Countdown

It's now September, so that means we are less than one month away from returning to the U.S. The weather since our return to Toul from Luxembourg has contained hints of the autumn season that is just around the corner. Temperatures have mostly been cooler, aside from an occasional hot day, and we had several days where very welcome rains made an appearance. As a result, the water level in the "moat" that surrounds Toul is noticeably higher. The vnf must be feeling comfortable with the water levels on the Moselle River and the stretch of Marne au Rhin Ouest canal from Port de France in Toul to the Moselle, because the locks on the Moselle that have been closed are now open again, and locks 26, 27 and 27-bis on the Marne au Rhin Ouest will reopen--for a few weeks at least--on September 7 at 9:00 a.m. Some of the English-speaking boaters that we have come to know in the last few weeks will be taking advantage of the changes in the waterway restrictions to "escape" Toul for cruises of varying length. We will not be among them.

As part of the journey toward transferring C.A.R.I.B. to new owners, we had extended an invitation to the buyers to pay another visit to us for a day or two so that we could familiarize them with the boat's features in more depth. When we purchased C.A.R.I.B. III back in 2018 we never had such an opportunity, and there were several times over the years when we were left to figure things out on our own. A re-visit during the first few days of September had been tentatively agreed upon during their initial visit in early August. For us that meant mostly staying around Toul between the end of the Luxembourg trip on August 21 and early September so that we could finish some small tasks on the boat and continue our move-out preparations. It was a relaxed effort, as the boat tasks were pretty much small scale, courtesy repairs like paint touch-ups. Most of the boat contents will be staying, aside from a few personal belongings that will either be taken back to Florida or tossed, so move-out prep has also been rather low key. This has allowed us the time to socialize on occasion with English-speaking boaters at the port in Toul as well as at the TSNI shipyard.

During the weekend of August 22-23 there was a water jousting competition held at Port de
France in Toul. We watched a little of the proceedings on the 23rd, but it was a bit less exciting
than the advance publicity led us to believe it would be. The most dangerous thing for the jousters
 would be falling into the water, as the water in the Port de France is not especially clean.

We also had plenty of time to get away from the boat for a day and take the train to the city of Metz on Wednesday, August 26. We'd had a sightseeing day in Metz last year but weren't able to see everything that I wanted to, so it was nice to finally work in that long-desired second visit. An early start from Toul allowed us to accomplish the items on my "wish list."

The first thing we did after arrival was to walk to the city's pleasure port to say hello to fellow boaters Amy and Rob, with whom we'd spent some time at TSNI earlier in the summer. They have a 23-meter barge and were fortunate enough to obtain a winter mooring at the port. The 26th was their last day before leaving their boat Vivante, so they were quite busy, but we did manage to have a lovely--if abbreviated--visit.

The walk from the port along a side branch of the Moselle was very attractive. The church
at upper left, New Temple, was built in the early 1900's during the German annexation of
Alsace-Lorraine to serve the German Protestant community.

We next visited the city museum, the Musee de la Cour d'Or. Founded in 1839, it incorporates several much older structures. I was most interested in the Roman and medieval histories of Metz, but the museum also contains an architectural museum and a collection of fine arts. We arrived about an hour-and-a-half before the museum would close for lunch and were warned that there was no way we could see everything in the museum in that amount of time. That might be true, but as my capacity for enjoying museums usually lasts only about an hour on average, we would be judicious--and quick--in choosing where to spend our time. We had other things we wanted to do in Metz, so returning after lunch and making it an all-day museum visit was not an option.

The entrance to the museum is through former Petits-Carmes Chapel, built in 1675 and 
much renovated to its current state. 

The museum has a huge collection of Gallo-Roman artifacts, many from Metz and the surrounding areas, but from other parts of France as well. It was, frankly, overwhelming. 

One of the most fascinating aspects of the museum was the way that the structures of a large
Roman public bath of the late 1st or early 2nd century were incorporated into the museum. The
baths were discovered during museum expansion excavations in1932-35.

  

There were many, many Roman tombstones among the displayed objects.

Not everything was related to the Roman "World of the Dead."

Top: a few centuries after the Romans, the Merovingians left their
share of burial sites.
Bottom: the ground floor of the Chevremont Granary. This 15th-century
building that served as a municipal storage house for grain until 1870 is
part of the museum. The level displays medieval and religious sculptures.

Some of the most important displays in the medieval section of the museum involve painted
ceilings. At left are 13th C. painted ceilings taken from two adjacent rooms in a medieval 
house. They are called the Bestiary Ceilings because many of the figures represent fantastical
figures found in medieval bestiaries, illustrated books that mixed real animals with legendary
creatures. Ring-counting of the wood used in the ceilings very specifically assigned the age of 
the beams to trees felled in 1190; the wood of the planks is from trees cut in 1218-1219.
At right is the 14th C. Heraldic Ceiling from a different medieval house, a grand ceremonial
ceiling that displays 36 distinct coats of arms.

By this point, time was getting short and we'd about reached our limit for absorbing what the museum had to offer. We left to find some lunch before tackling the afternoon's activities. Fortunately, we didn't have to walk too far to find what we needed.

Left: our view of the Cathedral of Saint Stephen during lunch. 
Right: we viewed this poster as an advance warning to us to stay out of Metz on September 28.
 The pope will be stopping there as part of a several days trip to France. It will, no doubt, be a madhouse.

Our first destination after lunch involved a quick stop in the cathedral, just to get another look at the stained-glass windows for which Saint Stephens is known.

Upper left: contemporary Old and New Testament stories done in 1957 by Jacques Villon.
Lower left: one of my favorites, a Marc Chagall window.
Right: traditional stained glass is also well-represented.

Another place we didn't have time to see when we were in Metz last year was the Porte des Allemands, the German Gate. It is the last of the fortified medieval gates that used to control entry into Metz that remains. In the early 16th century, there were multiple gates and towers along the ramparts of Metz, most of which were dismantled in the mid-19th century and when Metz was under German control in the early 20th century. A major renovation project of Porte des Allemands in 2013-2014 gave public access to two Renaissance-era rooms and a terrace on the east side.

Streets on our way to the German Gate. Providing shade with a cover of plastic streamers
seems to be a "thing" in cities this year. No shopping for us.

The photos are from the passage between the two sets of gates that comprise
the Porte des Allemands. The arcaded gallery dates to around 1480.
Top: The crenellated towers were constructed starting in the mid-1400's.
Bottom: construction on the first towers began in 1230.

Various exterior perspectives of the gates. The body of water over
which the gate and its associated bridges extend is the Seille River.

This small defensive structure attached to the outer wall of the fortifications is called a 
caponier. It was built in 1527, under the direction of Philippe Dex, who was governor of the
fortification at the time, and so it is named Caponniere Dex. The bas-relief circled in blue
is thought to represent Dex, pants down and mooning any potential attackers.

That completed the list of "things to do" in Metz, so we headed for the train station and were on our way to Toul by mid-afternoon. 

On our way to the train station we walked by the Centre Pompidou Metz, the city's museum
of modern and contemporary art. As neither of us are big fans of most contemporary art, we
didn't feel too bad that we omitted a stop here on our itinerary for the day.

C.A.R.I.B.'s next owners spent last Thursday and Friday, September 3 and 4, with us on C.A.R.I.B. It was a busy couple of days, but going over some of the boat features seemed to be helpful to them. We also had a joint phone call with the boat broker to discuss topics such as changing registration and insurance.

Diane and David taking a break with us on the back
 deck of the boat.

The only step remaining before the boat ownership transfers is the last payment, which must be completed on or before September 25. So, we wait and continue our preparations for our departure. We don't need to stay on C.A.R.I.B. III until the ownership change unless we want to, and we're rather tired of being in a shipyard, so we've decided to be ready to leave on September 16. We will rent an apartment in the city of Nancy for our last two weeks in France. Between now and our return to Florida we'll also be working in short trips to Paris and Basel to visit with vacationing family and friends.

We had an absolutely stunning sunset last week. Perhaps that's
another sign of autumn.

Cruising Stats 2026

It's rather sad to consider that this particular blog posting could have been written over two months ago. It was definitely NOT normal for us to have been done cruising in late June. It's even sadder to look at a map that lays out the stark reality of the route we'd hoped to take this summer and what we actually were able to accomplish.

The route we'd intended to take encompasses both the red and the blue: blue shows what we 
did on the Marne au Rhin Est Canal (Toul to Saverne and back) and the red shows all that
we didn't do.

So many factors created the conditions that forced us into a second season of extended time in Toul. The main factor, of course, was the drought conditions that began with a dry winter and continued into a spring and summer with extreme heat and barely any rain. But we might still have been OK had it not been for several contributing issues: a nearly 4-week delay in the start of our cruising due to insurance woes; our decision to start our cruise with the Marne au Rhin Est Canal rather than immediately heading west out of Toul; lock maintenance on the Moselle River that probably extended our stay on the Marne au Rhin Est by a week beyond what we might normally have done; and extreme heat waves that made staying put and plugged into shore power a much safer option than cruising.

To be fair, in theory we could have spent some time in July cruising on the Moselle River. The canal lock from the shipyard basin to the Moselle was still open at that point, as were the locks on the Moselle. It would have involved repeating a cruising route that we did last year, and while Lon would have enjoyed it because he loves cruising for its own sake, I was not quite as enthusiastic about the prospect. Too much heat and "been there, done that" for me. So, we stayed in port and came up with other options to enjoy our summer in Europe.

It was good that we were still able to get C.A.R.I.B. III listed for sale, and mind-boggling how quickly it attracted interest and a sales offer. We are currently continuing to work through that process.

Drum roll, please . . . the stats for our short, but sweet, cruise this summer are:

                                  Number of cruising days:    15

                                  Number of engine hours:    65.6

                                  Distance traveled (out and back):    274 km/164.4 miles

                                  Locks:    80

                                  Tunnels:    4

                                  Mobile bridges:    4

                                  Inclined Plane passages:    2

The following graphic shows the altitude changes along the route. The horizontal axis comprises the 274 km distance travelled. It looks like a mirror image given the simple out-and-back-nature of our cruise. 

The smaller "steps" are normal locks spaced at normal distances. The short vertical sections at the
top of the "hills" are our ascent and descent in the deep Rechicourt lock. The flat horizontal
lines are the canal summit. The long vertical lines in the middle reflect our passage on the
 Arzviller Inclined Plane. The steeply slanted lines in the lower center are the 9 closely
 spaced locks between Lutzelbourg and Saverne.

A Week of Ups and Downs

August 17 - 21 was a period of ups and downs for us, and I'm using that description in a literal, geographical sense, not the metaphorical sense meaning life's highs and lows. During our several-days-long trip to areas of Luxembourg north of Luxembourg City, we began to wonder if there was a flat surface anywhere in the country. In Luxembourg, "10,000 steps a day" has a whole new meaning, as it seemed like most of those steps were associated with actual staircases and other changes in elevation. It also translated to the driving experience, where the roads through the Ardennes in the very north and the Mullerthal in the east had switchbacks that made Lon wish he was driving a motorcycle--or his old Porche 914 from his high school days. The experience pointed out the wisdom of doing certain kinds of travel when one is still fit enough to do so. Who needs a fitness club when the day-to-day activities of everyday life constitute a workout?

After considering several options for taking a break for a few days from the shipyard and boat sale prep, we settled on northern Luxembourg as promising an easy journey to-and-from Toul, and interesting and beautiful things to see and do during our stay. We chose to stay in the village of Vianden, tucked along the Our River in the east of Luxembourg, just west of the border with Germany. Only two hours by car from Nancy, its location would make our day trips to neighboring locations short and easy.

Vianden is most known for being the location of a medieval castle built between the 11th and 14th centuries on a rocky spur atop the ruins of a Roman fort and a Carolingian refuge. The castle was the principal residence of the Counts of Vianden until the early 15th century. 

Left: This was one of our first views of the Vianden Castle as we walked from our parked car on the
road above Vianden town center toward our hotel on Aug. 17.
Right: The aspect of the castle that faces the Our River, as seen during our first walk through 
the village.

The castle is today considered to be one of the most beautiful in Europe and one of the finest examples of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. It was not always thus. It had been sold and partially dismantled in the 19th century so that its stones could be used elsewhere. It suffered further damage during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-45, as Vianden sat in the Eislek Region of Luxembourg that was at the center of the fighting. Even as the Battle of the Bulge drew to a close in January 1945, Vianden remained under German occupation for an additional two weeks, and on February 12, 1945, was the last Luxembourg town to be liberated. After ownership of the castle passed from the Grand Ducal family to the Luxembourg State in 1977, restorations began to bring much of the castle back to the appearance it had in medieval times. It's now open to the public for a small admission fee; its galleries host special events; and it has served as a filming location for at least a few movies: Sherlock Holmes (1990, Christopher Lee), Shadow of the Vampire (1999, John Malcovich), and George and the Dragon (2004, Patrick Swayze).

The Vianden Castle prior to restoration.

We took a break from driving on Tuesday, August 18, and spent the day in Vianden. Given the kind of summer it's been weatherwise, it was unusual to start the day with low clouds and off-and-on showers. No complaints from us, however. We started our explorations with a steep walk up to the castle.

Our hotel was situated on the main street of town uphill from the river. At this stage in our
approach to the castle we were even further uphill, with more altitude yet to be gained.

Upper left: entry portal to the castle; Upper right: the summer gallery
Lower left: Knights Hall; Lower right: Archeological crypt.

Medieval Vianden can also be found in the presence of what is left of the defensive ramparts that used to encircle the upper village. Originally there were 24 towers and 5 gates. All of the gates are long gone, but a few of the semi-circular towers remain, and the 17th-century Hockel Tower, built as a watchtower that was capable of being lived in, is now used as a bell tower.

Left: Lon approaches the Hockel Tower and walls of the ramparts. The Vianden Castle can
 be seen at the upper right of the tower.
Right: The Hockel Tower and walls as seen from Vianden Castle.

After a great deal of up-and-down required to see the castle, we decided to cut ourselves some slack and find the "flattest" route we could for an afternoon walk. The skies were still pretty grey, so we grabbed an umbrella and headed for the path alongside the river.

Upper left: the city hall; Upper right: we stayed at the Auberge du Chateau, a small hotel
owned and operated by a lovely couple. Well-placed in the old town and great breakfasts!
Lower left: the dam just outside of town had "reverse grafitti"--faces of dam workers were created
in the algae and soil build-up on the dam face by pressure washing a laser-etched pattern.
Lower right: Saint-Nicolas Church, a 13th century church built by the Order of the Knights
Templar, rebuilt after a fire in the early 18th century.

View of the Our River and the castle from the top of the dam.

After walking back from the dam, we felt brave enough about the weather to risk riding the Vianden chair lift. Aside from a few drops now and then, we stayed dry. Be sure to check any fear of heights at the entry turnstiles.

The Vianden chair lift opened the year that Lon and I were born, so it's been operating for quite 
some time. The lift currently being used is the second-generation model from 2006. The elevation
at the lower end is 220 meters, and it's 440 meters at the top. Left: our view on the way back down. Upper right: the view of the castle and the village from our chair. Lower right: the chair
 lift experience is designed to provide photos of the riders as they approach the upper station.
 Paying a 5-euro fee didn't spare us from the "Visit Vianden" marketing promo inserted into the photo.

Vianden also lays claim to being the residence of Victor Hugo for two months in 1871, a small portion of the multi-year exile that he spent outside of France for denouncing the coup d'etat of Napoleon III.

Upper: Victor Hugo stayed in the building at right, which now contains
a small museum about his life and work.
Lower: a recent sculpture of the author holding some of his famous
literary characters. He was not a master of conversation in this setting.

On Wednesday, August 19, we headed north out of Vianden to try to dodge rain cells that were to the south of Vianden. Our first stop of the day was the town of Clervaux. Clervaux is known for its UNESCO-recognized photographic exhibit displayed in the local castle called "The Family of Man." The theme was a focus on the commonalities of people and cultures around the world. Unfortunately for us, we arrived in Clervaux entirely too early in the day for the exhibit to be open. We weren't interested enough to wait, so we walked around town briefly, then left for our next destination.

Clervaux Castle (right and upper left), whose oldest parts date to the 12th century, was nearly
destroyed during one of the opening engagements of the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. The
post-battle view of the town and the damaged castle is at lower left.

Upper: a Sherman tank that was involved in the Battle of Clervaux is on display in front of the
 castle. Lower: Remembrances of the war. Although the Americans at Clervaux ultimately surrendered
to the Germans, they delayed the Germans long enough to significantly disrupt the German plans
to speedily reach the town of Bastogne.

  

As "Napoleon was here" is to France, so "Victor Hugo was here"
is to Luxembourg, even if only for a short stay.

We arrived in the village of Esch-sur-Sure just in time for lunch, a good thing because we were going to need sustenance for the climbing that awaited us. Esch is a small medieval village situated in a narrow bend of the Sure River, and lays claim to being the home of the ruins of a fortified castle that is among the oldest in Luxembourg. Records of the castle's existence date back to 927. As the weapons of warfare changed, so too did the town's defensive capabilities. In the 15th century, a wall was built around the village. As with the castle in Vianden, the years from the 16th to the 19th centuries were not kind to the castle and village fortifications in Esch, as they became a source of cheap building materials for the people in the surrounding areas. 

Upper left: It was obvious that a good deal of "up" was going to be required
for us to reach the round watchtower above the village. Upper right: we're
not quite sure if the yellow foot was indicative of "walking path for dummies,"
or a remnant of some special event in Esch. Below: the watchtower (left)
on one rocky spur, and the donjon and chapel of the castle (mid and right)
on high ground separate from the watchtower.

A small taste of the physical challenges of the day: upper left: medieval stairway from the
lower town up to the watchtower; upper right: Lon climbing the first set of watchtower stairs;
lower left: Pat climbing the second set of watchtower stairs; lower right: Lon on stairs
leading to the castle.

The castle as viewed from the upper level of the adjacent watchtower.

The watchtower as seen from the castle.

The castle ruins were restored mostly to the extent of stabilizing existing walls. The chapel
(lower left) was rebuilt a bit more extensively. The donjon (tall square building) was
in relatively good shape because it had been used to house local families and therefore
 never dismantled.

Upper: old city walls and a tower incorporated into other buildings.
Lower: another remnant tower, this one freestanding.

We loved the exploration, but did find the climbing to be exhausting. It was no sacrifice to head back to the hotel in Vianden and kick our feet up for the rest of the day. The town got some much-needed rain that evening, but we woke up the following day to cool temperatures and a bright sky. 

Thursday's excursion saw us pointing the car south to the Mullerthal region, known as Luxembourg's Little Switzerland because of having a landscape similar to parts of Switzerland. The area is known for its hiking, and the capital of the region, Echternach, is the oldest town in Luxembourg. We were most interested in hiking on one of the short trails--about 4 km in length--near the town of Berdorf. The entire 112-km Mullerthal Trail would have been a bit much. 

We made a slight diversion on our way to Berdorf so that we could see the castles in the nearby town of Beaufort. There are two in town, a medieval castle in a partial state of ruin and an adjacent 17th century Renaissance residence. One of the draws of the site is that the castle makes a few specialty liqueurs, among them a black current variety called Cassero. Going on a tour through the Renaissance palace on a guided tour includes a small tasting of the liqueur. 

The medieval castle, built between 1050 and 1650.

The 17th-century residence.

Both castles were impressive from the exterior, and while a more extensive visit inside may have been worthwhile, we were somewhat anxious to take advantage of the cooler morning hours to hike the trail out of Berdorf. It was also true that a liqueur tasting at 10 a.m. did not hold a great deal of appeal.

Berdorf is a small town of just over 2,000 inhabitants. It is considered to be the heart of the Mullerthal Region, sitting as it does on a high plateau surrounded by a rocky landscape with numerous hiking trails and a well-known climbing area. We had seen photos of some absolutely stunning rock formations, and were definitely attracted to the idea of quiet, natural seclusion when we decided to do the 4.1-km "B2" circular hike. The scenery didn't disappoint, and the terrain definitely challenged us, but secluded we were not. 

The B2 trail was rather crowded on this August Thursday, probably because 
it was still vacation season. There were lots of families, some with quite
young children; dogs; at least one group of elementary age children and their
accompanying adults; and the usual assortment of singles, couples, and other
small groups. The congestion was worst at the beginning of the hike, then
lessened as the "side hike" options that presented themselves thinned the herd.

We had no complaints about the scenery.

Lon is dwarfed by the rocks.

The B2 is rated as a moderately difficult trail. The variety of ways to go up and down kept us on our toes and we were very happy to have hiking sticks to assist with the trickier passages. And they WERE tricky, which made the fact that a number of quite young children were hiking this trail with their parents all the more amazing.

Upper: stairs and more stairs.
Lower: The Raiberheil cave requires the hiker to duck at the entrance,
which then opens to reveal a ladder "escape route" to the cavern exit at the top.
The photo lower right shows the ladders; at left, Lon is ascending the final ladder.

Left: this rock stairway was very steep and a little slippery from the recent rain. We got a
bit "off" on our trail navigation, so after going up the stairs we found that we needed to turn
 around and go back down--more difficult than "up" because they were so steep.
Right: sometimes a "stairway" was of a more eclectic composition, comprised of
roots, random stones, and the underlying soil.

Left: a narrow (one-person wide) stairway through a cleft in the rocks.
Right: Sometimes nature needs an assist to bridge challenging gaps.

The view during our well-deserved, and much needed, stop for lunch.

We were rather wrung out after our 2.5-3 hours amid the rocks and trees, but we still decided to press on to the town of Echternach. As the oldest town in Luxembourg, it had some interesting history associated with the local abbey and traces of former Roman habitation. 

The route from Berdorf to Echternach, although a short 15-minute drive, continued the
"beautiful rock formations" theme. It was roads like this that had Lon wishing for a motorcycle.

When we got to Echternach we found that even a refreshment stop wasn't enough to give us the energy to explore Echternach in the manner that it deserved. The best we could do, and only because we were parked so close, was to pay a brief visit to the nearby preserved foundations of a Roman villa. The villa was discovered about 50 years ago, during the construction of artificial Lake Echternach. The archeological excavations that ensued dated the villa to around 70 A.D.

The villa was one of the largest in the area of Roman occupation around modern-day Trier, Germany,
 and the center of a wealthy rural estate.

After our active and physical day, we were happy to again be able to kick our feet up for a while in our Vianden hotel room. We went for an early dinner, then packed so as to be ready for a relatively early departure from Vianden, as we had to get the rental car back to Nancy before noon.

On the last night in Vianden I finally managed to stay awake long enough to see the
evening illumination of the castle.