Sunny Belgium

Wednesday 01 September 2021

Today was Belgium day.  And the second chateau of the trip, Chateau de Bouillon.  What an amazing place!  It is situated on a rocky spur of the Semois River and, although it was first mentioned in 998, had been occupied by some degree of fortification before that.  It is one of the largest fortified castles in Belgium and has layer upon layer of defence built on the outcrops with draw bridges between them.  You have to cross 2 to attack the inner sanctuary of this place.  

A magnificent stone staircase built without any nails - just held up with expert stone cutting slotted into place.

Looking down on the inner court from the safety of the highest block.

A view from the first entrance showing the steep, unscalable sides surrounding the fort.

After lunch we drove the scenic route back down the Semois - beautiful views.

And we bagged castle number 3, Chateau d'Herbeumont.  This didn't take quite so long to look around as Chateau Bouillon.

 

I'd spotted 'globe' mentioned in the guide book - who wouldn't want to stop by and look as this little beauty? 

The local monks do a fine brew apparently, so it was churlish not to try it whilst passing.

Luxembourg City - Train, Tram, Lift and Funicular

Tuesday 31 August 2021

Today we made the most of Luxembourg's free public transport.  We caught the train into Luxembourg City and hopped on a tram to speed us up to the centre.  

We walked towards the city walls and the Pfaffenthal Panoramic Elevator.  It's 75 m high and offers wonderful views across the old city and the Alzette Valley.

Once down we strolled along the River Alzette and took a funicular up the valley on the other side.  Our aim was to visit the modern Art gallery but on arrival we discovered it was closed on Tuesdays.  That slightly baffled us: I often come across attractions being closed on a Monday but it didn't occur to us to check that it'd be open on a Tuesday. Anyway, we took the funicular back down (mainly because I think these things are fun) and back along the Alzette.

We came across an ancient washing area which had been restored to show its original style.  One end was devoted to 'water treading' where weary travellers are encouraged to shed shoes and socks and relish the freezing cold water to aid circulation.  

Lovely old bridges.  I'm usually freezing in January when we walk by this!

After lots of strolling along by the river we walked back up into the city and onto the walls for a drink with a view of the Grand (old city).

Prost!

Sunny Luxembourg - Chateau No. 1 and Little Switzerland

In August Luxembourg removed the need for visitors to quarantine on arrival and, as I have an EU passport which allowed me entry (they aren't letting Brits in right now),  I took the opportunity to hop on a plane and visit in the summer.  Previously I've only been there during New Year so was relishing enjoying it in the sun and warmth.

Sunday 29 August

Our first trip was to Fond de Gras, once a major mining centre of Luxembourg.  It still runs the old mining trains and you can even take the Minièresbunn underground which I'll pop onto my 'to do' list for my next summer visit to Luxembourg.

It had some cool boats made from maps in an exhibition in the Paul Wurth Hall, the site of the power plant.  

Monday 30 August

On Monday we visited our first chateau of the trip, Beaufort Chateau.  We usually visit a couple each time although we'll run out of Luxembourgish ones in the not too distant future.  We were only able to visit the Medieval Castle as the Renaissance part was tours only, and they didn't have one in English that day.  The Castle was built between 1050 and 1650 and was an interesting wander around.  It ticked all the castle boxes - turrets, stone stairs, kitchens with old fireplaces, knights halls, food cellars/caves, drawbridge, well accessible in case of siege and, naturally, the dungeon and torture cell.  

The Renaissance part was built in the 17th Century and in the 1930s the then owner started producing a blackcurrant liqueur called "Cassero". A shot of this is included in the entrance ticket so it was a fun little treat with the morning coffees.

After the chateau we headed to the region Little Switzerland to hike.  We started from Berdorf with auto-pedestre trail no. 1.  These auto-pedestre are super well sign posted and took us across farmland and then down a river valley.  At the end of the valley we detoured to see Perekop, one of the most visited rock giants in Luxembourg.  It is split in the middle and has a handy staircase - not an original geological feature - which takes you up to the top. It was a perfect picnic lunch spot.

The path drips with creepers, ferns, moss and dappled walkways.

Huel Lee ("hollow stone") was carved out in the Middle Ages by stone masons.  The mills of the Oeren Monastery near Trier, Germany, were obliged to use only millstones from this quarry.  The roof of the cave is scalloped out in large shell like scoops.

Once back at Berdorf we headed off to another trail, hiking trail B2.  I wasn't really paying attention when we chose this thinking it was 'just' a nice walk in the woods.  It turned out to be a lot more fun than that and it wasn't long before we came across a metal rope bridge.

Another sign pointed to a small cave which looked blocked until we shone a torch to discover a metal ladder perched at the end.  So of course we climbed it and popped out on the top of the rock.  There were a few distractions like this.  The thinnest one was certainly this path which was 30 cm at its narrowest. Certainly rucksack off and breathe in time!

Back to Tashkent and then Home

Saturday 05 October

Our last site of Samarkand was Gur Emir.  This is the mausoleum in which Temur, Ulugh Beg and a few other family members were buried.  It was designed by Temur’s grandson who died before it was complete, so Temur himself supervised the finally build.  The gold bling of the inner sanctuary was gorgeous.  It was also the most crowded room I think we’d run into this last fortnight.  

We then sauntered up to the Registan to drink coffee and view the wedding spot before  a 4+ hour taxi ride to Tashkent. It was not the most exciting trip I've had, but I still love watching the villages, apple stalls, melon markets etc pass by.   I was slightly alarmed when we rounded the peak of a hill on a dual carriageway to find a farmer herding his goats across the road...

Our last night in Tashkent was at a lovely local hostel.  We should have stayed here the first time we were here but there you go.  It was family run and one of owners asked if we could pop into an English class he was running as he was pleased to have a native speaker to hand.  So JC and I popped down and we chatted for 10 or so minutes.  They are taking six hours of lessons each week.  Once my MSc is sorted I might pick up another language too.  Easier said than done I know.

Ate out at a restaurant we'd found the first time in Tashkent.  It really did do the most awesome fruit tea.

Sunday 06 October

A stupid early start.  I was awake at 0300, up at 0330 and out by 0415.  Uzbekistan Airlines doesn’t offer online check in so we wanted to be at the check in desk 3 hours before the flight to beat the queues.  It was then a pretty standard trip.  5 hours to Istanbul, an enormous walk from one end of terminal leg B to leg D via some Turkish delight tasting in duty free then 3 or so hours to London.  

Observatory, Daniel's Tomb and a Beautiful Necropolis

Friday 04 October

We caught a bus up to Ulugh Beg Observatory (1400 SOM/~15p) and explored what remains of Ulugh Beg’s 15th century observatory.

There is little left except for the entrance and underground grooves of the quadrant which must have been massive!

Ulugh was an amazing astronomer like Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe and his works were published by  Oxford University in the 18th century.  There is a museum on site detailing his life and works.  He was the grandson of Temur, a founding emperor of the Temurline Empire.  When the line of power came to him on his father’s death he, apparently, didn’t lead in the valiant and victorious manner so expected of him (science and education were his passions) and after two years one of his sons had him murdered.  And to drive home the point his son razed the three storey high observatory. 

It was raining.  We weren’t expecting it and although it was hardly of British proportions it was enough. We had coffee whilst it passed.  I was quite amused by the size of their beer bottles - at least equivalent to 1L of water.

Next to do was Daniel’s tomb, he of the Biblical Daniel and the Lion’s den (he is buried in numerous places according to wikipedia).  The only impressive part of this visit was the tomb.  Followers believed that he was still growing and enlarged his tomb accordingly so that when he rose from the dead he’d be full height.  The tomb is now 18 metres long.

The Museum of Afrosiab was worth visiting for its 2 m high painted frieze.  The rest consisted of terracotta pots in various stages of re-assemblement, skulls and other bones and a Zoroastrian altar which looked remarkably like a toilet seat.

We next visited the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis.  This was beautiful.  As with other mausoleum sites a holy man is buried and then other eminent leaders are laid to rest there and/or erect memorials for their loved ones.

There are some pretty old mausoleums including the first seen use of mosaicing tiles in Samarkand. The lace carved patterns are intricate.  

As ever at these stunning sites, there are various visitors.  Some are what I’d consider ‘travellers’ (like us) - those who visit a site with a guide or guide book and discover as much history about the place as they can.  Others are pilgrims for whom these are important and personal excursions.  The type of visitor I found irritating are the Instagram visitors - those who pose, pout and twirl in front of any grave or sacred site for the camera.  They didn’t seem interested in where they were, just that they looked good in the resulting image.  Perhaps on branding them too shallow, and everyone has different reasons for visiting a place, but without an explanation of your surroundings it is a bling only experience.

The rest of the afternoon was spent meandering the streets.  A local supermarket unearthed a miscellany of fruit and veg, fizzy drinks but no water, pasta galore, cooked meats and empty bread shelves.  It rained heavily this evening.  That was certainly not forecast nor terribly Uzbek.  However, being a true Brit, I’d packed my waterproof so we headed out to a local restaurant with Thai dishes too.  It had good reviews and the menu had more than rice and fried veg for me but service and the food let it down.  Ah well.  One not to revisit.