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Be careful what you ask for; you just may get it.
Last fall when Bruce was here, he and I took a drive to
Luxembourg. I wrote then that the drive from the northern border
of Luxembourg to the city of the same name, about 50 miles, is
thoroughly beautiful. Because of that, I wanted to bring Lynn back
to see it but I wanted a nice day because then it would be something
really special. The coming weekend was Independence Day in America
but for some reason Europeans don’t take that as a special holiday.
We thought this would be a good time to go as long as the weather
cooperated. I asked for clear, blue sunny skies.
I got what I asked for. We stayed overnight in a
town, Malmedy, Belgium, about 20 miles north of the Luxembourg
border. In the morning, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and not a
hint of haze in the air. This was a day made in Miata heaven.
We crossed the border and it’s apparent almost
immediately that it’s a different place. Things look, well,
Luxembourgish. This is hard to explain. All the European countries
we have visited have a different feel about them. Luxembourg seems
to be more "well-maintained" than other places. The road itself goes
through lots of different terrains. Sometimes it was on the crest of
what seemed to be almost the highest point in the country because we
had a view of the horizon that was more than 270°. Frequently the
road went through thick woods and it wound around in such a way that
makes a Miata driver wet his pants. This road on this day was where
they should make the Miata commercials.
When Bruce and I were there before, we somehow
lost our way. I remembered that clearly but couldn’t see on the map
how it happened so I knew to be very careful around the town of
Wiltz. We got lost again. It turns out that the road, while clear on
the map, is discontinuous in reality. I suppose if you’re a local
you know that. After we passed Wiltz, we knew something was wrong so
we thought we’d pull over at the first available place to look at
the map. The first place was a beautiful country inn called Hotel
Restaurant Schumann. It was lunchtime so this was convenient. The
inn was at a crossroads of two country roads (neither of which we
intended to be on) and had a great view of the forest on one side
and the valley on the other. The waitress spoke little English but
gave some decent directions to get back to where we wanted to go.
She must have told the owner about our question because he came by
and in better English explained the way.
Upon leaving they gave us a postcard of the
place, showing the way it looked over the years. Everywhere one goes
in Europe, if one pays attention, there is evidence of bad things
having happened. Look at the picture from
1945. The place was totally destroyed. It was rebuilt and this
is how it looks
now, similar to the 1967 picture.
Our drive took us past the side of a hill, about
300 feet high overlooking a dammed lake, an
idyllic sight. The descent was so steep and quick that in less
that a mile we drove across the dam. The drop on the other side of
the dam, not visible from above, was about another 200 feet.
Malmedy itself is a really pretty town. There’s a
central square, triangle really, filled with restaurants of many
varieties. Down the street there’s an ornate old
city hall
(Hotel deVille – they speak French in this part of Belgium) and
across from that a large old
cathedral.
Evidence of bad things having happened is here, too, which is not
surprising because this town is so close to the German border. Next
to the cathedral is a
memorial
to about a hundred civilians whose deaths were caused by some Nazi
action in World War II. Just behind that is a cliff in which are two
bunkers, one low which is blocked so it’s not accessible, the other
high and inaccessible on its own.
On the way home we
stopped in Waterloo, where Napoleon met his, and saw the monument on
the battlefield to the
Battle of Waterloo. It’s said that we only remember the winners
of things but this place is the exception. Napoleon was the big
loser here but there are all kinds of memorabilia with his name and
likeness on them. The memorial is a gigunda
mountain
built in a circle going up
226 steps
(no research on this one, I counted) at a 30° angle to almost a
point at the top. At the top is a humungus statue of a lion. The
monument was built by King William I of the Netherlands on the spot
where it was believed that his son, the Prince of Orange, was
wounded.
So it was time to come home to Delft, our
European version of an Independence Day weekend completed. We live
on a pedestrian street so we keep the car in an underground garage a
couple blocks away. I dropped Lynn and the stuff off at the house,
went to park the car and started walking home. There is always
something going on on summer Sundays in Delft and this time in a
small park near the end of our street, I heard a Dutch troubadour
start to sing. First he did the
Garden Song by John Denver and others and then he did one
of John Denver’s most famous,
Take Me Home, Country Roads. I was always a big fan of
John Denver, still am, so I stopped to listen. The chorus of the
second one starts:
I sang along, quietly, with the troubadour. "Take
me home to the place I belong." It’s Independence Day in America and
America is where I belong. Make no mistake, we love Delft and we’re not
ready to return, but home is where your heart is and our hearts are
in America, specifically, the Cradle of Liberty and the Birthplace
of the Nation. We hope you all had a great July 4th and
remember, we don’t know just when, but we’ll be back.
See all my pictures of Luxembourg,
Malmedy and
Waterloo. See my videos
from Luxembourg and
Waterloo. |
