Monday, September 23, 2019

CASTLES ALL AROUND US! JULY - AUGUST 2018

Caring only for our little Bluebell left us plenty of time to make drives to see the castles around northern Luxemborg and even into France one afternoon. We had a lovely lunch in this cute little cafe in Beaufort, Luxembourg before touring the remains of Beaufort Castle. 

July 28, 2018       BEAUFORT CASTLE
                           Grevenmacher, Luxembourg



While we were walking around the rooms and towers of the castle a car club arrived with some amazing cars parked out front.


August 6, 2018      BOURSCHEID CASTLE
                              Diekirch, Luxembourg





 August 6, 2018       ESCH-SUR-SÛRE
                                Diekirch, Luxembourg


August 6, 2018            LAROCHETTE
                                Larochette, Luxembourg



A long day of castle viewing called for a bubbly crémant before heading back home
August 11, 2018        MANDEREN
                                 Lorraine, France



ALL AMAZING EXPERIENCES!

LENNINGEN, LUXEMBOURG & MORE July 4 - August 12, 2018

 Our home for six weeks... so lovely, modern and comfortable. We had a beautiful bedroom with a window view of the vineyards up the hills behind us, a kitchen with amazing appliances and a large living room with this loft library space above it.
 Our outside eating patio near the fish pond
 And grapes everywhere we looked.
 Though it wasn't harvesting time yet, there was plenty of work going on in the vineyards.  This is the machine that crawls up the steep sides of the vineyards to do pruning and weeding.

 In our nearby village of Ehnen, we often walked the river path just looking at the variety of homes and architecture. This little one would have been just perfect for us!!
 Another nearby village, Wormeldange
 Traffic on tiny village streets could get a bit tight when farm machinery needed to get about.
 One of our favorite stops for a beer after walking down to the river.

 Looking from the Germany side of the Mosel River back towards Luxemburg
 A break along the bike trail

 Occasional boats and barges transit the river
In our area of Luxembourg the harvested grapes from many growers come here to the Caves Cooperatives in Wormeldange for processing and bottling of the wonderful Poll-Fabaire Crémant sparkling wines. We had met David, a delightful local member of the wine industry who offered us a personal tour of the winery one afternoon. Couldn't pass that up, what fun to be deep inside the building and get such a specialized tour.



 Historic machinery and harvesting tools
 And time for tasting
 Afterwards, David directed us to the top of the hill overlooking the Mosel River and the villages near us.  We'd finally found how to get up to the little chapel we'd been seeing from our main roads...what an amazing view!!

We finished off our evening together with a late evening dinner outside at David and Josie's yard. Such fun.


 Another town nearby that we often visited was Remich. Much larger than most villages, we did our grocery shopping there and loved sitting along the river or having a drink or snack in the outdoor cafes.

Fountain of Baccus
 The bridge connecting Remich, Luxembourg to Nennig, Germany
 Beautiful flowers along the river walkway
 Between Ehnen and Remich is a unique nature preserve and museum

 Then further south we made sure to visit the town of Schengen with its history of the Schengen Agreement of 1985, the beginning of a unified Europe with open borders.We spent time in the Musée Européen Schengen where the signed agreement between the initial five EU countries: France, Germany and the Benelux states is on display. The Schengen Agreements abolished border controls between them. The Schengen Area came into full effect in 1999 when more European states joined and Visas given by one of the Schengen member states are valid for the entire territory. Fascinating to learn this history of what eventually developed the European Union,


 And on one of our last sunny days in Luxembourg, we enjoyed the river boat cruise along the Mosel.


 August 12, our sweet neighbor, Claudine, gave us a ride to the Luxembourg airport for our flight to London City airport  and on to another housesitting adventure.