Thursday 14 June - Echternach (Luxembourg) and Bad Dürkheim (Germany) via Landstuhl

Where's Bertie? He's at a Stellplatz at a vinyard in Bad Dürkheim, where it costs €6 for 24hrs. Electricity and water are extra (50c per 0.5kWh, and €1 per 80l respectively). Exact location: 49.41699, 7.57083.
Weather: Sunny intervals.

Our day started early (but not bright; there was a fog hanging low over our surroundings) with a run around the lake at Echternach. In fact, two rounds, which amounted to 4 miles.

The early start was occasioned by uncertainty as to how busy the parking would be in the town once the working day got started, so we wanted to relocate the couple of km down the road as early as possible. We were there before 8.30, finding four of the five motorhome spaces free (and the other occupied by a truck). Why had we not stayed there the night, you might ask? Because the town has been so thoughtful as to put in very generously sized motorhome spaces, and a full service point ... and then banned overnight parking of motorhomes.

Now better located for the walk we intended to take, a leisurely breakfast was had before we headed out into the sunshine.

The walk was excellent, taking us past some very shapely rocks, although a little trying as the area has suffered significant flood damage and we were repeatedly thwarted by closed roads and paths. If you want to see more snaps, and read more words about our outing you can click here to be transported to the relevant post on our walking blog


Wanting to be in Mannheim by tomorrow afternoon, we didn't spend a second night around Echternach, but instead headed for a Stellplatz in the town of Landstuhl. I knew it wasn't going to be an attractive place, being nothing more than some motorhome parking and a service point in a town car park, but thought it would do for the night. It likely would have done too, had it been later when we arrived, however, at 1645 it was still full of commuters, including the motorhome spaces, with not a single slot available into which we could squeeze even Bertie's modest length. We suspected the place would empty significantly within the hour, but being opposite a railway line (and by a station, hence the commuters), and in an industrial/commercial area, it wasn't attractive, so I reviewed the options again and onwards we continued to Bad Dürhkeim.

The Aire here is much more pleasing to the eye, being grassy with plenty of trees, and has masses of space (our German Stellplatz books says there are 170 spaces; it doesn't look that big, but it is spacious) but the road that runs past does seem rather noisy. According to our parking ticket, our €6 fee includes entry for 2 people into something ... we're just not quite sure what the something is. Swings and roundabouts, though; whilst we're not going to enjoy our free entry, we have taken advantage of the credit left by others on the electric point, using up the available 0.9kWh. We wouldn't otherwise have bothered plugging in as running Bertie on gas is cheaper than electric.

Wednesday 13 June - Wiltz & Echternach

Where's Bertie? He's in a car park next to the Youth Hostel by the lake, just outside of Echternach (exact location: 49.80063, 6.41633).
Weather: Overcast but dry, with a bit of sunshine late in the afternoon.

Even though we stayed in Wiltz until early this afternoon, we still failed to see the castle. That was because I decided that the 10km walking circuit looked more interesting than the 7km one I had originally intended us to do, and it wasn't until we got back to the town that I realised that the longer route didn't take us past the castle. Admittedly it wouldn't have been a large detour to nip past it on our way back to Bertie, but Mick didn't feel so inclined and I wasn't fussed enough to argue.



A couple of snaps from our walk.

I'm sure that at almost any other point in this trip we would have stayed put in Wiltz for a second night, as it was quite a pleasant place and the motorhome parking was quiet, but we have a date in Mannheim on Saturday, so after lunch off we rolled.

Our first stop was a small detour off route to a LPG-selling petrol station at Diekirch. There we filled Bertie's gas tanks at 52.7c/litre and filled his diesel tank at 111.7c/litre. Even at today's reduced exchange rate, that equated to diesel at less than £1 per litre. As for the LPG, we had only used 30 litres in the 6.5 weeks of Bertie-use since we last filled up, which is an unusually low amount, but we stayed on campsites/places with hook-up on 12 nights over that period, meaning the fridge has been run on electric more than normal, plus in Scotland I didn't feel the need to heat water for showers in between campsites, which must also have saved a reasonable amount of usage.

Anyway, with Bertie's fuel tanks full, onwards we tootled along the Luxembourg side of the border with Germany, along the edge of the area marked on our road map as 'Little Switzerland', to the town of Echternach.

It all seems rather nice around here, although today's explorations have only extended to a walk around the lake:


Having never been to Luxembourg before, nor to the immediately neighbouring areas of Belgium and Germany, we had no idea what to expect of the country. With meadows abounding, and lots of forests and lumpy terrain, some of what we have seen so far has put us in mind of mountain villages in France. The main difference here is that the highest point in the entire country is not much more than 550m above sea level.

Even though we've only been in the country for a couple of days, we've seen enough to have formed the intention to visit the south of the country on our return route in August, albeit it will likely be another passing sort of visit (the lure of cheap diesel and gas is a bonus, but not really a consideration in this decision!).

Tuesday 12 June - Wiltz (Luxembourg)

Where's Bertie? He's in a small Aire on the edge of the town of Wiltz (exact location: 49.97183, 5.93444).
Weather:Heavy rain finally petering out by late afternoon, then clearing to sunshine in the evening.

With the rain coming down this morning, I came to an executive decision that we weren't going to wait for it to stop so that we could enjoy some exploration of the countryside surrounding Saint-Hubert. Instead we would use the time to drive, although it wasn't to be a long journey: after much contemplation of the map we'd opted for a less direct, but more interesting-looking route through Luxembourg, with our first stop being Wiltz, just a 50km or so drive away.

We were here around lunchtime, and still the rain drummed down. So we sat and did indoor things until finally it started to ease just before 4pm. Waterproof jackets were donned, out we went for a little exploration, and we only got a little bit wet.

Interesting bit of street art

It was only on Googling the town when we got back that I discovered that we had completely missed the castle. Maybe we'll wander by on the little outing I have in my mind for the morrow.

I also discovered that this little place is the largest town in the northern third of Luxembourg, and the only town in the region with a population greater than 4000.

Another strollette was had after tea, mainly along the river, this time under increasingly blue skies:

You don't get surroundings this green without rain!

Contrary to appearances, Bertie does not have a satellite dish; that's on the roof of our neighbour.

That probably doesn't read as a very interesting day; that's because it wasn't! We'll try harder tomorrow...

Monday 11 June - Thieu and Saint-Hubert

Where's Bertie? He's in a small Aire just on the very edge of the town of Saint-Hubert, which is in the Belgian province of Luxemburg, not to be confused with the country of Luxemburg, which is just next door. (exact location: 50.02718, 5.38098)
Weather: A bit of a murky start, overcast all day and heavy-ish rain from 4pm.

I had wondered, as we walked various sections of the old and new canals around Thieu over the last couple of days, whether it was feasible to form a circuit using both waterways. I answered that question this morning when I ran west out of the motorhome parking area, along the new canal. After a mile or so I could see that the old canal was not far distant to my left, and a short while later I was able to take a path that joined the two. Passing a man walking along the track holding a dead frog gingerly by its back leg (bizarre!), I completed the loop, then added on a lollipop stick, so as to increase the distance to something over 3 miles.

The red line of my route is so thick that you can barely see the marking of the narrow old canal on the map, but I was running right along the side of the waterway, honest!

Back at Bertie I handed over the baton to Mick, who repeated my route, then after showers and breakfast it was time to make a move eastwards.

I had three possible destinations for today and the one I selected was Saint-Hubert. The obvious way of getting here was via motorway for all but the last 15 minutes of the 1hr45 journey, but as the N4 road is shown on our road atlas as a scenic route, and as it isn't much (if any) further than the motorway route, I thought we'd go that way instead. There ensued a period of driving a roller-coaster as the road ran crossways to a large series of valleys, and feeling like we were driving across an old-fashioned draining board, such was the corrugation of the road surface. As for the surroundings, they might have been pleasant if it hadn't been so misty and murky, but they didn't look to be anything special. Hey ho, you can't win them all!

Arriving in Saint-Hubert, things looked more promising...

The view from Bertie. As I stepped out of his door I was hit by the glorious scent of the wild roses that are planted around the Aire.
...and we intended to find out more about the area with a stroll around the town followed by a 10km walking circuit to the NE of the town. That plan persisted until I looked at the weather forecast, as my suspicions of rain had been aroused by a certain greyness and heaviness in the air.

Thunder storms all afternoon, into the evening and overnight, it said, which didn't sound like the best sort of weather for enjoying a walk in a new area. Thus our plan was shortened to just 'let's see how much of the town we can cover before it rains'.

Only a couple of minutes down the road we thought we were on to a real winner with this town. To our left were the sturdy walls of the large cemetary, and ahead of us stood an old town gate and beyond it a big church:


Interesting design

No weeing in the corners, nor in a number of other corners and alleyways in the town

The inside of the church was disappointing, although probably only because there's currently a faux-ceiling of fabric, presumably because of works being carried out on the stonework above.
With another magnificent building sitting beside the church (we know not what, there wasn't any information about it), we continued to be impressed by the town, but it turned out that we happened to have entered at its most interesting point, which had set our expectations too high. Everything else was pleasant but, save for the buildings of the old Abbey, there was little else to provoke a 'gosh!' or an 'ooh!''.

The information signs dotted around would have lifted our visit, but they were only in French and whilst I do have a grasp of the language, I was struggling to make out what these were trying to convey. Either I've got rusty, or Belgian French is a little different, or these were written in a complicated way. Alas, the Tourist Office wasn't able to help either, having no information at all in English (the lady did give me some information in German, so I assume that I speak French like a German person!).

So, a nice and interesting wander was had, but not as fulfilling as it would have been if we could have gleaned a bit more information about the history of the place.
Wandering back in the direction of Bertie, the sky was looking a bit brighter and I opined that maybe we should have gone for the walk, as it looked like the rain was going to miss us. I'm now glad we hadn't; the current sound of drumming on Bertie's roof, does not sound conducive to a pleasant walk, although I reckon it would have only hit us for the last half hour of our outing, if we had gone for it.

If the forecast holds true, this is going to persist into tomorrow morning, so we'll have to make a decision whether to wait it out or move on.

Sunday 10 June - Thieu

Where's Bertie? He's still sitting next to the Canal du Centre at Thieu.
Weather: Another murky start, but clearing more quickly today, to give some sunshine by early afternoon. Still nice and warm.

Today was mainly about the Strépy-Thieu boat lift, but first let's nip back to last night when, after tea, with the sun finally shining, we took a walk along the old canal in the opposite direction to our earlier stroll. Whereas earlier in the day we had thought the old canal to the east looked largely disused, last night we discovered that the section to the west is definitely so as we walked along a kilometre of water between two decommisioned locks. I would have taken a photo or two, except it turned out that neither of us had taken a phone (eeeh, it wasn't many years past that it would have made no sense at all to say "I didn't take a photo because I didn't have a phone with me"!). We were at a loss for a while as to how the boats moored in the marina between Lift 4 and this disused section could go anywhere, but we had missed the presence of a lock, only about 100m away from Bertie, which joins the old and new canals.

Anyway, on to today and the Strépy-Thieu boat lift which was, until 2016, the largest boat lift in the world. We hadn't intended to visit it until this afternoon, when we were sure the air clarity would be better (we could barely see the lift for the murk first thing), but our late-morning walk through the village (not very interesting) took us there via a roundabout route.

It's just as much of an eyesore when seen along one of the village streets. I wonder how the residents felt during its construction (1982-2002)?

Having photographed it from several angles and not quite walked up to the level of the upper canal...



...we stood on a nearby bridge hoping to see it in operation from closer range than yesterday, as we knew that a tour boat was due to set out from the upper canal right about that time (1330).

With our hunger becoming too great we abandoned our wait (it finally moved at 14.15), but in the meantime, we had learned something about the lift. Disappointingly, this was not from any information displayed (there is none outside and the Visitor Centre is currently closed until 2019) but from standing on the bridge reading Wikipedia. It was unsurprising to learn that I had underestimated the efficiency and mode of operation of the lift yesterday. Of course it uses Archimedes's Principle! In this case, a huge bank of concrete weights offsets the weight of the boat chamber. By using weights rather than the second boat chamber as the counterbalance, only one of the chambers needs to be operated during any lift/drop cycle.

Knowing that another tour boat was due to go through the lift at around 1530, this time from the lower canal (incidentally the price of €7 (or €6.50 for an old geezer like Mick) seemed a bargain for the 1.5hr lift experience, even if we didn't go for it) we returned after lunch and timed it perfectly.

The dimensions of the boat chamber are 112m by 12m. Doesn't the tour boat look tiny, and the cabin cruiser behind even tinier? We paced out the length of a moored barge on our way back and reckoned it to be 80-90m

Going up...

The point at which the counterbalance weights were level with the boat chamber

I'm not sure I've made any of that sound remotely interesting, but I found it so. I still can't get over the ugliness of the structure, though!

Saturday 9 June - Harelbeke and Thieu

Where's Bertie? His nose is pointing at, and a matter of feet away from, the Canal du Centre, just outside of the village of Thieu in Belgium (exact location: 50.47150, 4.08985).
Weather: Murky, but warm start, with only the slightest hint of sunshine briefly getting through by mid-afternoon.

Our parking ticket at Harelbeke expired at 10.50 this morning, but I had intended for us to leave just as soon as we had been for a run around the lake, had showers and breakfasted. Somehow, with a visit to the service point (the last time any water went into Bertie's onboard tank was somewhere in Scotland, so it was getting a bit low), it was gone 10.40 by the time we got on the road.

With only a pause to pick up a few groceries, we came to Thieu, which lies just over 100km to the SE of Kortrijk. Why did we choose to come here? Because there are two canals (by appearances I would say an older one and it's bigger replacement) and along those canals lie a number of boat lifts, instead of flights of locks.

Huge commercial barges are a common sight on the waterways of Belgium. Sometimes it is obvious what they are carrying; sometimes they are covered. This one had a huge load of scrap metal.

We went for a little strollette this afternoon, past the nearest lift (Lift 4), on the old canal...

The upper entrance to the lift. Judging by all the weed on the canal, this waterway doesn't see much traffic.

...then along a short way. It was a little while after I'd taken this snap...

...and we'd had a little discussion about that industrial-looking building, that seemed so out of place in such a rural setting, that we came to realise that it was the 'new' boat lift.

Definitely not as visually pleasing as the Falkirk Wheel or even Lift 4 (above), and from what I gleaned from one of a series of information panels, it doesn't sound as efficient either. The Falkirk Wheel works by having its two boat-carrying chambers at opposite sides of a large spoke, and by the use of Archimedes principle those chambers are always the same weight, thus very little energy is needed to rotate the wheel. More locally, the old Lift 4 here at Thieu works by a hydraulic action, with an extra 75 tonnes worth of water in the top chamber, which is used by the hydraulic mechanism to drive the bottom chamber upwards.

The new lift, however, in its overly industrial looking building, is funicular, with an engine being used to wind/unwind a cable to haul/unhaul the chamber (which can weigh in at 10,000 tonnes) up/down the 73.1m drop. When we watched it operate, only one chamber was moved, thus there was no assistance from reciprocal action. I'm no engineer, but to me that just doesn't sound an energy efficient way of getting boats up and down. Still fascinating, though!

Now just go back and look at that picture of the huge scrap-metal-carrying barge again; that had just come down in the lift.

There are more lifts along the canal. I'm not sure of the total distance involved, but we will go and have a bit more of a shufty tomorrow.


I'll throw this photo in (taken from out of Bertie's door, because I was too lazy to put some shoes on to go outside), just because it was taken at the brightest point in the afternoon.

The only other aspect of the day worthy of a mention is that when we arrived here the 'Protection Civile' arm of the Belgian police were here in force with large vehicles with flashing lights and with RIBs on, and divers in, the water. They were joined later by a helicopter. We have no idea whether they found whatever/whoever they were looking for, but by the time we got back from our afternoon stroll they were packing away and soon afterwards they were gone.

The boat hadn't been in the slot next to us when we arrived and has gone again now. The helicopter hovered for a long time.

Friday 8 June - Harelbeke

Where's Bertie? He's in a place that's feeling like home: the Aire at Harelbeke, where he spent six nights during our trip to Belgium in March this year. It's still €5 per night, including electricity, wifi, water and waste.
Weather: A murky start, brightening later, but never getting as far as full-on sunshine.

Suddenly we are four days into this trip and I've not written a blog post here yet . Here's a bit of a catch-up:

Tuesday
Weather: Increasingly sunny and reasonably warm by mid-afternoon

An earlyish start and a leisurely journey, with a stop to meet up with youngest step-son for a late lunch, followed by our easiest drive around the M25 in years.

The late afternoon and evening were spent with friends who we don't see nearly often enough. As with the start of most of our European trips, the night was spent on the road outside of their house.

Wednesday
Weather: Dry with some sunshine. Can't remember more than that.

The trip nearly went awry before it started, when we woke up to find that two cars had parked in such a manner as to block the entrance to the road for anything bigger than a small car - or so it appeared. It looked for a while like we were going to have to move our Channel crossing and postpone our appointment with the Hymer dealer on Thursday. However, a bit of careful measuring told us that the reality was a maximum gap that was 3" wider than Bertie's widest point. Slow and careful guided manouevring ensued.


These snaps were taken when Bertie's 'waist' was in the gap. His widest points are his wheel arches. It really was a ridiculously tight squeeze.

So, we made it to the Tunnel, did a quick dash to Carrefour in Calais then spent the night at the Aire at Bergues, half an hour or so up the road, chosen because we've stayed there a couple of times before and knew that there would almost certainly be space there, even late in the evening.

Thursday
Weather: A cool, murky start, then hot, sunny and muggy, then heavy rain for about an hour, then back to sunshine.

A disappointing day spent at the Hymer dealer. They still haven't managed to fix the bed (although apparently Hymer has now acknowledged that it is a design fault, which may or may not be progress). Allegedly a new bed frame will be fitted in August. We'll see...

A couple of other things were fixed and after a day mainly spent lounging in their showroom, we spent the night parked outside. Bonus: free parking with electricity!


This fine chap did a patrol around Bertie then engaged in a bit of that squawk-flap thing that pheasants do.

Friday
That brings us to today, which, for me, started early: just before 7am, I set out for a run to, then along, the waterway that runs through the conurbation of Izegem.


It was a bit of a murky start, but I had a very enjoyable run and returned to find Mick up and about, breakfasted and dressed still in bed.

He did take himself out for a run later in the day, but not until after we had left the Hymer dealer, done a bit of grocery shopping, attended to my whim of wanting to buy myself a frock, and moved to our new location:

The frock - bought in C&A - that was a blast from the past!

We could then have taken ourselves off to just about anywhere within a day's drive of Izegem, but where we chose to come (for a number of reasons, one of which was because we hadn't even looked at a map to think about where we might want to head) was to Harelbeke, just 15km down the road, where we already spent a chunk of time in March this year.

Once here, I availed myself of the internet, Mick went off for a run around the lake, we had a late lunch, then we went around the lake again, this time at a walk. Finally we looked at the map and came up with a destination for tomorrow, and a few contenders for the following stops too.

(As a bit of an aside: I expected this Aire here at Harelbeke to be full tonight. When we were here in March it was approaching capacity by 4pm and was generally full well before bedtime. It's now nearly 8pm and there's only one other van here (8 spaces). How odd, what with it being a Friday too! I wonder if people come here more in winter because of how cheap it is, with electricity included, whereas in summer they're happier to go to places without hook-up? After all, that is why we spent so long here in March.)