Amiens-Lille-Bruges-Bonn-Luxembourg
The big departure for part one of our 9 months “on the road” began with a small trip through the north of France, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg. During our 3 1/2 years in Romania, we didn’t spend much time in France (less than two weeks total for the whole period) so it was time to catch up with some old friends. A lot of things have happened in the last few years: weddings, babies, new jobs and new homes. For this part of the road trip, Fab’s parents loaned us their car, a nice cozy Citroen Picasa.
Lille, France
Lille is less than two hours (by car) north of Amiens on the Belgian border. It’s genuine “tchti” country, known for it’s beer and it’s ultra-modern high speed (TGV) train station which links Paris and London. We left Amiens for Lille last Wednesday morning to visit our friend Julien who relocated there from Paris a couple of years ago. Julien is a good friend of Fabien’s from ESIEE (engineering school.) It was a rare sunny day and after a nice lunch at Julien’s place we took advantage of the good weather to visit the old center. The highlights included the used book market in the old “stock exchange” courtyard and the large pedestrian shopping area with old traditional architecture in brick.
Bruges, Belgium
Thursday morning we woke up to a gray, rainy day, but we decided to continue with our plans to visit Bruges, Belgium. Julien took the day off from work to come with us. We saw Bruges, the “Venice of the North” with its charming canals, delicious chocolate and beer from underneath an umbrella. It was the perfect day to spend a couple of hours around a table, so we found a cozy restaurant and I had a “moules-frites” (mussels and french fries) cooked in beer and the guys had beef carbonade, another regional specialty.
We returned to Lille where we spent the night at Julien’s place and played “tutti cabron”, a Spanish card game until the wee hours of the morning.
Friday morning, we woke up early to get ready for our drive to Germany. When we went to leave, we found out someone had tried to break in to the car during the night. A small window on the driver’s side was broken- we immediately looked in the trunk where we had our ski gear among other things stocked, but everything was there. Then when we opened the door, we saw that they had tried to steal the car by dismantling the ignition system. We were lucky not to have lost our stuff, but had a big headache dealing with the insurance, the police, the garage, etc. We were also stuck in Lille without a car for our “road trip.” Finally, Julien was very generous and loaned us his car, a Nissan Cube, to go to Germany. Thank goodness for good friends and for parents.
Bonn, Germany
Miraculously, we made it to Bonn at 6pm, as planned. The drive from Lille was only 4 hours, mainly across Belgium which is known for the bad state of its highways. When we crossed the border into Germany, I felt like I was in a game of Frogger, with cars zipping by us at 180 km/hour (there’s no real speed limit on German highways.)
When we got to Matthias and Stephanie’s place, Matthias was cooking dinner and taking care of their little one. Matthias is a friend of mine I met in Chile who is married to a French girl, Stephanie. They have an adorable little boy, Louan. Times have changed from when I met Matthias in Patagonia 8 years ago. After dinner we spent the evening drinking beer and schnapps and catching up on old times.
On Saturday, we visited the center of Bonn after breakfast. Bonn is a smaller town south of Cologne on the Rhine River. It was the capital of West Germany, before the reunification when the capital was moved back to Berlin. It has a pretty center with pedestrian streets and an enormous cathedral. There is a big university in the town as well, so you see lots of students and locals on bicycles. For lunch we had traditional German bratwurst with mustard, yummy and good for the after-Christmas diet. After Louan’s nap, we hiked up to a lookout point over the Rhine river. We had fun pushing the stroller up the icy path (especially Fabien!) The view of the Rhine was worth it. Then we went to a brewery for dinner (more beer, yea!) before going home to put the little one to bed and finishing the evening with more schnapps.
Luxembourg (Al Grange, France)
After a big German breakfast and a long goodbye, we got on the road for our next stop: Luxembourg. Fabien started his professional life in Luxembourg (his first real job) where he lived for 1 1/2 years. We were also visiting old friends, Mikael (an old colleague) and Laurie and we got to meet their precious little boy,Ceylian . Mikael and Laurie are “border workers”, they bought a pretty house in a border village in France, and drive to Luxembourg everyday for work. And the family is growing, Ceylian is expecting a little brother in a few weeks. When we arrived, we had a nice Sunday lunch, a quiche lorraine and salad (this is the Lorraine region of France) and spent the afternoon catching up around the table and playing with Ceylian. He was happy with the cans of Romanian beer we brought which made a very nice tower on the living room table.
After a nice, cozy Sunday with friends, Monday, it was time to return the Cube to Lille. Monday (January 10th) was also Fabien’s birthday. So we visited Luxembourg, Fabien showed me where his old apartment was and his office and took me to his favorite lunch spot (Quick- a Belgian fast food restaurant) before we made the drive back to Lille. The Cube safely in Lille, we spent another evening with Julien, drank some local beer and celebrated Fab’s birthday with dinner at local pizzeria before ending the evening with a few rounds of Tutti Cabron. (Actually, Tutti Cabron is a little bit of a tradition- our friend Dani who lives in Bahrain taught us this game- it’s the only game we know for three people and it’s addictive.)
Return to Amiens
So the car is still in the garage. They are waiting for the parts from the factory to repair it. We had to delay our trip to Vallandry (where we were planning to ski) so we decided to come back to Amiens (the insurance paid our train tickets) for a a couple of days and then to go to visit friends in Paris this weekend. If all goes well, we’ll be on the road for the south of France on Monday and do our ski week at the end of the month…
Tags: France, In English 2005-2006
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La Multi Ani… Fabien !
Multumesc frumos,
Cu stima,