Category Archives: Driving in Europe

Stuttgart, Germany to Mulhouse, France

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Day 44     Monday, October 13, 2025

First stop on our way to Mulhouse is a pretty little town called Esslingen.  At first sight we thought this was a real person!

Our Airbnb in Stuttgart had a calendar with almost this exact photo.  It was the impetus to visiting Esslingen.

Autumn has definitely arrived.  I love walking through the fallen leaves.

We walked into this church because its doors were so interesting,

I didn’t record the name of this church, but it had a very austere dark interior……but the area to light candles was small and intimate and appealed to me.  We lit a candle for all our family members and friends who are facing health challenges right now, and spent a few moments in silent contemplation.

Back outside, we see Esslinger Castle in the distance. But this castle isn’t actually a castle, it is a well-preserved part of the medieval city fortifications, located high above the city centre. Originally expanded in the 13th century, it was reinforced in the 16th century with walls up to 5 meters thick. We can see people up there but we don’t have time to go and explore. Travel days don’t allow for in depth exploration and only give us a chance for brief visits to sites along the way.

One thing I love about European cities and towns are the unexpected little things, like the face on this wall. There is always something interesting and different to discover.

We pass this road construction site. I think they were replacing some pipes.  All the little stones from the cobbled sidewalks and streets are piled up and then relaid in the pattern that matches the rest of the in place stones.  Very labour intensive, but such a wonderful final result.

Built in 1423 as a sales hall and tax house this building is the Old Esslingen Town Hall. We were hoping to hear the Glockenspiel and see the figures on the clock move but later discovered that only happens five times a day. We are out of luck.

The cobbled streets are lined with ancient timbered houses…

…and there are canals here too.  We could have piloted our own electric boat for a trip on the canals but they stopped operating the end of September.

The town is surrounded by vineyards.

I thought this house was particularly spectacular. It is dated 1531!

As we are leaving Esslingen I quickly snap this photo from the car window!  I just googled it and dick means thick in German, but also discovered that F. Dick is a German cutlery manufacturer that owns this smokestack…too funny!

Next stop is Baden Baden. We spent some time in Baden Baden a long time ago so we thought we should stop there for a visit. There are flowers everywhere, but bathrooms are few and far between!  We spent 45 minutes trying to find a bathroom. Using Google maps we walked several blocks to where there was a WC…but we couldn’t find it. Turns out it was in a parking garage and both of us walked right past the doors to the washroom twice without seeing them! They were on either side of the of the parking payment machine with a tiny sign on each door!

I love how people have tiny potted gardens on their window ledges or on the street beside their doors. 

Baden Baden has a lot of very high end shops.  This watch is priced at €15,500…no prices on the others. I presume they are even more expensive.  We also see small diamond earring studs that range from €399 to €820 and there were no clothing items on display in the shop windows below €100!  A bit too pricey for us, but it is fun to window shop.

Loved this stork fountain!

This is the Baden Baden Casino.  Bob thought we could go in and tryout luck but men must wear a suit jacket and tie.  We wouldn’t be allowed in with our jeans and casual sweaters.

The drive from Baden Baden to Mulhouse in France was interesting.  I see these strange structures on Google maps while navigating…turns out they are huge shopping malls with parking on the roofs of the buildings.

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Just a few kilometres down the road I see this huge truck rest stop on Google maps. I count 86 trucks stopped for a break! Bob’s biggest complaint about driving in Europe is all the trucks on the roads. The right lane is one truck after another and when a truck pulls into the car lane to pass a slower moving one all the cars have to slow down until it manages to pass and get back into the truck lane.  

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Remember the German highway speed limit is usually 130 km and often there is no speed limit so a truck pulling into your lane at 90 km is actually quite dangerous.  Bob does enjoy the chance to drive at 156 km/h though!

We get caught in traffic for almost half an hour, moving just a car length at a time.  We finally figure out why. This huge boat was trying to move through a rather small covered bridge so all traffic was stopped during this operation.  Notice our speed now…1.6 km/h!

We arrived just in time to meet our Airbnb host, but our planned stop for groceries has to wait for another day.

Frankfurt to Stuttgart, Germany

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Day 37     Monday, October 6, 2025

On our drive to Stuttgart we stop at Worms, Germany. Worms is pronounced Vurmz. We passed through this huge gate on the bridge over the Rhine River.

We find a place to park on the street but have to move to a parkade because the street machine won’t take our euros…big surprise!  St Peter’s Cathedral is our first stop but we can’t find the door to get inside!  

In our walk around the church I see steps leading into what looked like a private area, but I take a look anyways and it is actually a public garden so we go inside. When I see something like this I am so curious. I wonder what it is, why it is there and where does it lead to?

Turns out this garden marks the location where Martin Luther refused to recant his beliefs at the Diet of Worms in 1521. This was the beginning of the Protestant Church and its split from the Catholic Church. These large bronze shoes in Worms’ Heylshof Park shoes are part of a 2017 memorial sculpture, which allows visitors to symbolically “step into Luther’s shoes” at the spot where he stood and defended his doctrines.

 A ‘Diet’ was an assembly or meeting of authorities to make decisions on important matters. The Diet of Worms of 1521 was convened to determine how political and religious authorities should respond to Martin Luther’s teachings. Because the Diet was held in Worms, it is know as the Diet of Worms which still makes me smile because of course I think of eating worms.

We leave the garden and go back to the church, passing a kindergarten with this colourful mosaic mural.

St Peters Cathedral is another cathedral that escaped destruction during the war.  Curious, I did a bit of of research and learned that the high belltowers and steeples of cathedrals were used by the Allies as navigational landmarks and that sometimes military planners made conscious efforts to protect major cultural and religious sites. So perhaps not divine intervention after all?

We do finally find small side door that allows us entrance to the church. There is an art display in the cathedral by a group called Atelierblau.  There are some really interesting pieces. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the names of the artists or the works they created. Here are a few of them.

The sign on the trunk reads “A thousand roses for a thousand lives”.

There are several large sculptural pieces that are from the church cloister.  I think they were placed inside the church as a method of keeping them safe from damage.

Built with red sandstone between the years 1130 and 1181, the church has a relatively simple interior……except for the choir and altar.
Bob noticed a side entrance to the crypt which contains the tombs of early rulers from 990 to 1040 AD.
Outside I see what appears to be ancient graffiti.

This fountain is at the end of part of the old town wall.

More graffiti, only on a tree this time.

This little bird sculpture with its huge beak, ragged wings and stubby body caught our eye…we both really liked it.

The Luther Monument is a group of statues. Martin Luther stands surrounded by bronze statues of the individuals that supported him. Plaques of the towns that supported Luther and the Protestant Reformation are placed on the walls of the monument.

This monument is in a lovely park near the Cathedral. There is a model of the statue with information in Braille, which was unique.
Back on the road I finally manage to get a photo of the Ausfahrt sign…which simply means Exit. I remember that we found this quite hilarious on our first trip to Germany with our daughter many years ago.

Next stop is Heidelberg where we are going to visit Heidelberg Castle that Bob says is like Versailles. We have a hard time finding the entrance to the funicular, even using Google Maps!  Finally I notice a small picture of a train on the wall of what looks like the entrance to a mall…we only walked past it two times! The part of the journey we take is all underground.

We walk to the castle but all we see is ruins…turns out Bob mixed up his castles!  It is fine though as this looks interesting anyways.  There is an in depth tour through the ruins in an hour and a half but we decide to just wander and see what we can.  This gate was built in one night by King Frederick V for his wife as a birthday present.

Our funicular ticket gives us access to the courtyard, the German Pharmacy Museum, and the Big Wine Barrel.  We walk through the gate to the courtyard…

…and we are greeted with views of the ruins of what must have been a very impressive castle

Walking through the doorway in the above photo we arrive on a huge balcony overlooking the Rhine River with views of Heidelberg below.A view of the ruins as seen from the balcony.

It is cold out so we go inside to see the Big Wine Barrel.  It is pretty impressive and I take this photo and then walk around the corner while Bob is inspecting the barrel. I come back and tell him “You need to come and see the BIG Wine Barrel!

Here it is!

This wine barrel held 220,000 liters of wine. The stairs I am standing on lead to a platform above the barrel that was likely used as a dance floor! 

Last stop is the German Apothecary Museum. It is warm inside, which I really appreciate.  Aspirin was a commercially sold product in 1889. 

This chest of homeopathic medicines from 1890 contains 312 vials of homeopathic remedies.

What is it about chests with lots of little drawers that I find so appealing?

Of course, ground unicorn horns were in big demand as a cure for ailments such as fever, plaque, poisoning convulsions and epilepsy! Unicorn horns were just long tusks from narwhals or other animals but they were an expensive medication reserved for royalty and the very rich.

An early distillery…

…bunsen burners and a telescope from 1780.We had such a hard time finding the entrance to the funicular and wondered where this castle was located…well, on our way back to the parkade I Iooked up…and there it was!  We both laughed, but then we couldn’t find the entrance to the parkade!  We looked everywhere and finally walked down the out ramp, and there was the door to the exit.  We checked it out and the stairs outside were right beside the ramp we just walked down…no sign or markers though!

Back on the road to stuttgart…and it is raining again.

Frankfurt, Germany

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Day 33     Thursday, October 2, 2025

We take a train into Frankfurt.  Once we had our tickets it was easy but once again we had problems using one of our credit cards.  This trip has been a challenge with credit card, debit card and cell phone issues.  I am beginning to think we are jinxed!  It is so good to be traveling together. I think if either of us were trying to sort out these problems on our own it would be much more difficult. The saga continues as we find the Hertz car rental company in the train station.  This trip we are told we need to extend our car rental contract every 30 days by simply checking in to any Hertz office.  Well, it turns out that a Hertz office in Germany cannot extend  contracts that was signed in another country. Sorting this out takes more than an hour and we are still not sure it actually will be taken care of.  We will see.

We walk down the street across from the train station. I am struck by the contrast between the old and the modern buildings.  I should have paid a bit more attention to the signs on the storefronts.

After a man and his lady friend propositioned me we noticed that we were walking through the red-light district!  We had a bit of a chuckle!

Nearly 70% of Frankfurt was destroyed during the Second World War but many of the buildings look older than they actually are.

There were four of these massive sculptures supporting the bridge across the street in the above photo.

In1405, two houses were joined together to make Frankfurt’s City Hall. It is a striking building.

Saturday is a popular day to get married and there is a steady parade of weddings taking place. The bridal couple and their guests wait outside for their turn to be married. It seems strange to me but is perfectly normal here.

We have our picnic lunch on the banks of the Rhine River and then visit this pedestrian bridge. ‘Love locks’ are covering this bridge.  I suspect that before long authorities will have to remove these locks before their weight begins to damage the bridge because of their weight like the bridge in Paris that was covered with locks.

Saint Bartholomew Cathedral is the only church in Frankfurt that survived the bombing of WWII.  Divine intervention?

As we enter the church we see this group of sculptures depicting Christ being crucified on Calvary Hill.  

The cathedral was built in the Gothic style between 1315 and 1358, but suffered a fire in 1867 and then the bombing of Frankfurt in 1944. The reconstruction after these events changed parts of the church. Today it is a hall church with three naves.  The cathedral’s organ is impressive and has a different layout of pipes.

I saw two priests walking out of the church and hurried to take a photo.  They look like they belong in another age and appear very intense.

The cathedral’s bell tower has survived from the 15th century and we are climbing it. This is the view from about halfway up the 66 meter high tower.

We are above the gargoyles.

I will admit that I needed to stop and rest a few times as we climbed 328 steps to the viewing platform, although there were people much younger than me were who huffing and puffing more than I was!  We had a spectacular view of Frankfurt.

Some views from the tower.

We walk around the platform several times.  I wasn’t going to climb all those steps for one quick tour around the tower!

We begin our descent of those 328 steps.  I am very thankful that they are solid stone and I don’t have to contend with see-through wire steps, specially as this is the only staircase to access the tower. We have to squeeze to the side when people pass us their way up the stairs.  

The view through a glass window in the stairwell.

This is the tower…

and here is the viewing platform above the clock! If you look closely you can see the platform railings.

Next we visit the indoor market. I am so tempted to buy some flowers.

Edelweiss and Gentians, two of my favourite flowers.

Everything is so colourful and looks delicious.

Produce doesn’t look this appealing at home.

The leeks are enormous!  We buy some pastry for a snack and I even find a slice of yummy gluten free apple cake.

Heading back to the train station we do a bit of window shopping.  We don’t buy souvenirs as a rule.  It is just too difficult to carry purchases around during an extended trip.

These characters made us laugh. This store carried some interesting merchandise.

I am always kind of shocked to see semi-automatic weapons and other guns on display in store windows!  

In front of the train station this group of friends are all wearing Lederhosen.  I think it was for some special event as they were taking photos of themselves.

Back to the train station to head home.  Another full day!

Fontoy, France to Frankfurt, Germany

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Day 30    Monday, September 29, 2025

Today is a travel day to Frankfurt Germany and we have been travelling for month already. Bob says we have to stop and see another Eiffel Tower along the way but it is not quite as impressive as the one in Paris!

We had no idea that this is wine country.  There are vineyards on both sides of the road as far as we can see.

The hills around each town we pass are all growing row after row of grapes.  We see the odd group harvesting grapes but the main harvest occurred earlier this month.

We stop in Trier and have our picnic lunch on a bench with this view.

The breeze blew water spray and made a rainbow just as I took this photo.

This foot of Emperor Constantine is a replica of one of the largest marble foots to have survived since antiquity. It was part of a 12 metre high seated statue of Constantine.

The Roman Baths are considered to be the largest Roman baths outside of Rome. 

The ruins are impressive!

We are able to walk through the underground tunnels that would have been used as a service level for the maintenance of the bath’s heating system. This is the entrance to the tunnels.

There was a group of schoolchildren ahead of us…probably the loudest group we have encountered on our travels! We took a side tunnel to avoid walking behind them. There are a maze of tunnels and we are free to explore as we wish. That is Bob peeking around the bend in the tunnel.

We do get a bit lost down here, but it was a lot of fun exploring these interesting tunnels.

Which way should we go!

This photo shows the size of the original baths, although they were never actually completed. The ruins of today are superimposed on the original baths.

The ruins are impressive, but they are only half the height of the original structure! We pass this lovely garden on the way to visit Trier’s cathedral.

Photos really do not show how beautiful and enormous the trees are. I wish we were able to grow trees this large back home. These trees wouldn’t survive our colder climate.

Trier Cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the oldest cathedral in Germany. Construction started in the 4th century and it was built upon the foundations of ancient Roman structures.

And yes, the inside of the cathedral is very impressive.

It has one of the most ornate organs we have seen… and many huge sculptures with multiple figures. We walk up these stairs for a view of the nave. This beautiful blue and white Baroque stucco work decorates the choir loft of the Cathedral. It is stunning and unusual. This is the first time we have seen anything like this in a cathedral.

We pass this building on the way to the Nigra Gate. There are many ornately decorated buildings in Trier.

I love watching the bubble makers, and the children trying to catch the bubbles. This fellow made huge bubbles…

and lots of smaller bubbles.  I would love to know how to do this.

At the end of the street we can see the Nigra Gate, another UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Porta Nigra, or Black Gate, is the largest Roman gate in Northern Europe.  It was part of the defensive walls and gates that surrounded Trier in 200AD. It is  incredibly well preserved, especially when you consider that it was completed around 200AD, and it almost two thousand years old!

We pay 6€ each to climb inside the gate. This ‘window’ has a pile of coins, perhaps people making a wish?

A view inside the gate.

We can see the Trier Cathedral from the second level of the gate.

Grafiti has been around for a long time.  Some of the dates on the walls are hundreds of years old.  I do really hate this practice of defacing monuments.

There is Bob, I sent him down to the street so he could take a photo of me in one of the gate arches.

Here I am.These carved decorations are still in remarkably good condition.

Walking back to our car we stop for a photo of the Electoral Palace. We had our lunch in its beautiful gardens which have many white statues and small ponds.

Another gorgeous tree.

The clouds are moving in on our drive home.

Big black ominous clouds.

We arrive at our Airbnb in Frankfurt. It is smaller than our last place but cozy and has everything we need.

Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

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Day 28     Saturday, September 27, 2025

We drive a half hour to a free parking lot on the outskirts of Luxembourg city, then catch a bus to the downtown area. We should have realized something was wrong when we passed this interesting looking tower…we saw it when we drove to the parking lot. So…we caught the bus going the wrong way and ended up at different  parking lot on the outskirts of the city! The bus driver told us where to get the tram we now need to use to get into the city.  Luckily all the public transportation in Luxembourg is free!

We pass this renovation site on the way to downtown. I am impressed that buildings are almost always repaired, not demolished.

Walking downtown we pass a Cartier store. The necklace is ‘only’ 191,000€, the two bracelets are 26,900€ and 36,200€ and the ring is 113,000€…just a wee bit out of my price range!

We find a Post Office to buy stamps. While we are writing on the postcards, my purse falls down between the counter and the wall…a narrow space less than a foot wide!  I have to ask the security guard to come help. Even though his arms are much longer than mine  he is just barely able to reach my purse.  My phone fell out when he pulled my purse up but luckily it is on a cord attached to my purse so it didn’t fall to the bottom of the space behind the counter!

There is a big park downtown, at the base of high cliffs.

Yes, another church! The cathedral “Notre-Dame” of Luxembourg was built between 1613 and 1621 by the Jesuits. The stained glass windows make a stunning backdrop for the altar.

There are many paintings and tapestries in this cathedral, and the stone pillars are decorated with intricate carving.

I look up and there are paintings on the ceiling high above the nave.

We pass the National Monument in Memory of the Victims of the Shoah in Luxembourg (1940-1945). The monument was inaugurated on 17 June 2018. It is named after the Kaddish, one of the most famous Jewish prayers recited as part of mourning rituals in Judaism.

Luxembourg City has an upper plateau, which contains the historic Old Town, and a lower valley known as Grund. This area is home to some of the oldest and most picturesque buildings in the city, dating back to the 14th century. Take notice of the suspended platform on the right of this photo.

People are dining in the sky! I am not sure why anyone would want to do this. It does not appeal to me in the least, but for 325€ per person you can have lunch prepared by Michelin chefs 50 meters high above the ground!

We were in Luxembourg 46 years ago, but all I can remember is looking down from high walls onto the city, like we are doing here.

We take an elevator down to the lower part of town and cross a bridge on our way to the Natural History Museum.

I would not want to be a bus driver here, the streets are very narrow.  

We see our first halloween decorations.

The current St. John the Baptist church dates back to the 17″ century. Its rich Baroque furnishings are not its original ones, they were taken from other churches during the period after the French Revolution!

In the valley looking up at the upper city.

As we enter the Natural History Museum I am startled by the man sitting on the red couch.  From a distance I thought he was a real person.

It isn’t a big museum and after a quick look around I find a spot with a chair to sit and draw while Bob explores the rest of the museum.

This room is a hodge lodge of stuffed animals…some look old and a bit worse for wear.

Bob discovered an interesting fact about hedge hogs. “The European hedgehog is a nocturnal animal that is easy to recognize by its many spines. When faced with danger, it can curl up and form a “prickly ball”. Its luxembourgish name”Keisécker” (“cow sucker”) originates from a legend that hedgehogs sucked milk during the night from cow udders. Obviously this is not true as hedgehogs suffer from a lactose intolerance.” On our walk to the bus we stop for another look down into one of the garden areas below the walls.

We caught the right bus back to our car but getting out of the parking lot was another thing!  Thank heavens for Google maps!  We might still be driving in circles trying to get back onto the highway!

We see four nuclear power plants on the way home. They always give me an eerie feeling. I wouldn’t want to be living anywhere near one of these.

It is getting dark on the drive home but we are treated to a lovely sunset.

Fontoy, France

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Day 26     Thursday, September 25, 2025

Another quiet day, but I do venture out. We drive 15 minutes to a nearby town to do a bigger grocery shop. The store Bob has been going to in Fontoy is limited so we are going to a big E.Leclerc grocery store.

Traffic circles often have interesting displays in their centres.  This one has flags from many European countries.  There are a lot of traffic circles of all sizes in France and Belgium!

After 1 1/2 hours shopping we spend €104 for two big bags of groceries, which seems fairly reasonable. This  store is huge and it takes a while to find all the items on our list. Heading home, the countryside is pretty but it is cloudy and still raining on and off.

This is just down the street from our apartment, which happens to be right beside train tracks!  Luckily the windows are very soundproof and we barely hear the trains at all.

The plan is to drive to Metz tomorrow. There are a couple museums we want to visit.

Brussels to Fontoy, France

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Day 23     Monday, September 22, 2025

We are driving to Fontoy, France but we have a couple of stops planned on the way.  The first stop is Dinant where we visit a cave called La Grotte la Marveilleuse, or The Wonderful Cave. We are given a brief description of the route we will be taking inside the cave as it is self-guided. We walk down several flights of stairs and are surprised how big the cave is and the variety of formations we see.

Some of them are very impressive. There are some rather large stalagmites

This white limestone formation is called The Glacier. There are stalactites of all sizes hanging from the roof and walls of the cave.
The interesting thing is that this is actually a living cave.  There is water dripping from stalactites and landing on stalagmites. It takes centuries for these formations to show appreciable growth…only about 10 centimetres over a thousand years!
This is the biggest cavern, called the Grande Salle. The railings look like wood but they are actually made of reinforced concrete made to like tree branches.

Even with the little bit of light from this small bulb moss starts to grow.

More stalagmites and stalactites.

This cave was discovered in 1904 by workmen making a road. They uncovered a small cavern, and reported their find to the land owners.  Realizing the tourist potential of this discovery, the owners added electricity and gradually the railings and stairs. In 1934 a long tunnel was constructed that connected the cave to another exit so that visitors did not have to retrace their steps to leave the cave.  During the Second World War 300 townspeople hid in this tunnel to escape the Germans.   We are 95 meters below the surface!
At the end of the tunnel we climbed this long stairway with 120 steps to the exit.  There are about 350 stairs to climb on the whole tour along with many long downward sloping walkways. We enjoyed our tour of this cave. It is strange to think that we were so far underground and neither of us felt at all claustrophobic.

Dinant is an interesting little town, situated along both banks of this river.  It is also where Alphonso Sax invented the saxophone in 1840.

The Citadel high above the town looks interesting but we don’t have time for a visit. Back on the road headed towards Rocheport.

We drive over this pretty bridge and find a spot to park for tea and cookies in Rocheport and then we go for a little walk before heading towards our next Airbnb at Fontoy, France.

Every town, no matter how small, has a church, but this is the first church I remember seeing that has flower baskets by the entrance door.  

This is a an interesting building. We think it might be a single family dwelling as there is only one house number on the building.

This strange statue is of a popular Belgium comedian, Raymond Devos (1922 – 2006) who is supposed to be popping out of a box, like a Jack in the box.  I thought that he had his feet in a cement block, like gansters used!

I liked the flowers at this intersection but then we see the poster below showing the damage to this area on Christmas Day 1944.

I loved the colours of these leaves. We see a truck with beautiful ochre coloured sand and then peek inside this building under renovation to see what it is being used for.  Not exactly a do-it-yourself job!
The doorway that we looked into is right next to this house with the gorgeous red geraniums.

It is rush hour and there are ‘Deviations’ which mean detours and lots of traffic.  We count 153 trucks in a row that are not moving at all on the highway.  Thankfully they are not going in our direction!

We see these huge crosses along the highway near the end of our trip, but I am unable to find any information about them.

Waterloo, Belgium and the Defeat of Napoleon

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Day 19     Thursday, September 18, 2025

We are on the road by 10:00, heading to Waterloo which is the site of the famous Battle that ended Napoleon’s French Empire. The roads can be challenging to drive. Many are fairly narrow and today we share the road with trolley cars, automobiles, trucks, motorcyclists and bicyclists! There is a lot to pay attention to and Bob its doing an amazing job driving.  I am usually a good navigator but I didn’t have the best night and today we get to Waterloo in spite of my navigating!! The Wellington Museum was easy to find and there was free parking nearby.  The museum is located in the building that the British Duke of Wellington used as his headquarters when he defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in1815.  The soldiers uniforms displayed are, from left to right, the French Carabiniers, the British Light Dragoons and the British 8th Hussars.

The museum has a room with weapons used during the Battle of Waterloo.

A lot of artwork, paintings and information about the battle and even the death mask of Napoleon which I find rather unsettling.

The French troops had to forage to survive, and many soldiers died of disease, malnutrition and exhaustion brought on by the extremely difficult conditions they endured.  Meanwhile the French generals travelled with dining sets that included items like crystal containers and silver and gold plated egg cups and spoons!

Soldiers were treated by amputating injured limbs to prevent gangrene. This is a typical surgeons kit for amputations which were performed quickly without anaesthetic and in five minutes. The saws and other medical equipment were not cleaned between patients so the post operative mortality rate was very high.

If you survived the amputation and had enough money your prosthetic leg could look like this.  I imagine most common soldiers made do with some sort of simple wooden peg leg.

We cross a patio to enter another part of the museum and are surprised to find a huge Playmobile exhibition titled ‘A History of Empires’.  There are 16 display cases, each depicting a different time in history.

The war between Julius Caesar and the Gauls in 54 B.C. Rome’s first race course built in 599 B.C.

A naval Battle but I don’t remember which one.

The Roman Coliseum. We really enjoyed this unusual exhibit and marvelled at the thousands and thousands of Playmobile figures and accessories that were used to create these dioramas. This very old St. Joseph Church from 1690 is right across the street so we had a look.

The area under the dome is huge and the church itself has large columns on either side of the nave. We have visited many churches and Cathedrals on our travels, but they are all so different from one another.  

The road in front of the Church is cobble-stoned and we can see the depressions in the road made over the years by cart wheels.

I adore these white and pink small daisy-like flowers.  No idea what they are called but wish we could grow them back home.

Next we drive to ‘The Lion’s Mound’ which is located at the site of the Waterloo Battle. This earthen cone is 169 m in diameter and 41 m high. An enormous lion, 4.50 m long, 4.45 m high and weighing 28 tons is located on the top of the mound.

It symbolizes the victory of the monarchies; its open mouth is turned towards France, defeated; its paw resting on the terrestrial globe represents the peace that Europe has won. Bob went for a walk all the way around the  mound but I was tired and it was cold and windy so I stayed in the car. We hit rush hour on the way home. I am so glad I am not driving!

Driving to Belgium

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Day 16    Monday, September 15, 2025

Today we drive to our next location in Brussels. We stop on the way to visit a zoo in Lille, France. It isn’t a very big zoo but we are surprised that senior admission is only €3!

They have a lot of interesting birds. Clockwise… Blue Winged Kookaburra, Helmeted Curassow, Masked Lapwing, Rainbow Lorakeet.

This Crested Partridge seems to like Bob’s whistling.

The Prevost Squirrel lives in tropical forests.  Several of these squirrels are very busy running up and down all the branches in their enclosure. They look like they are playing.

Who doesn’t love Meerkats?  They certainly seem to love each other!

These two huge tapirs share their enclosure…

…with two of these beautiful Maned Wolves from the South American Savannah. They are not in fact related to wolves or foxes. They are their own genus.

This Siamang uses its feet and hands to get at their food.

These are White Pelicans. I am reminded of the time years ago I sat and drew one of these beautiful birds in the Greek Islands. The bird I drew was quite tame and hung about near the fishing wharf. I sat about three feet away from this enormous creature and spent a lovely hour or so drawing him. The locals gave him a name, which I don’t remember, but he was definitely a male.

The last enclosure is a large aviary for tropical birds. These Scarlet Ibis are so colourful and a bit comical with their very long beaks.

Darn, I forgot to take a photo of the information for these birds, except for the Cariama Huppé which is the brown one with feathers on his beak.

After the zoo we head towards the Citadel but unlike the one Bob visited in Arras, this citadel is still in use by the military.

The Lille Citadel is the headquarters for the Rapid Reaction Corps-France.  This is a high-level,   deployable operational unit for the French Army and a NATO-certified force. This unit comprises around 450 soldiers from 14 allied nations.

The white area of the Citadel is used by the military but the surrounding areas have been converted to parkland for the use of the public.

On our way back to the car there is a field with wild flowers.  I am surprised at how many wildflowers I see this late in the year.

Some of the bushes and trees are starting to turn colour.

There is a huge fair setting up next to the parking lot. Too bad we aren’t staying longer.

The weather is all over the place today. Sunny and warn one minute and then cloudy, very windy and rainy the next.  On our drive to Brussels we see a lot of wind turbines.  Many of them are really close to the road. They are so big!Everything was going well until we got close to a town called Tournai. Our route was supposed to take the yellow road that on this map ends in a no entry sign.  Instead we got detoured down the N50 which looked like we would still be OK but we weren’t. We were detoured onto the southbound lane of the highway which had a barrier to allow half of the road to be used for northbound traffic so it was impossible to make an exit left or right!  We had to keep driving..in the wrong direction …until we could get off the detoured road. We then rerouted our map to get to Brussels only to hit more detours, and then Google maps froze!..and Bob is asking me which way to go!!  We find a place to pull over and figure out a work around which means going in the wrong direction again until we get to a place called Mons, where we should be able to take a completely different road to Brussels. That did work but we hit at least four more construction zones where we were detoured again…only this time we kept going in the right direction. Needless to say we were both very happy to finally arrive in Brussels and check in to our Aibnb.

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Driving to Arras

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Day 9.    Monday, September 8, 2025

Arras is only185 km from Paris but we like to stop and see sights along the way. I am navigating and I see this beside our road on Google maps.  I have no idea what it is!

When I zoom in, I realize that this is a gigantic car park!  A bit of Googling and we discover it is a carpark covering more than 28 hectares and containing more than 22,000 new vehicles!  

We arrive at Beauvais to visit its Cathedral but the first order of business is finding a bathroom…not always an easy task.  Then we walk through a huge square towards a carousel.  European carousels always remind me of a trip we made 46 years ago when our oldest daughter was only four years old.  We stopped for rides at every carousel we saw!  Travelling with Sue is similar, she squeaked and squawked until we let her have a ride!

The Beauvais Cathedral was completed in 1272.     

The cathedral was damaged during the Second World War but remained standing and was restored after the war.   The inside soars high above our heads and the light streams through the stained glass windows.Many of the pillars are still decorated with intricate painting.

The centre of the church is under renovation so we are only allowed to walk around the aisles and ambulatory behind the altar.  Bob is dwarfed by the tall pillars.

I take a photo of the altar by putting my phone through the grating in the above photo.Bob took this photo with this light shining through the stained glass windows into this side chapel.

This “clock was built between 1865 and 1868 by Auguste-Lucien Vérité.  It is 12 metres high, and 6 metres wide. The 52 dials display the times of the rising and setting sun and moon, the position of the planets, the current time in 18 cities around the world, and the tidal times.” ~Wikipedia  We wait for it to turn 3:00 but not a lot happened other than three chimes and a few areas of the clock lighting up.

“In the 1990s, the choir started to become very unstable. In some places, the pillars had moved more than 30cm. The north transept had four large wood-and-steel lateral trusses at different heights, installed to keep it from collapsing.

Since 2000, scaffolding has been continually put up around the cathedral to overcome these problems. Also, the main floor of the transept is punctuated by a much larger brace that juts out of the floor at a 45-degree angle. It was placed as an emergency measure to give additional support to the pillars in an effort to stave off any further movement. Presently, Columbia University is performing a study on a three-dimensional model using laser scans of the building in an attempt to pinpoint where the weaknesses are greatest to see what further can be done to shore up the building.” ~Frenchmoments.ca

We take the smaller highways from Beauvais to Arras instead of the toll highway and see this Sommes cemetery.  This is the information plaque.  It is hard to comprehend that over a million soldiers were killed here.  I think that ghosts must walk these fields.

The headstones seem to stretch forever and so many of these young men were never able to be identified.  They are only “Known Unto God”.

I think it is important to visit these cemeteries and honour those who have died but they are  difficult and emotional visits.

We continue our drive and arrive in Arras at 6:00 to meet our host for our Airbnb.