European fireworks - the spectrum of impressions (part four)
state (grand duchy) in Western Europe. Member of the European Union since 1957. The name comes from the High German "lucilinburch" - "small town".
The country is located in Western Europe, bordering Belgium, Germany and France. Together with Belgium and the Netherlands, it is part of the Benelux. In the east, the country is limited by the Moselle River. The relief is mainly a hilly elevated plain, in the north of which the spurs of the Ardennes rise (the highest point is Kneiff Hill, 560 meters). The total area of the country is about 2586 km2.
Most tourists come to Luxembourg as part of a tour of the countries of this region. The main elements of the program: the city center, the duke's palace, casemates, a trip in trailers along the Petrusia valley. However, in order to truly feel this country, you need to live in it and chat with some of the locals.
The fact is that in this small country the main news is transmitted by word of mouth and interesting places hardly promote themselves.
The main population of Luxembourg is the Luxembourgers, Lö tzeburger (self-name). They also live in Italy, Germany and France. The total number is 473 thousand people, including 285 thousand people in Luxembourg. They speak the Luxembourgish language of the Germanic group of the Indo-European family. German and French are also widely spoken. Writing based on the Latin alphabet. The vast majority of believers are Catholics, there are Protestants (according to Wikipedia).
A tiny country with a very high standard of living. A country in which the average life expectancy is 77 years (men - 74 years, women - 81 years). The country is the second in the world in terms of GDP per capita income. And in this tiny country in the city of Luxembourg, we are caught in a huge traffic jam!
For forty minutes we trudged through the streets, examining the city in detail. Finally, the bus unloaded us at the square, which offered a fantastic view of the mountain with the castle. A deep dip separated the square and the castle, trees and ideal flower beds were green underfoot. The arched bridge, half a kilometer away, seemed like a child's toy with cars displayed on it. Having admired, we go on an excursion.
It seems that in this city even time flows more slowly than in others: cars pass by at a speed of no more than forty kilometers per hour, people walk slowly about their business, even a traffic light switches smoothly and lazily; . The inscription "Casemates" does not mean gloomy dungeons, but simply ...a toilet. On a large square there is a monument to the fox. She's become famous in the city for some reason. Airplanes fly low overhead, the airport is literally a couple of kilometers from here.
A large Catholic cathedral is squeezed between two residential buildings. All the statues are depicted with their eyes closed, it seems that they, too, succumbed to the sleepy mood of the city and dozed off; . There is no one in the cathedral itself. In general, no, no ministers, no parishioners. Only a couple of minutes later, a gray-haired grandfather crawled out of the dungeon and, grimacing in annoyance, began to wait for us to leave. No one expressed a desire to linger here, and so that no one else would go into the cathedral, grandfather closed the doors behind us with a key.
Meanwhile, it began to rain, which in about twenty minutes turned into a downpour. Great, and we again without an umbrella! We spent the rest of the tour under a tropical downpour. Because of the rain, the outlines of the buildings were faintly guessed, and everyone was waiting for the command to go to the bus. And only Anyuta and I were in no hurry to go anywhere and listened with interest to the guide - we were already completely wet and it would not get worse for us; .
The guide has finished her story, and we are sailing to the bus.
I noticed that many of the group had the same umbrellas (with the inscription "Van Gogh Museum"). I already began to think that there was some kind of promotion for umbrellas in Amsterdam, but everything turned out to be much more prosaic: most of our group decided to go to this museum, and when we left, we saw a downpour on the street and, in order not to get wet, skimped on umbrellas right in the museum shop. Near the bus, I asked the driver to open the luggage compartment for us in order to take dry things. We change in the bus toilet, and we are more or less ready to continue the trip.
We are heading to the Netherlands for an overnight stay. An overnight stay in the Netherlands is a prerequisite for our trip, because we received Schengen visas from the Dutch embassy, and we have to spend more nights in this country. On the way we stopped at the territory of Belgium.
It turned out that in a day we visited four European countries (France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands). The city that will shelter us this night is called Maastricht.
We got to this city already dark. Our drivers cruised around the city for a long time, trying to figure out where to go from the navigator. The navigator stubbornly pointed us to a wasteland. Since the hotel could not fall through the ground, they began to look for this hotel in a circle. There was no one to ask on the street, because the streets were completely empty. Everything ends sooner or later, and our ordeals have ended.
The hotel is called "NH Maastricht 4*". Modern building, comfortable rooms. What else do weary travelers need? I go down to the reception, my attention is attracted by the scooters displayed in the lobby. Renting a two-seat scooter costs €45 for three hours and €59 for eight hours. I ask what documents you need to have with you, and I get an answer that only a driver's license.
Which remained at home, in a bag with documents for the car. It's a pity ...We go to bed with a slight sadness about the lost opportunity to ride around Holland at night.
Hooray! Finally a normal breakfast, with meat and a side dish! A hearty breakfast, a couple of fresh rolls with jam and juice and we are ready to go. On the way we saw a huge factory, from the chimneys of which thick smoke was pouring. The smoke was white, in contrast to the emissions from our factories, which play all the colors of the rainbow in the smoke. Finally arrived in Cologne.
Cologne (original name lat. Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium - Colonia Claudius, a place for sacrifices of Agrippins; Germanized - German) is a city in the Federal Republic of Germany, in North Rhine-Westphalia, the capital of the government district of the same name. Cologne is the fourth most populated and the third largest city in Germany, as well as one of the largest economic and cultural centers of the country.
The "metropolis on the Rhine", as Cologne is often called, is one of the oldest cities in Germany, which has played a significant role in the history of Europe throughout its existence, since the Roman era. Cologne is famous for its main temple - Cologne Cathedral, one of the main Catholic churches in Germany.
The main attraction of the city is, of course, the Cologne Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin and St. Peter. He miraculously survived the war, having withstood a direct hit by 3 bombs, and today is one of the few temples of the city that have survived in the original. Construction of this masterpiece of Gothic architecture began in 1248 under Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden. Before that, on the site of today's cathedral, there was another, Romanesque.
In 1164, the chancellor of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Rainald von Dassel (1159-1167), having defeated the city and state of Milan, took the relics of the Three Kings (in Orthodox theology - the Three Wise Men) out of it. This incredibly exalted the city in the Christian world. As a consequence, the city did not accept Lutheranism and remained a stronghold of Catholicism in northern Germany. After the relics of the three Magi were moved to Cologne, the old cathedral could no longer accommodate crowds of pilgrims from all over the world, as a result of which it was decided to build a five-nave cathedral, unprecedented in size until then. Today, the main shrine of the cathedral is kept in a magnificent golden ark (according to Wikipedia).
We circled around the city a little and got to the Cologne Cathedral. Two gloomy black spiers rise above the city. They are black because Cologne used to be an industrial city, and for eight hundred years an incalculable amount of soot has settled on the cathedral.
Trial work is now underway to clean the walls and roof from plaque (one wall is almost pure white).
During the Second World War, Cologne was heavily bombed, with the Americans and the British destroying about ninety percent of the buildings in the city. But the Cologne Cathedral survived, only a couple of stray shells hit it. But it was not an accident that saved it from destruction, just this huge cathedral was an excellent reference point for artillery observers and bomber pilots. It was not profitable to destroy it, and in the ruined city it remained a gloomy obelisk...
Being under the cathedral itself, we admire the beautiful stucco and exquisite vaults. We go around the cathedral around, around the corner nose to nose we encounter ...a Roman legionnaire and a Neanderthal man, who are having a nice conversation and drinking coffee from plastic cups. These are the actors resting between photo shoots .
Having finished the circle, we are again at the main entrance.
We go to the middle. It is very difficult to describe this splendor, as well as to convey the unforgettable atmosphere of the greatness and prayerfulness of this colossus.
On the street, we decide where to move on. Suddenly, a bearded man with a twisted face runs past us. He thrashes about, yelling, “Harold, Harold! ! ! ". A woman flies behind him, shouting the same name. As far as I understand, they lost a child in this commotion and are now rushing about in search of him. Two policemen run up to them, listen and radio information about the incident. There are no words, God forbid to survive such stress!
Impressed by what happened, we move on to the shopping malls. Here is the Rolex brand store, prices from one and a half to twenty thousand per watch. I liked the store where various metal sculptures of animals were presented. The size is the most diverse: from a tiny toad to a gorilla in three human heights.
Of the huge number of different shops, our attention was attracted by a children's cafe. Scored a variety of ice cream, jelly and two fruit salads. Tasty! ! ! In a huge electronics supermarket, we bought ourselves ...coffee. I don’t know why, but between the monitors and cameras there was a small stand with coffee. I would have passed by, but Anyuta in a confident voice offered to take a couple of packages of this Lavazza coffee, saying that here it costs 11 euros, and here it is twice as expensive. Okay, let's take it, I hope the wife is right (she was right, he costs 34 euros in Kyiv for a kilogram package). Our free time ends, we go to the bus.
We will spend the night in the city of Koenigslutter. Small town, but very cozy and clean. The guide intrigued the tourists with the message that the hotel has a free pool, open until nine in the evening. Everyone began to keep track of time with interest and figure out whether we would be in time or not.
It was completely indifferent to me, I just wanted silence and be alone with my Beloved.
At half past seven, the bus taxied to the Park Avalon 4 * hotel. While we unhurriedly unloaded and wandered to the hotel, thirsty for the pool were already at the reception. After waiting for the main crowd to subside, we got the keys and went to look for our room. In the previous sentence, the word SEARCH is the key!
A little about the hotel. The person who designed this hotel seems to have been building labyrinths before. And he brilliantly embodied his knowledge of their design in this hotel! ! ! There is nothing else I can explain the scheme of corridors and stairs that lead you anywhere, but not to your room!
So, at the reception they showed us to the left. Good. We go to the left. We pass a small corridor, then two tunnels. Without any identifying marks. We guessed which one we need, in front of us is a ladder up and turn to the right. The pointer assures us that we are up.
We go up, go around the whole floor, our number is not there. Okay, let's go down to the index, read it again. After some thought and estimation, I notice a small door to the left of the stairs. Yeah, so the pointer sent us not upstairs, but through this door. Okay, let's move on. A couple of curves in the corridor, and finally an elevator. Great, we need the third floor, I press the "3" button and we arrive at ...the fourth floor. I remember about the European numbering of floors, but here I did everything right. We go down to the floor below, turn right and, vivat, we are at our room.
The gas station shop is open until 21:00, so I quickly drop my things and run to him. Unforeseen delay - in one of the corridors I met an elderly couple from our group. They've been wandering around the hotel for TWENTY minutes, trying to find their room. I quickly grab their suitcase and lead them along the beaten path. I listen to thanks, nod and disappear. It took me ten minutes to get to the store.
I buy martinis, juice, biscuits and mineral water and go back satisfied. A procession of our tourists is walking towards me with a brisk step. It is not difficult to guess where they are in a hurry. The store will have a monthly bargain today ...
In the room, my wife and I had a farewell dinner. The next night will be on the train, so we will walk here. A short walk around the town completed this wonderful evening ...
Breakfast, departure to Potsdam. Everyone on the bus is already tired of moving, everyone has completed the minimum program, bought souvenirs, and everyone is in a good mood. We arrive in Potsdam.
Potsda (German: Potsdam, n. -puddle. Podstupim) is a city in eastern Germany with a population of about 15.000 people. Capital of the federal state of Brandenburg. Located on the Havel River and on the banks of several interconnected lakes, 26 km southwest of Berlin (according to Wikipedia).
Let's go for a walk in the Sanssouci Palace Park.
Beautiful fountains, picturesque alleys and a small palace harmoniously fit into the wooded area. To be honest, there are simply not enough emotions for everything, we see the sights as a “compulsory duty”.
The inspection is over, we go to the place where cafes and souvenir shops are concentrated. A German is standing at a pedestrian intersection, wearing equipment with which he fries sausages. Naturally, it has a cutting table, a gas burner and semi-finished products. One and a half euro portion, we take two. Ketchup is sweet and cloying, phew.
Near the bus stop I see a large kiosk selling simple food, sausages, french fries and so on. A large stand hangs on the wall, where food is drawn, its name and price are written. The trouble is, I can't read German at all. A solution to the problem comes to mind: I take close-up photographs of the necessary dishes from the stand and in turn show the photo to the German woman in the window.
She smiles and nods her head approvingly, they say, got out; . We take orders and have lunch. Not far from us, a girl is chasing a dog of the “usi-pusi, such a manyunya” breed. The dog is half the size of a normal cat, all in bows and ruffles, but runs fast. The dog is clearly satisfied with his behavior and is categorically not given into the hands of the owner. When she (the dog) runs past me, I bend down sharply and grab her by the withers. She tries to grab my hand, but I deftly intercept her by the muzzle, and give it to the run-up hostess. She bursts into gratitude and leaves with her prey.
We wander around the field, looking at the stalls. Anyuta notices a place where a girl bakes pancakes and stuffs them with hot chocolate. We approach it, there are price tags, but I don’t know how “damn” will be in German. Thoughtfully I ask the passing tourist Gennady:
- Gena, do you know how the word "damn" will be in English?
He thinks and shakes his head.
I thoughtfully say out loud:
- I wonder how much one pancake with chocolate costs?
- Four fifty.
It was the girl behind the counter who answered me! Clearly, the "German" is not real 4; . The girl turned out to be from Belarus, married a German and has been living in Germany for five years. We talked a little while she baked a pancake, took the prey and go to the bus.
The bus takes us to the Cecilienhof Palace. The whole group went to look at the palace, and my wife and I (she had a sore leg) went to wander around the old park. Huge trees obscured the sun for us, birds were singing around, romance! A small squirrel jumped out onto the lower branch of an oak tree and stared thoughtfully at us. She grabbed the offered biscuit at once, examined it critically, and dragged it up.
We went to the river, admired the scenery and go to the bus. The group is loaded, and we are going to the city center. On the way we grab our Potsdam guide. The guide's name is originally German - Faina.
On the recommendation of the guide, we go to a cafe where they serve the best hot chocolate in Germany. Anyuta ordered just chocolate, and I ordered amaretto. We are waiting for the order, and we taste. Either we set ourselves up this way, or it’s really how they cook here, but we were delighted with the taste of chocolate. By itself, hot chocolate is bitter, but in combination with "no" cream, a striking effect was obtained. And amaretto only emphasized it. We regret to leave here.
In a large supermarket we buy up provisions for the train. We take a couple of bottles of liquor, which tastes very much like Baileys, but is half the price. The group gathers near the bus, we say goodbye to Faina and hit the road.
Two and a half hours flew by. Before the railway station, we stopped at a gas station. Oksana warned that the toilet at the station is open until 17.00, then it closes and EVERYTHING! There are no other latrines there, and the train arrives as early as 23.48! ! !
Europe, damn it ...At the gas station, I immediately drew attention to the fact that in the shop all the canisters with automotive oil were screwed to the wall with a thread. Yeah, that means the Motherland is not far away . Well, nowhere in Europe, I have not seen this, but here ...
The Rzepin station greeted us with rain, and when we unloaded and went under the shed, the rain turned into a downpour. Again! The cold wind did not add to the mood, but my wife and I, the guide and a couple of women stood outside under a canopy and shared our impressions. I took out a bottle of martini from my bag, Oksana brought glasses, and it became much more fun for us to stand and discuss the ups and downs of the trip; . Two hours of conversation passed quickly, and we are jogging to the right platform. The train arrived at 23.35 and departed at 23.39, nine minutes ahead of schedule! Who did not have time, he was late. The number of the car (the same one in which we were traveling here) led me to the bad idea that if it is hot tomorrow, then we are guaranteed a trip in the oven; .
We unpack, go to bed. However, climbing onto the third shelf was not so easy - there was no ladder! Great, we open climbing courses: high chair, second regiment, interception by the handle, and I'm upstairs. Okay let's sleep...
The morning was sunny, which did not please me at all. We stretch, we put ourselves in order, we have breakfast. By lunchtime, the carriage heats up and smoothly turns into a sauna. I collect our chocolates and sweets and take them to the next car, which is air conditioned. There I find tourists from our group and put sweets closer to the flow of cold air. I don’t want to go into hell, but I reluctantly go to our car. I will not describe this torture, you can re-read the beginning of the story, where I described the way here.
Polish customs quickly stamped our passports and let us go in peace. Wheel change, our customs. Two female customs officers enter the car, examining us appraisingly.
They choose me as a victim, they ask me to show the bag. I open it, they sort out children's toys (we have a small child and three godchildren). I have been asked for a long time about where it was bought and how much it cost. Well, at least the price tags were pasted on the boxes, and they fell behind. In a neighboring compartment, a woman was carrying some plants, they began to make claims against her, but, having received ten euros, they instantly disappeared. Bribers...
On our territory, all tourists turned on their phones and began to share their impressions of the trip with friends and relatives. By evening, the heat began to subside, and everyone was looking forward to the end of the journey. We arrive in Kyiv, we are met by the representative of "Feyeria Mandriv" Vitaliy with champagne. We drink a couple of bottles right on the platform, say goodbye and go home. In Europe it’s good, but at home the child ...
I summarize the trip: it was perfectly organized, the route was thought out and well planned in time.
Guide Oksana promptly resolved emerging issues, knew a lot of the realities of the countries we visited, and informed tourists about them. Memories of this wonderful trip will remain in our memory for a long time .. .
