Tag Archives: Vacation

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

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Day 29     Sunday, September 28, 2025

Bob found a free zoo in the countryside not far from us.  Cities and museums are interesting but after a while we both need a change of pace. It is a sunny today and we are both ready for a more relaxing day.  Every time we pass this crosswalk Bob mistakes these signs for real children.  Perhaps they are a bit too lifelike?

On our drive we see these cement pillboxes, remnants of the First World War.  There are reminders of both the World Wars all over Europe, in cities, towns and the countryside. These reminders are a part of everyday life and make the wars seem not so distant. At home in Canada, it seems like we think about the world wars in November on Remembrance Day.  Here I am thinking about them much more often.

On the way to the zoo we stop at a place just off the highway where people go rock climbing.There is no hint that these cliffs are a couple minutes walk from the road.

We hear voices, and walk around a corner to see a group of people rock climbing.

We sit on a big rock and watch for a while.  I am amazed a the strength these climbers have in their fingers and toes.  Of course they are strong overall, but so much relies on their fingers and toes finding the right nooks and crannies and supporting the climber’s weight as they slowly make their way up the rock face. It is amazing to watch them. We never had a chance to try anything like this when we were younger and I think it is a bit too late to begin now.  

One young couple went over to another rock face to climb. We heard a crash and I saw this climber fall from a height of about 3 meters, maybe more. He looked like he was free climbing as we didn’t see any rope. He lay on the ground not moving for a long time, then finally was able to sit up with help. He was carried over to a chair and I chatted with him as we left.  He said several times that he was very lucky. He hurt his ankle but he didn’t think that it was broken. We wished him luck. I’m sure he will be black and blue and very sore as he fell sideways and landed on the full length of his body. It was scary to watch it happen.

We walked a bit further and saw this woman climbing…she was impressive!  She was climbing much higher than the first people we watched. In no time she managed to climb onto and over the outcropping of rocks just above her in this photo.  Her husband was her belayer and their two children were watching.  They had rock climbing harnesses as well. the boy ran up to us to welcome us to their spot, laughing and giggling the whole time with his sister.

She is so strong!  It was pretty incredible to watch her maneuver her way up a sheer rock face. I could have stayed even longer but we want to get to the zoo, so we head back to our car.

The Escher Déierepark-Tierpark is free and is more of a petting farm than a zoo.  The animals are mostly farm animals, along with a few different types of deer, and they are quite tame. We are able to buy bags of pellets to feed them. I think we had as much fun as the kids!

This beautiful Highland cow (I think it was a she) was my favourite.

She really loves to be fed! I think we became friends!

Bob made friends with this younger Highland cow.

There is a sign asking not to feed the geese, and they object very loudly to being left out.

A few of the deer resting in the shade. We have our picnic lunch here and walk around the park twice. It was such a nice relaxing afternoon and we so enjoyed the sunshine and watching the children feed the animals.

On the walk back to the car we see an area that has been uprooted by wild boars. Wild boars are found in Luxembourg and are considered Europe’s only “dangerous game” animal. Hunters in Luxembourg shoot about 5,000 animals annually. They are increasing in number and are becoming a problem as they move closer to inhabited areas.

We see a garden folly and I take a closer look. 

Sorry for the blurry photo. We have seen several of these large black cutouts of a person with a white cross on their chest.  I google to find out what they are, only to discover these are used to mark the spot where a person has died in a motor vehicle accident.

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.

Fontoy, France

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Day 24     Tuesday, September 23, 2025

We are staying in Fontoy, France which is 35 minutes from Luxembourg because we couldn’t find a place to stay in Luxembourg.  Fontoy is a small town with a population of just over 3,000.

Our Airbnb is very nice, even though it  is up three flights of stairs…no elevator.I have had a sore throat for a while and now I have the beginnings of a cough and cold. The weather continues to be cold, wet and windy. I need to stay home and rest for a few days and this is a good place to do that. We both have a quiet day.  Bob does go get a few groceries, washes our clothes and I have a two hour afternoon nap!

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.

Quiet Day In Uccle, Brussels.

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Day 22     Sunday, September 21, 2025

Our bnb is in a municipality of Brussels called Uccle. Brussels is the capital of Belgium, the headquarters of the European Union, and the headquarters for NATO. Bob went for a walk today and saw several embassies.  There are 183 embassies in Brussels and Bob counted 17 embassies within a ten block radius of our bnb.
This is the Hungarian Embassy.

The Ukrainian Embassy…

…looks like an apartment building.

The Russian embassy is on a huge estate that is two blocks long.  No building in sight but lots of security cameras and some white swans in the pond.

There is an Equestrian Centre right in Uccle.

The Rose Farm was built at the beginning of the 13th century and given to the town in 1971. It was restored, and is now used for cultural activities

Bob walks through part of Wolvendael Park on the way home. There is a School of the Arts located in the park.

I stayed home, rested and worked a bit on my blog.  I discovered something interesting.  If I open my blog from the email that is sent out to those who follow my blog many of the photos are distorted and appear stretched out. So if you are having this issue on your cell phone just think of the email as a notification that there is a new post and type trudymason.com in your browser rather than opening the email and trying to look at the post there.  This has something to do with the way I am editing my photos but I am not able to figure out how to change it so this doesn’t happen. I still have a lot to learn.

We leave for Luxembourg tomorrow and the weather isn’t looking very great.  So far this trip we have only had two sunny warm days…maybe that is just what it is going to be, cooler and wetter than we would like… but we can’t do anything about the weather.

Bruges, Belgium

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Day 21     Saturday, September 20, 2025

We drive an hour and a half to visit Bruges.  First stop is the market which was supposed to be open for another hour but most vendors are packing up because of the cold and rain.

We see this huge contraption which I am sure is a spider, but it is not moving. I just looked up Bruges Giant spider and found this little video on Instagram…I was right, it is a spider! https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO3Y573jK1r/ 

It is miserable out, lots of umbrellas, lots of rain and it is cold.

We take refuge in this cathedral along with a lot of other people.  It isn’t very warm but it is at least dry. I sit and write in my journal and Bob checks out the cathedral.  I am content to just sit and rest for a bit.

There are large beautiful tapestries on both sides of the altar.

There is an announcement in several languages that the church is closing and will reopen in a couple hours after lunch.  So we walk to the huge central square, lined with beautiful old buildings.  It had stopped raining. The entire old city of Bruges is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The city was not damaged in either of the two World Wars so much of its Medieval heritage remained intact.

The streets are packed with tourists and it starts to rain again so we find a MacDonalds and hide out there for an hour and have our lunch.  It is dry and warm and no one cares how long we sit here.

The rain stops and we decide to get tickets for a canal boat ride.  There is a line but it moves fairly quickly and we watch the boats coming and going while we wait in line.

While we are waiting  I notice that there is a tight rope walker high in the sky!  If you look carefully at the previous photo you can see her in the top right corner just above the rooftops.  Yes, it is a woman, when she hangs upside down we see a ponytail. A rope almost 400m long was stretched at a height of 70m between the Belfry and the Church of Our Lady.

Soon we are travelling on the canals which give us a great view of many of the buildings in Bruges.

You can see the high wire attached to the cathedral tower.

We pass under many bridges, some of them so low we need to duck our heads.

The geese on the canals are owned by the city of Bruges and the penalty for killing one is five years in jail!

The city of Bruges is famous for its well-preserved medieval architecture, including many buildings featuring stepped gables.  Houses with lots of steps on the gables showed that the owner was rich.         
I wonder if the houses on the canal are damp, with the water lapping at their foundations.

This is the oldest bridge in Bruges and our driver/guide tells us that if you kiss under this bridge you will have everlasting love.  We kiss.

There are a variety of interesting buildings along the canals…

..and some great views.

There are also signs that Autumn is here.

This medieval building was built using wood, which was a fire hazard.  Most buildings in Bruges were built in a style known as Brick Gothic. 

After our boat ride we wander the streets and see this.  Lots of people are entering the building so Bob says we should follow them.  

It is an open house for the  new Brusk Art Gallery which will open in 2026.  We enter a room with shipping plastic wrap.  We aren’t sure what it is supposed to be…

…until we enter the next room and there is a  large tape art installation in the form of a web structure, and there are people climbing inside of them!  All of a sudden the giant spider we saw earlier makes sense.

I want to climb inside…my turn next!

It was interesting trying to walk around, but not really all that difficult.

This was so much fun!  Here I am inside this giant web-like structure.

There is the hole I climbed through to get inside.All too soon it is time to climb down. This was such fun.

There were several of these ‘webs’ in this huge room. What a clever idea.

Belgium is famous for its chocolate, which comes in all shapes and sizes!

There is a Carillon performance at 4:00.  We find a spot to sit just as it starts and listen to a variety of music for the next hour. The carillon is a piano like instrument that plays 47 bells.

One of the musicians was very young.

I do a bit of pen sketching while I listened to the music.  The last song played was Beethoven’s Ode To Joy and most of the audience stood up. The lady beside me told me that it is the anthem for the European Union, which has its headquarters in Brussels.  

This is an interesting building, skinny at the front and then widening out as along the streets on either side. 

We wanted to visit the Church of Our Lady which houses The Madonna and Child by Michelangelo. This world-famous white marble statue is the only work by Michelangelo that left Italy during his lifetime. But the church closed at 5:00 so we are out of luck.

We have to settle for viewing this poster.

We order a waffle with dark chocolate to share before the long drive back to our bnb. It  had a bit too much chocolate for us, but was still delicious.

Ypres, Flanders Fields Museum, Belgium

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Day 20     Friday, September 19, 2025

Today we visit the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, Belgium.

This museum uses a variety of displays to tell the story of the invasion of Belgium in World War I. There are holographs which use actors to tell the stories of actual people.

The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was about 40 million: estimates range from around 15 to 22 million deaths and about 23 million wounded military personnel, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history. But it wasn’t just people that suffered during this war. More than 8 million horses, donkeys and mules died in WWI as well.  Such a horrendous loss of life!

These early gas masks provided some protection against chlorine gas, which was used for the first time during WWI,  but were only effective for about five minutes with concentrated doses of the gas. 

We take a break and climb 231 steps to reach the top of the bell tower. half way the steps change from a concrete spiral staircase to these metal steps, which are a bit scarier to climb.

We are always amazed at the size of the bells in these bell towers.

Soon we are outside taking in the views of the town and countryside.

We can see for miles.

I am very happy that the 231 steps down from the tower are cement.  I really didn’t like those metals ones.

After the clim to the top of the tower we have lunch and chatted with this Belgium couple who like to travel on their colourful bike.  We were surprised as they were both quite elderly.

Back in the museum.  There were lots of photos and film clips from the war.  They bring the horror of the war to life.

The bottom photo shows the damage done to the building that now houses this museum.  It was rebuilt after the war.

Men sleeping in closely packed conditions underground.  

There were displays of the full kit worn by soldiers from the countries that fought in the war. The first display with the kilt is from the Canadian Black Watch Royal Highland Regiment.These banners are for John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields”.

A closer look reveals that there are photos of soldiers hidden in the poppies.

Taps is played at 8:00 every night at the Ypres Menin Gate memorial.

This memorial is engraved with the names of more than 54,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. I feel emotional when viewing these lists of those who died but were never found and buried.

Walking back to the car we pass a gallery with these amazing porcelain sculptures by Bénedicte Vallet.

Next stop is the Essex Farm Cemetery where the Canadian doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote his now famous poem “in Flanders Fields” after seeing poppies growing in battle-scarred fields. The poem was written in memory a friend who died at Ypres,  We pass some windmills on the way to the last cemetery we will visit on this trip.

Tyne Cot cemetery, located near Ypres, is the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world and a memorial to the missing soldiers of World War I.  It contains the graves of 11,956 Commonwealth soldiers, primarily from the Battle of Passchendaele.

So many graves and 8,367of them are unidentified British or Commonwealth servicemen.

The wall in the background of this photo is engraved with the names of the 35,000 soldiers whose remains were never found or identified. One last stop at the Canadian Memorial which commemorates the actions and sacrifices of the Canadian Corps during the First World War’s Battle of Passchendaele. 

“The Canada Gate is the second of two linked ‘Portals of Remembrance’. The first is The Last Steps Memorial Arch, marking the spot in Halifax Nova Scotia where 350,000 Canadian soldiers took their last steps in Canada before embarking on ships for service overseas in Belgium and France during the First World War. For thousands, their last steps in life were taken here at Passchendaele. For those who survived, their lives were forever changed.”~ veterans.gc.ca

Another heavy duty day.

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!