August 30 -- 33,000 Feet Above the Atlantic a (final entry)

This will be the final blog entry. I expect to upload it when I reach Phoenix this evening, or if I'm too tired, tomorrow morning.

According to the screen in front of me, this United flight has just passed over the west coast of Ireland and is headed out over the Atlantic. We were two hours late leaving Frankfurt due to a problem with the water pressure in the sinks in the toilets. Despite our delay, the problem was not solved, and washing one's hands can be a problem. I only hope that the flight attendants serving me have found a way to wash theirs.

I was supposed to have a few hours to kill in the Washington D.C. Airport, but now, assuming I make my connection at all, it will be very tight. Going through immigration, waiting for my checked suitcase, taking the suitcase through customs, and re-checking it through to Phoenix will take time. (PS/ I made my Phoenix flight, but not with a lot of time to spare.)

Yesterday was a sunny although chilly day in Frankfurt. I started out intending to visit the Goethe Haus and Jewish museums, but I got involved in looking in store windows in the large pedestrian district and never did visit the museums. Well, I did go by the Goethe Haus, but by then I'd had enough of being on foot, so I walked back to the hostel. I went to bed early and got up at 6 a.m., a bit earlier than I had planned, and a half hour later I was on my way to the airport, first by bus to the train station and from there by S-Bahn or suburban train to the airport.

The trip did not go as planned, but despite my sciatica, which kept me from doing the planned pilgrimage to Santiago de Campostella, I'm glad I made the trip.  To those of you who have followed this blog, many thanks. It must have made boring reading at times.

August 28, 2100 -- Frankfurt, Germany

Normally I post to the blog early in the morning European time, but because I had a train to catch from Luxembourg City to Frankfurt am Main in Germany, I sped things up this morning and got out of the hostel early. Bus service to the train station is sparse on Sunday mornings, and today is Sunday. I'll post this when I arrive in Frankfurt, although I'll have to pay for Internet access there. In Luxembourg, it was free.

It turns out that I got to the railroad station in plenty of time. However, I had to change trains in Koblenz, Germany, which should not have been a problem, because I had 18 minutes to make it down the stairs over to another platform, and back up the stairs to catch my second train. However, there was a  problem! The first train was already 17 minutes late before it crossed the German border. The train driver made up some of the time, and when we got to Koblenz, I had four minutes to make the change, just about adequate in the rush of people from the first train who were running trying to make their connections.

I made it up the stairs to the second platform just as the train was pulling in, and to my good fortune, the railroad car where my seat was stopped right in front of me. These InterCity trains stop for only two minutes to let people on and off (1:30 minutes if they're behind schedule), so there's not a lot of time to hunt for your car if you're not on the correct section of the platform when the train arrives.

To wind up this long-winded story, I got on the second train and had almost reached my reserved seat when the train pulled out of the station. I'm sitting on the train writing this now to post later when I arrive in Frankfurt.

Something is going wrong, because the conductor just asked over the PA system if there is a doctor aboard the train. (I never did find out who needed the doctor.)

Yesterday it rained in Luxembourg, so I spent the afternoon indoors working on my Arizona Road Cyclist News newsletter. A young Turkish woman asked if she could sit at the table with me and chat about American politics. That's always a red flag, because most Europeans and almost all Turks picture American politics as being even much worse that it really is.

First she wanted to know why only "Anglo Saxons" were in the American government. I explained that there is no Anglo Saxon identity in the USA, and I called up pictures of Obama's cabinet and showed here that they are a multi-ethic group. Of course people who think in stereotypes aren't dissuaded from their opinions by facts. She then insisted that most Democrats are abandoning the party and joining the Libertarian Party, and after I showed here that the Libertarian Party garnered about four tenths of one percent in the last presidential election, she complained that I wasn't respecting her opinions. I gave up. She had to leave for the airport and her flight back to Istanbul in any case. Why are people's opinions of value if they run contrary to facts. If I have an opinion that the Earth is flat, should it be respected?

Well, we are traveling up the Rhine River Valley, and I should be looking out the window at all of the castles we are passing.  As said, I'll post this when I get to Frankfurt.

August 27, 2011 -- Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

 Today is my last full day in Luxembourg City. Tomorrow morning I take the train to Frankfurt, Germany, where I will spend two nights before flying to Phoenix on Tuesday. I may be out of Internet contact after tomorrow morning. I seem to remember its being difficult to find an open WiFi connection in Germany, so tomorrow could be my last blog entry until I do the final wrap-up when I arrive in Phoenix.

McDonald's in Germany has free WiFi, of course, but the German McDonald's organization has a strange way of accessing it. When you reach the log-on page, you are required to enter your cell phone number, and the system sends you unique log-on credentials by means of a text message, called SMS (short-message service) in Europe. If you don't have a German cell phone number, you're out of luck.

There's not much to report about my day yesterday. I did some exploring on foot during the morning and spent the afternoon indoors trying to stay out of the rain and dry. It began raining shortly after noon.

August 26, 2011 -- Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

The snorer is gone! There are usually five guys in our dormitory room here in the Luxembourg City youth hostel. Three nights ago, or actually about 1 in the morning, a heavy-set, hairy, middle-aged man arrived as the rest of us were sleeping. He entered the room, slammed the door, and turned on the bright overhead light. Naturally, he woke us all. Being of mean temper, I yelled at him in English to turn off the light and use his flashlight. He obeyed without answering. Well, he turned off the light, opened the door to a hallway a crack, and used the light that entered to make his bed (his bed was right next to the door).

When I awoke early the next morning, he was still asleep. I went downstairs to eat breakfast and take care of some chores in the internet, and when I returned to the room, he had left for the day.

The next night he again came in late and slammed the door but didn't turn on the overhead light. He feel asleep and promptly started snoring loudly. VERY loudly. I attempted to awake him so he would roll off his back and stop snoring first by shaking his bed, then by dangling a wet towel in his face, and finally by grabbing his arm and shaking him vigorously. Nothing worked. He snored through it all. I have never known anyone to sleep so soundly.

To the delight of the rest of us in the room, he left yesterday.

Some of you old-time cyclists may remember Tom Hayes, who used to race in the 1970s. I was delighted this morning to receive an E-mail from him. I hadn't heard from or of Tom in decades.

The weather forecast for yesterday was for thunderstorms. Why do I keep putting faith in the European weather forecasts? The morning brought clear, blue skies that turned to partly cloudy in the afternoon. The late afternoon did bring some very light rain showers, but nothing like the storms that had been forecast.

In the morning I explored more of the fortifications that protected Pfaffenthal from the early Roman times up until World War I. There are so many of them that I keep finding new ones to explore. In the early afternoon I climbed the hill  northwest of the hostel to the area occupied by the modern installations of the European Union. Luxembourg City is the home of the European Court. I was amazed at the number of large high-rise buildings that the Court occupies and by the fact that even more are under construction. They reinforced my prejudice that the European Union government is a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy, a prejudice that is shared by many Europeans.

The following photo, taken looking back after I had left the district, shows a few of those buildings in the distance.

August 23, 2011 -- Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

The weather forecast for Luxembourg calls for thunderstorms today and tomorrow and rain through the weekend. It's cloudy at the moment (8 a.m. Luxembourg time) with fog on the hills above us.

Yesterday in the early morning I went to the German Military Cemetery, which is only a few hundred meters from the youth hostel. German soldiers who died in both World Wars are buried there. I remember it from when I lived in Europe in my youth and used to visit Luxembourg City. A large group of us would usually go out for a few beers in the evening, and I would usually convince one of the young ladies to visit the cemetery on the way back to the hostel. The cemetery was dark and shielded from public view, of course.

I spent the time from mid-morning until mid-afternoon in the city seeing such sights as the cathedral, the Grand Duke's Palace, where the Grand Duke of Luxembourg conducts official business and receives visiting heads of state. Although the weather had been slightly overcast in the morning, by mid-afternoon the sky had become very black, and it started raining, so I took a bus back to the youth hostel.

Here is a picture of the Palace, which like everything in that part of the city, is crowded in by the surrounding buildings. The palace is the brown building more or less in the center of the photo.

August 24, 2011 -- Luxembourg City

The temperature in Luxembourg City was in the lower to mid-80s yesterday, something that I found quite pleasant, but the local residents were complaining about the heat. I spoke with a woman from Northern Ireland at breakfast this morning, who said she was going to do all of her sightseeing before noon, because the afternoons are far to hot to be outside.

I am learned a bit more about this Luxembourg City yesterday. The old part of the city down here in the canyon where the youth hostel is located is called Pfaffenthal, which I would translate as "Valley of the Priests." It was once defended by a fortress cut into the rock of the cliffs above it. The fortress, according to a brochure I picked up, consisted at its peak of 23 kilometers or more than 14 miles of underground tunnels. The fortress is called the Casemate in English and French and Die Kasematten in German. According to my dictionary, casemate means a vault or chamber, especially in a rampart, with embrasures for artillery. An embrasure is a loophole through which artillery can be fired. There are certainly plenty of those in the fortifications.

The Casement was conquered several times by different nations through the centuries, and each of the conquerors expanded the tunnel system and fortifications.

I toured the Casemate yesterday. Not all 14 miles of tunnels are open to the public, but there is enough to occupy a few hours, if one wants to see them all. There are also narrow winding staircases going up and down and places where one has to crouch to get through. Although there are openings to the outside where cannon were fired when the Casement was attacked, most of the network of tunnels and staircases would be in total darkness if the electric lights were to fail. I thought of that when I was inside. If there had been a power failure, I might not have been able to make my way out, and I would have had to sit in the dark and wait for rescuers.

Here is a picture of one of the canons that faces an opening that commands a view of the canyon below.

The picture below was taken in the same spot and shows the view from the opening in the rock from which the canyon used to be fired.

Above the casement, there still exist some of the old streets that were part of the old city in centuries gone by, although some of those streets are now paved in asphalt (a few are still of cobblestones). The picture below shows how one of the cobblestone streets, now a pedestrian path blocked off to automobiles, passes below an old building.

To the people who live in Pfaffenthal, it is a great source of pride that the great German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe spent some time here and even included a few paragraphs of description in his volume Campagne in Frankreich (Campaign in France) in 1792. The residents of Pfaffenthal erected a plaque in the rear garden of the youth hostel to commemorate Goethe's visit. The plaque quotes Goethe's flattering description of Pfaffenthal with translations of his words into French and English. Here is a picture of that plaque.

The way Blogspot reduces pictures, I doubt if you can zoom in to read the English translation at the right of the plaque, do for those 2 or 3 people who are curious. Here it is, followed by Goethe's original words in German.

The parents of our jovial guide possessed a pretty sloping garden in the Pfaffenthal, which they kindly allowed me to enjoy. The church and the cloister, not far off, truly justify the name of this Elysium, and whereas the spiritual neighborhood would seem to pledge both peace and tranquility to the secular inhabitants, each glance upward towards the heights constantly reminds them of war, violence and destruction.

Nothing could offer a more astonishing vision than the narrow valley serpentining along the river through the midst of all this; the few level places, the heights, whether gently sloping or precipitous, are laid out in gardens, cut into terraces or enlivened with pleasure houses. From there, to the left and right one beholds nothing but the steepest rocks and walls towering high.

Here so much grandeur unites with grace, so much gravity with beauty, that one cannot help but wish that Poussin [ a French classical painter -- JQ] had applied his glorious talent to such places.

The original reads:

 Nun besaßen die Eltern unseres lockeren Führers in dem Pfaffenthal einen artigen abhängigen Garten, dessen Genuß sie mir gern und freundlich überließen. Kirche und Kloster, nicht weit entfernt, rechtfertigen den Namen diese Elysiums, und in dieser geistlichen Nachbarschaft schien auch den weltlichen Bewohnern Ruh und Frieden verheißen, ob sie gleich mit jedem Blick in die Höhe an Krieg, Gewalt und Verderben erinnert wurden.

….

Nichts kann deßhalb einen wunderlichern Anblick gewähren als das mitten durch dieß alles am Flusse sich hinabziehende enge Thal, dessen wenige Flächen, dessen sanft oder steil aufsteigende Höhen zu Gärten angelegt, in Terrassen abgestuft und mit Lusthäusern belebt sind; von wo aus man auf die steilsten Felsen, auf hochgethürmte Mauern rechts und links hinaufschaut.

Hier findet sich so viel Größe mit Anmuth, so viel Ernst mit Lieblichkeit verbunden, daß wohl zu wünschen wäre, Poussin hätte sein herrliches Talent in solchen Räumen bethätigt….

August 23, 2011 -- Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

In Brussels I walked to the train station in the rain in Brussels, but what a difference! When I got to Luxembourg City, it was sunny and quite warm, really like summer! Now that I am about to leave, it appears that summer has finally arrived to Western Europe. In fact, the dormitory room was uncomfortably warm for sleeping last night.

The Central Train Station in Brussels is a madhouse. On each of the tracks, there is a train arriving every few minutes. That means that the traveler has at most a minute or two to hop on the train after it stops, because each train has to leave to make way for the next one.

In the Luxembourg train station, upon my arrival here, I managed to purchase a reasonably cheap ticket to Frankfurt. Trains here are like airlines, there are all sorts of prices, and it pays not to wait too long or the best deals are gone. I spoke German when I bought the ticket and with the bus driver on the bus I took to the hostel, but the language that dominates inside the hostel is English. Everyone who grows up in Luxembourg speaks Luxembourgish, a language that is seldom written, as well as French and German. I'm told that almost everyone also speaks English, although I haven't tried English on the street yet. French is supposedly the written language of choice, although I noticed that one of the local newspapers is written mostly in German with only a few articles in French.

The youth hostel here is beautiful, sparkling clean, roomy, and modern. Decades ago in my youth, I used to stay at the former hostel, which stood on the same site, but the old hostel has been torn down and this new one has been built in its place. The setting was beautiful then, and it is beautiful now. The hostel is located at the bottom of a canyon in the city, right at the base of an old stone railroad viaduct. Not only is the hostel very roomy, including the dorms, but there is a garden out back with swing sets for the kids to play on and tables with umbrellas for the adults. The hostel is modern, spacious, clean, and secure with electronically keyed locks on the dorm room doors and free lockers available in both the dorms and downstairs in the public area.

The following picture is of the viaduct. The corner of a structure at the left of the picture is part of the front patio of the youth hostel.