restaurant.  KK noticed there are swastikas in the tiling by the bathrooms - the bartender didn’t know why or seem curious. 

·         The town speaks almost exclusively French (we heard what might have been Dutch from tourists.)  The waiters were friendly but not skilled in English or their understanding of gluten-free.

·         The dam along the river Meuse opens fully for maintenance and drains 95% of the river every 5 years.  The next time will be in fall 2027.  So, there weren’t the river cruises we’d seen advertised and I think the vibe is a little diminished with the smell of mud being more of a presence than the flowing of the water.

·         We stayed with Janvier, a native of Dinant.  The listing in booking.com said private bathroom with views of the rivers and mountains.  His hospitality almost made up for the inaccuracies - we shared a bathroom with him, and it was a 50-yard walk to the views.

·         One day we visited a castle started around 1300 that charges admission and the next a rival castle from a few years later that is now in ruins.  They were within sight of each other, guarding over the northernmost and southernmost reaches of territory in the valley.

·         Dinant was the site of a massacre by the Germans in August 1914 after they encountered more resistance than they expected (mostly from the French Army) and killed 674 civilians, about 10% of the population.

·         We ate at our first Michelin-starred restaurant, based on Janiver’s recommendation without checking carefully.  Really good food and not outrageous prices but we said we’ll be fine without ever eating upscale like that again.

·         The last night a fellow diner, a local, heard us and asked if we were British.  When we said American he said in broken English (not much better than my French) that America wouldn’t exist if not for France and mentioned Yorktown.  He said he loves history and I think military history.  Friendly but the language barrier kept us from engaging as much as I think we all would have liked.

·         We walked 3 miles to dinner so on the way home we decided to try Bolt eScooters along the riverfront – pretty cool.

Wiesbaden:

·         We stayed the weekend with our semi-niece, Kelly (Roger and Joy’s niece) and her husband Drew, as they’re both on assignments with the Defense Department.

·         We took 4 trains to get there including a change of trains in Luxembourg but we aren’t counting that as a county we visited.

·         As we rolled along the Rhine, about 200 meters across (I’m still learning metric) most of the way, we saw barges and trains with materials indicating manufacturing seems to be healthy across Germany.

·         Kelly and Drew were great hosts and a lot of fun.  Their apartment is dead center in Wiesbaden and in a 6-story building that once housed a newspaper.  The newspaper now occupies a fraction of the space, possibly not much more than their 2-story, sweet apartment.  They’re 2 years into their assignments, which will run 5 years max, and making the most of it, travelling around Europe (they fly to Glasgow on Wednesday.)  They gave us good travel tips, especially for northern Italy.

·         Kelly and Drew have great taste in beer, meaning it’s close to Dan’s and Jonathan’s as well as mine, and a stash of Belgian Ales.  Kelly fixed omelets both mornings and we all fixed tacos for Saturday dinner.  My contribution was heating the tortillas in a skillet.

·         Karen and I spent most of Saturday walking around town, taking a small tourist tram with limited view and a booklet with an English translation of the cursory narration.  We found 2 parks, one of which had a section that felt like you could be miles from civilization. 

·         The city was spared most of the bombing in WWII because it was foggy during most of the Allied runs.  It’s about 30 miles west of Frankfurt with a population of 300,000. 

·         Our visit has us thinking even more about a potential work assignment in Europe someday.

 

Misc:

·         Belgian trains are better than Boston’s commuter rail but not as nice as the Paddington line and no wifi but at least mostly uncrowded.  There 3 differences I can see between first and second class:  There are fewer passengers in first class, there is a “1” or a “2” on the wall designating which class you’re in, and first class costs about 50% more.

·         Germany is again requiring masks on trains, which was a reminder about how they change the mood of a group.

·         On the more major train lines we’ve been on you can request a type of seat (e.g., window/aisle, quiet car, front-facing) but not as pinpointed as airlines.  When you get your tickets, it tells you the seat number, which often has a semi-obstructed view.)  Then, when you get on board a display tells you which seats are reserved, and sometimes for which stretches.  If I remember right Amtrak, has a low-tech version of this.

·         European sirens still remind me of Nazi movies.