SO. I return.
Yesterday I had breakfast in Germany, lunch in Belgium and dinner in England. It was… slightly odd.
So I mentioned Aachen. It was cool. There was a fountain that smelt of rotten eggs (it was the sulphur in the water) and had the kind of taste that can only be described as “acquired”. There was also the cathedral and the town hall and the cathedral treasury which had awesome relics. Interestingly, the Moselle Valley is mostly Catholic. So there was a fair amount of the relic excitement. In fact, when I was in the treasury with my mum, we saw this sarcophagus which the guide book said had housed Charlemagne’s remains for about 400 years. I turned to my mum and said “you know, it only says 400 years. I bet they took him up and diced him up for relics.” She didn’t believe me.
We went into the next room and there was his arm in a golden arm shaped case and his head in a giant golden head shaped bust-type case. And for good measure a couple of other reliquaries. Not quite enough for his entire body. But sharing is a very Christian thing to do so he’s probably spread all over Europe. ð I resisted the urge to say “I told you so.”
My memory for where we went is a bit swiss cheesed. I remember where we went, but not quite in the right order so… I will recount my exciting adventures in Deutschland in a somewhat random order. Sometimes with pictures.
Right then. We went to Trier where Karl Marx was born and the Romans had a big thing going on there. We saw the Porta Nigra which is all that is left of the big wall that was once around Trier. It’s basically a big black gate. Also, there were loads of giant feet about the place. Apparently these were models based on what’s left of the foot of a giant statue of Constantine the Great. Which was nice. Trier also has an AWESOME cathedral. Which also has a relic, which I vaguely understood to be the the unseamed robe that Jesus wore that the soldiers cast lots for. I…may have misunderstood the sign, but the rest of the sign said that the oneness and lack of seams of the robe symbolises the oneness of the church. Hee. Anyway. It was cool. And had a crypt which had been freshly used. ð
There’s also another church there, which I suspect was St George’s church. What with the guy stabinating a dragon on the wall inside. There’s also a “basilica”. Which wasn’t really a church when it was built, but a huge throne room and people just thought it was some kind of a church. Trier also has a C&A. ð
Where else. Hmm. We visited Bernkastel twice. I… don’t remember much about Bernkastel. It has nice cake. Um. And timber framed buildings that are slightly wonky. And the second time it had singing.
On Tuesday evening there was wine-tasting. And a film about wine-making in the Moselle Valley and exactly how people pick grapes on what is like… the steepest vineyard ever. I… had grape-juice.
At some point we visited a place called Cochem. Where we walked all the way up a hill, couldn’t be bothered to actually go into the castle and got the bus back down. There, it rained. So we had sausages and potato salad.
Then we visit a small town called Beilstein. Which was a very small town. And kind of boring. It had a carmelite convent. and a church next to it. With a restaurant that had very nice hot chocolate. And that was it really.
Hm. Oh. And then there was Idar-Oberstein where we did all our shopping and visited a thingy. A jewellery workshop thingy. Which was cool and also interesting.
I think that was it.
Oh. And there was one other thing. I shall illustrate this with a picture.
This… is a small sample of the group we went with. You may notice something they all have in common. Yes. My mum and I found ourselves on a trip with a coach load of over-seventies. In fact, even the tour guide was over seventy.
We didn’t even realise till we got off the Eurostar in Brussels and found that yes… all the old people from the coach we were in did seem to be the rest of our party.
It was nice really. Everything was at a nice slow holiday pace. ð
And that was that.
Today I had all my hair chopped off. Well. Most of it.
Originally from her divine shadow on September 29, 2007, 1:15pm