Tuesday 6th January 2009 - Images and Blurb from Luxembourg & Germany

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It's been a few months since I have had the chance to pop my head in the door here and say hello, so with it now being 2009 I had better kick off with saying happy new year to all... ...as normal I've not been in one place for long since leaving Minnesota, so I thought I would share a few pics with you guys from some of the places I've been since. At the end of November in western & central europe most of the big cities start setting up a xmas market in the centre of the city (usually in the old marketplaces or other large town square style areas), and with me living only 20km away from Aachen I popped in there to grab some photo's near the start of December:-

The sheer amount of tourists visiting the city during xmas market season is mental, and if you expect to get parked anywhere near the city centre you really do need to be up at the crack of dawn (no idea who Dawn is, and have no intention being anywhere near her crack either). Co-incidentally the most ignorant of all the tourists in my opinion are the English - it's like going to Tesco's at 4.55pm on xmas eve with only 5 minutes of shopping left, it's no wonder many people hate the English attitudes. Next up on the list of places I was off to was Maastricht in The Netherlands (not far from home - approx 50km drive), really cool city - much smaller compared to the likes of Aachen, but it's a very old styled city with narrow cobbled streets to be found in many places as you wander around, and then the River Maas runs through the city also, so here's a few snaps from Maastricht:-

While in Maastricht, I stumbled upon an old Ford Mustang up one of the old cobbled streets on the outskirts of the city (was walking round the old city walls at the time):-

During the xmas to new year period we were in Luxembourg touring around 7 or 8 villages and then finally in Luxembourg City itself. I can't emphasise enough how awesome a city Luxembourg is, you really need to see it to believe it, it's built on so many different height levels with the city centre being on top of a huge mound of rock, and everything else has been built around it on lower levels. Add to that the fact that there are several rivers in the area and that the entire city is in a valley area and you then have huge bridges spanning the valley from the centre of the city to the outer areas. First up a few shots from around the countryside and smaller towns and villages on route to the City itself:-

This old Sherman Tank is on display at Clervaux Castle

Vianden Castle dominates the skyline from Vianden town

 Larochette Castle stands on rocks that make you wonder why it hasn't already collapsed!!!

From here we now go into Luxembourg City itself, in the first 3 images I've tried to capture exactly what I described above - showing how the city centre sits up high on the rock in the background, and then the outer city is all down on a much lower level:-

As you climb up the walls (quite a climb - the pics don't do it justice) you get a great view of the lower areas of the city - the following image was shot from maybe 1/5th from the bottom. The river you see in this image is the same river I used in the first image from the city - had I shot from another 300 metres or so to the right then it would have shown where I was standing in the first shot.

And then once you get to the top of the walls you have a spectacular view over everything:-

Inside the City itself there are loads of cool buildings to be found, such as the Notre Dame Cathedral (not the real one, but the Luxembourg one - you have to remember that much of Luxembourg is French speaking also):-

And in the last few years Luxembourg was chosen at the city to be "lit" up, so you can still find many buildings in the city that are either lit in a single colour of light, or have a rotational spectrum of lights such as the KBL building:-

But the most spectacular of all the building which have been lit up is without a doubt the Philharmonie Luxembourg which is located a few km's outside the City to the East, it's a huge round building which has hundreds of vertical pillars around the outside and through these pillars changing colours of light shine from inside the glass building itself, giving the appearance of a constantly flowing light.

And a close up of the vertical pillars, which are 2 deep, one behind another - with the light shining through:-

Luxembourg City is definitely somewhere which will be visited again, hopefully in the summer months as it was between -5c to -10c when we were there, and with the city being up on the rock it is very exposed to the elements when you're not right in the centre surrounded by all the buildings.

Last but not least was a day trip to Koblenz which is around 160km south of where I live, somewhere that Mireille wasn't too over the moon about when I suggested it, but having now been there we can both say that it is a spectacular city that is more than worth a visit if the opportunity present itself. The city has so many buildings from different periods in history, so much so that you can easily break the city into three areas - the Old Town, the Palace Area and the Fortress. The city itself also sits on the banks of the Rhein and the Mosel rivers, so we decided to make our starting point at the "Drei Eck" where both rivers meet up and the site of one of the biggest attractions of the city too - a huge monument to William I.

From the monument you get great landscape shots of the rivers:-

And then if you look across the river you can also get your first view of the massive Fortress which sits on the hill opposite:-

We decided to explore the "alt Stadt" or "Old City" next, which took us a few hours to do due to the amount of old buildings that were to be found:-

After lunch it was time to have a look around the Palace area, but unfortunately the Palace is in the process of having massive landscaping work done that there were more cranes and diggers in front and around it than anything else, and the pic below was the only angle you could get rid of most of this from:-

At the Palace area of the city you're now close enough to the bridge which spans the river to the other side where the Fortress is found on top of the hill - but don't be in too much of a rush as you can get some amazing shots of the surrounding area from the bridge itself:-

Once over on the other side of the river you can choose to either walk through the village itself (which is recommended as it's a quaint old village with small market area - great Cappuchino and cake shop we stumbled upon on our way back again), or the other option is to walk along the riverbank, which is what we did on our visit. Great views can be had from the riverside looking back over towards the many buildings in the City Centre and of course the monument at the Drei Eck, as well as the ever towering Fortress which just gets bigger and bigger on the hillside above you the closer you get to it.

With it being the middle of winter the light was already dropping fast as we reached the foot of the hill to the Fortress, so we decided to leave that for our next visit and instead make our way back along the riverside, over the bridge and back to the monument at the Drei Eck to shoot some long exposures of the rivers and monument in the colourful winter evening sky.

So, that about sums up the last month and a bit's travels - you can always find more on my website and on flickr in the relevant sections, and I'll leave you with one of my favourite shots from Koblenz - a HDR image made up from 7 different long exposures ranging from 1 second to 30 seconds:-

Until next time,

Barry & Mireille
 

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PREVIOUS BLOG ENTRIES

2008-10-27 - Lake Superior & Duluth Day Trip

2008-10-23 - Summer 2008 Photography Tour Blog - Part 2

2008-10-22 - Summer 2008 Photography Tour Blog - Part 1

2008-10-20 - Some photos from Minnesota

2008-09-14 - Monaro On Tour Photographs

2008-06-26 - Integration, Supporting the Nation & Happy Anniversary Irmscher

2008-02-28 - Dr Remington Strikes Again and Life In Germany

2008-02-17 - Have I Just Done A Britney?

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