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No France At All
Luxembourg has much more topography than I thought it would.
Our hotel, the DoubleTree, looked like a Soviet tower block. Trip Advisor had remarked on this but said that the newly refurbished rooms were lovely. Ours wasn't either lovely or newly-refurbished, and had what I very much hope will turn out to be the worst mattress of the trip.
Business hotel, so bloody SwissCom. Not refurbished, so not enough power sockets to set up the airport, so offline overnight.
We had dinner in the hotel, it being late and out of town. It wasn't nearly as good as the descriptions on the menu, but it was ok and the local wine was good. There was a smoking bar! Indoors, and everything! While I was in there, after dinner, two twenty-something Chinese guys came in, ordered cognac, looked around at the few, quiet people in the bar and wistfully asked the bar man if it would get busy later. When told that this was busy for a non-week night, they drank and left.
(This agrees with the size and emptiness of the restaurant, which does make you wonder. I mean, if your hotel is, say, half refurbished, and your expected occupancy for the night is, say, less than fifty percent, doesn't it make commercial sense to put your guests in rooms that are less likely to make them resolve to never visit again?)
Sunday morning in Luxembourg was decidedly grey and wet. We read the Wikipedia page about the city and decided that it wasn't exciting enough for the weather, so off we headed to Belgium instead. Belgium was also grey and wet, surprisingly.
We stopped in Ghent, had a wander in the intermittent drizzle and some lunch, and then headed on to Bruges. At which point the (rather elderly anyway, and frankly struggling with having has a map of northern europe stuffed into her brain) Sat Nav died. This meant I had to map read, which is something to generally be avoided, but we got to the hotel eventually: the Hotel Ter Duinen, which seems nice and has parking, which is a bonus around here. Still rather grey, but I dare say we'll go for a wander in town after Mike's finished reinstalling the Sat Nav ("I seem to have set it to Finnish...") in the hopes that that will fix it.
Our hotel, the DoubleTree, looked like a Soviet tower block. Trip Advisor had remarked on this but said that the newly refurbished rooms were lovely. Ours wasn't either lovely or newly-refurbished, and had what I very much hope will turn out to be the worst mattress of the trip.
Business hotel, so bloody SwissCom. Not refurbished, so not enough power sockets to set up the airport, so offline overnight.
We had dinner in the hotel, it being late and out of town. It wasn't nearly as good as the descriptions on the menu, but it was ok and the local wine was good. There was a smoking bar! Indoors, and everything! While I was in there, after dinner, two twenty-something Chinese guys came in, ordered cognac, looked around at the few, quiet people in the bar and wistfully asked the bar man if it would get busy later. When told that this was busy for a non-week night, they drank and left.
(This agrees with the size and emptiness of the restaurant, which does make you wonder. I mean, if your hotel is, say, half refurbished, and your expected occupancy for the night is, say, less than fifty percent, doesn't it make commercial sense to put your guests in rooms that are less likely to make them resolve to never visit again?)
Sunday morning in Luxembourg was decidedly grey and wet. We read the Wikipedia page about the city and decided that it wasn't exciting enough for the weather, so off we headed to Belgium instead. Belgium was also grey and wet, surprisingly.
We stopped in Ghent, had a wander in the intermittent drizzle and some lunch, and then headed on to Bruges. At which point the (rather elderly anyway, and frankly struggling with having has a map of northern europe stuffed into her brain) Sat Nav died. This meant I had to map read, which is something to generally be avoided, but we got to the hotel eventually: the Hotel Ter Duinen, which seems nice and has parking, which is a bonus around here. Still rather grey, but I dare say we'll go for a wander in town after Mike's finished reinstalling the Sat Nav ("I seem to have set it to Finnish...") in the hopes that that will fix it.
no subject
Luxembourg is a bit weird. The motorway cafes have both the cheapest fuel and the worst food for hundreds of km around. There is a presumption that the customer simply won't be back. When I change trains there en route to Strasbourg I try to eat in mildly exotic restaurants on the basis that they may have a loyal clientele who encourage the proprietors to keep up standards. (Last time I was there, "mildly exotic" meant Portuguese.)
no subject
Last time, we were both low on fuel and needing the rest stops. So we took one look at the queues, and went past to use the other facilities. Only to discover that you can't get back from there to the fuel.
Ah.
We made the next stop without running out, but next time we'll know.
no subject
The one we stopped at in Luxembourg was very keen on people using the loo *before* eating, not after.
no subject
The thing I found weirdest about the service station was that, when we went to the loo to wash the sticky remains of pastries off our hands, in exchange for paying 50c for the privilege (not that they were any cleaner than the free French ones!), we then got a voucher for 50c off in the cafe. Still, we handed them to a random person on the way out, so someone benefited, at least.