Luxembourg and the Mullertal Trail

Since last Thursday was a Dutch holiday, we took a long weekend and went hiking in Luxembourg on the Mullertal Trail, Route 2. This area of Luxembourg bills itself as little Switzerland, and although it isn’t quite the Alps, it has some gorgeous scenery and amazing rock formations. 

My favorite part of the trail was a crevice called “Déiwepëtz” that we needed a flashlight to navigate, or maybe it was a little waterfall with three chutes and a fairytale bridge. Every step of the way had something different and fascinating.

We hiked the first half of the loop Thursday, stayed at a hotel for the night and hiked the second half back to the car on Friday. Now that’s what I call luxury hiking! It wasn’t possible to split the distance evenly so the hike back was an exhausting 24 km. We stopped in the charming town of Echternach right on the border with Germany for some delicious flammkuchen before driving back to Maastricht. Between Luxembourg City and this hike, I think Luxembourg is certainly an underappreciated gem that most American tourists miss.

Summers in Northern Europe

We’re having several days in a row of incredible summer weather. The clear skies emphasize the delightfully long daylight hours: at 53 degrees north, we now have over 16 hours from Sun up to Sun down. But it’s quite light in the sky before 5am, and still bright past 11pm.

This will be even more striking during our visit to Scotland next month: the trip is close to the solstice and even father north.

-Hendrik

The calm before the vacations

We’ve had a fairly uneventful week. The beginning was sunny so I logged a few bicycle rides home before the weather turned bad. Of course I’m using Hendrik’s Brompton because I haven’t taken mine in to have the tire replaced yet. We’ve had a scientific consultant (a jolly, retired British professor) visiting at work so I’ve been having fun with that but otherwise work hasn’t been great. I like the scientific content but I don’t really enjoy the department culture, many of the coworkers, or the way the management values being a pushy loudmouth over actual scientific contributions. For those who are confused, I am apparently neither loud or pushy enough to fit in here. Crazy, right?

The weather improved again for the weekend. We spent the time relaxing and I did my best to avoid interacting with Dutch people to give myself a break before work again. I wrapped up the last of our vacation planning so now we’re hopefully ready for the storm of vacations that is swirling toward our coasts.

Hansestadt

I made a very brief trip up to the Hansestadt (Hanseatic city) Hamburg to spend some time with my grandmother. We watched some exciting local election results and enjoyed great seafood:

Flying back into Amsterdam from the north, I saw the afsluitdijk from the air:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afsluitdijk
This is the main thing keeping a large part of the country from being submerged by the ocean.

-Hendrik

Climbing in Belgium

My dreams of climbing outdoors came true sooner than expected. Yesterday Mike and I went to Les Rochers Des Grands-Malades in Belgium near Namur. I was a little rusty after not lead climbing for a while which essentially means everything was fine except that I was just even more afraid of heights than usual. Despite that, I am proud to say I climbed well.

I wore good camouflage for this crag.

After climbing, we got some Belgian fries with mayonnaise. I ordered a large which ended up being a huge mistake because they served truly American portions. Mike couldn’t finish the medium so I certainly didn’t stand a chance. It was an excellent after-climbing snack though.

F(l)at Tires and Belgian Beer

On Friday, I attempted to fulfill my Spring resolution by bicycling home from work through Belgium with Michelle. Unfortunately, the gods of broken glass on the bike path had different plans for me and I got a flat tire only about 5 miles into the ride, just after crossing the Belgian border. Luckily for us, the lovely Cafe Ponderosa was nearby so we could have Belgian beer and cake while we waited for another friend to drive over and rescue us. Good thing we had folding bicycles that would easily fit in the car trunk. Disaster was averted with only the slight lingering disappointment of being foiled again in my attempts to exercise.

Climbing in the Netherlands

I know, it sounds like a joke! The highest point in the entire country is only 1059 feet above sea level so there aren’t exactly very many cliffs to climb here. I keep myself busy climbing at the Ivy Climbing Gym in Sittard (a town near work). Some of the routes are actually pretty long; it has taller walls than most gyms I climbed at in the US.

 

Getting used to the different grading systems for routes is kind of confusing. Rather, it is straightforward (bigger numbers = harder routes) until I try to compare it (French) against the grading system used in the US (Yosemite Decimal System).  Every comparison chart I find has slightly different correspondence, but this one seems mostly accurate. My most recent accomplishment was completing a 6b with an overhang!

Now the days are getting long and the weather is getting warm so hopefully I’ll find some opportunities to climb outside in Belgium or maybe Germany soon.

Nancy the Travel Blogger: The Izy

If you need to get between Paris and Brussels, there are a couple of options for high speed trains. One is the Thalys (and actually so far I have used this one), but if you are traveling on a budget and don’t mind maybe having to stand) may I present the Izy train.

It doesn’t run that frequently and it gets booked up quickly but at €19 each way, who can argue? 

Gil and Rikka took it too visit us last weekend and they said it worked great. If we end up going to Paris again, we’ll have to give it a try. After all, I still need to see the L’Orangerie museum.

Die Burgen von Burgund

Our Parisian visitors brought a wonderful board game with them: Die Burgen von Burgund (the castles of Burgundy). We had played previously in Paris, and were delighted that they brought it with them.

Each player builds a medieval city, complete with farms, towers, and peasants. That’s how we spent Sunday morning (that and eating an enormous breakfast).

It’s a very well-made game with a lot of subtlety. My strategy of cows and silver mines was ultimately unsuccessful.

-Hendrik

Bromptoning through the Tulips

Last weekend, Gil and Rikka came to visit from Paris and we went for a bicycle ride through the tulip fields in the North. We borrowed two Brompton folding bicycles so we were all riding matching bicycles. I plotted an ambitious course that started North of Leiden, and then went past the Keukenhof Garden, which was swarming with tourists, up past Haarlem, over to Zandvoort and the North Sea, where we dabbled our toes in the icy water, back down through the sand dunes, and then back through the tulip fields again. About 60 km in total so it almost makes up for not cycling home at all last week.

It is nearing the end of tulip season but there were still quite a few impressive fields in bloom. We also saw windmills, little lambs, swans sitting on nests, and tons of canals. Bromptoning through the tulips seems like a tradition worthy of keeping!