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We had one day tickets to the Rock Werchter 2022 festival, just north of Brussels. These were a birthday present to my daughter, for the day when Twenty One Pilots were playing.

I'd not been to a festival in a long time, so wasn't sure what to expect. The event was well organised, easy to get to (even if the parking was quite far from the site) and very much fun.

Måneskin

We got there just in time to watch the last few songs of Måneskin on the "Main" stage from a distance around 4pm, which proved to be a good start to the day.

The Faim

Then we walked around a bit to explore the festival site and stopped to watch The Faim play on the "Slope" stage.

The slope stage gets it's name from the fact that it is under a man made slope, from the top of which the festival goers can get a better view of the area.

Phoebe Bridgers

Then we headed over to the "Barn" stage to watch Phoebe Bridgers for a while. This stage was opposite the "Slope", just passed the "Klub C" stage, which we didn't end up going in. The "Barn" (as well as "Klub C") is an indoor stage, so we didn't feel like hanging around in there too long. But there was a nice outdoor area to follow the action in the "Barn".

Yungblud

After that we ambled around the festival site a little more, before watching a few songs by Yungblud.

Mother Mother

Whilst we returned to the "Barn" to watch LP, our kids headed off to watch Mother Mother at the "Slope". I headed over to see if I could find them, which was a pointless effort, but I listened to a couple of songs which were really quite good.

LP

Next up, we watched LP on the screen outside the "Barn", sitting in this shade of this lovely warm day. The music was great and the atmosphere too.

Anne Marie

Then we headed over to the main stage to join our kids watching Anne Marie. They'd gone there early to stake out their for Twenty One Pilots. We saw the last 20 minutes of her show, which was very nice.

Twenty One Pilots

So then we hung around in front the Main stage for an hour, until Twenty One Pilots were up at 9pm. The kids managed to get in to the separated bit right in front of the stage. It was a long wait, but we were not disappointed. They put on the best show of the night. Full of stunts, visuals and of course the great songs.

The show included

• Josh Dun drumming whilst being carried on a platform over the crowd
  
• Tyler Joseph being held in the air whilst singing
  
• a camp fire
  
• and last but not absolutely not least, Tyler singing "Car radio" from the roof of the stage, having climbed there frees style up the scaffolding.
  
  
  

Wow, what a performance!

Imagine Dragons

The headline act of the day were Imagine Dragons. After Twenty One Pilots, they had a really tough to follow. But of course this is record breaking Imagine Dragons and follow it they did. What a great way to end the night!

Good Night Rock Werchter!

We had a nice work afternoon out in the university area of Belval in Esch, the European city of culture 2022. After a lunch at BEET, we had a guided tour of the old steelworks, the remains of which have been kept as tribute to the past. It makes an interesting juxtaposition to new and state of the art university buildings around them. The library, which open to anyone, is especially impressive. The area of well with a visit and is still undergoing intense construction.

Angie is now getting better at sitting still - and jumping on the same log as six months ago.

Whilst increasingly aware of neurodiversity, we still try to fit everyone into a world designed for a lucky few.

Rather than trying to squash everyone into a restrictive and shrinking box, we need to start expanding the box!

from Twitter

On the last day of the long weekend round this neck of the woods, we decided to visit the zoo Pairi Daiza. It is considered to be one of the best zoos in Europe.

It's certainly worth the visit as it's a wonderful day out with lots of animals to see in a lovely landscaped environment. Animals being animals, not toys, means they are generally just lying around. However, they are still fascinating. The pandas are amazing. You do wonder how they ever survived, only eating bamboo, meaning they have to eat most of the time. Then they sleep the rest of the time. On top of which the female is only fertile three days in the year. Still, nature and evolution find a way!

I also bought some of the beer made locally in the Cambron Abbey. Tastes very nice indeed.

Here are some pictures of the visit. Sorry, no alternative texts at the moment for those with visual impairments.

Our final full day in France was in Orleans, where we visited a friend. In fact it was the piano teacher of our daughters'. He's been living in Orleans for almost 30 years, having come as graduate student and worked his way up to professor of music, with all the benefits that brings - since it means being a state official. The idea was to watch a concert of his, unfortunately that did not happen.

Joan of Arc

The city of Orleans is all about Joan of Arc. There are statues to her everywhere. It also makes the place a very proud and independent city. We started our visit in the evening and had a stroll around the centre with an average dinner in a Thai fast food place. We did get a glimpse of the cathedral down the main boulevard.

The next day was a guided tour of the city with our friend. It started off with the main statue of Joan of Arc on the main square. Before heading to Groslot gardens and past Hotel Groslot.

Cathedral

We then headed into the Cathedral, which has Joan of Arc's story pictured in it's stained glass windows. You could also see all the local family crests hanging on the sides of the main area within the cathedral. Proud of their local heritage they certainly are.

We strolled around the city some more, which has been well restored - apparently the centre was totally rundown and unliveable off the main streets thirty years ago. Now you can see lots of beautiful old houses with their wooden beams.

As commented by our friend, in Germany when they restore old buildings they make them look new, in France when they restore them, they still look old. Having grown up in Germany, I can confirm this difference.

Musee des Beaux-Artes

In the afternoon we decided to visit the museum of fine arts, just next to the cathedral. Fine art and looking at portrait after portrait of unknown people by artists you have not heard of is not my thing, but it still took me a good two hours to walk round the whole place. If fine art is your thing, this is apparently one of the best such museums in France, after the Louvre of course. Here are the two pictures I liked most.

Return home

And so ends our week in France. The next morning we drove home. We thought we might stop in Reims and the Champagne region, but that will have to wait for another day - the weather was not playing nice.

The drive home was great. Due to the tolls, the French motorways are apparently not so busy away from the main cities. I put the car in cruise control and basically didn't have to touch the brakes or the accelerator, except for toilet stops.

Of course this comes at a price - just over 50 Euros once we exited the toll system near Metz, and hit the more overloaded, but free, part of the motorway.

After leaving Versailles, we headed to Orleans to visit a friend and look around Joan of Arc's adopted home town. But first we headed to Blois, about 60km to the south west of Orleans. Blois used to be the official residence of the King of France, and has a castle to prove it!

Castle

The castle has been around for several hundred years and you can tell the parts that have been added over the centuries: all four sides of the castle are clearly from a different era.

We took the tour of the castle which was quite interesting. Turns out the decoration is all "fake", having been designed this way by the chief architect of the restoration a couple of hundred years ago. But it's very impressive nonetheless.

The most eery part of walking round the castle was standing in the room where Henry I, Duke of Guise, was assassinated. In the King's bedroom I believe it was. So here's a photo of the King's bedroom.

The views from the castle gardens are also impressive, looking out over the Seine and the rooftops of the city.

House of Magic

On the opposite side of the square to the castle, is the house of magic. Which every 15 minutes or so has dragons appearing in it's windows.

We decided to go in and were treated to a charming magic show, more geared towards little kids, but very interesting anyway. After that we explored the museum, about magic and the life of Robert-Houdin - illusionist and clockmaker.

Outside in the square between the house of magic and the castle, you can hang out in the bistros and also enjoy further views over the city. If you're lucky you will also see this black cat stroll past. Not sure if this is good or bad luck!

The city itself

We didn't have much time to look around the city, but there is far more to see than just the castle and the house of magic. We did walk onto the bridge over the Seine and also ambled through the artists quarter just below the castle.

Blois is definitely worth more time than the single day we spent there.

Just as we were leaving Paris for Orleans, we decided to make a hard right and head for Versailles, possibly the world's nest known castle. We managed to park right next to the entrance (we only realised the cost on leaving...) and walked straight up to the entrance, well we would have done had it not been for the queues.

Queues

Whilst trying to judge the time the queue would take and discussing the merits of getting a ticket to see the castle or not, we got to admire the golden gates and the magnificent castle behind them.

Eventually we decided it would be worth the wait so went inside the ticket shop only to be confronted by another queue to buy the tickets. The online shop was unusable on my phone, so we gave up and decided to have a look "out back".

Gardens

Interestingly there were no queues to see the gardens, so we walked up to the ticket stand paid our 11 Euros each and entered the rather impressive back yard of Versailles. Just this side minor annex would make most people proud.

Fountains

In fact the Versailles gardens is a really a set of fantastic fountains linked to by equally impressive paths through the groves. The fountains have rather royal sounding names like Dauphin, Ballroom, Theatre of Water and Dragon pool. In fact the most impressive was in the Mirror pool, where we watched a wonderful fountain display accompanied by baroque music.

But there were many others, which you can see at the end of this page.

Canal and Statues

We spent the rest of the wandering around the gardens. This included a nice lunch in the bistro next to the canal.

There were plenty of statues to admire and lots of groves to wander through, before discovering yet another fountain!

All in all we spent around 5 hours in the gardens without even realising it. The castle will have to wait for another time. I leave you with two more images. The first looking down over the gardens from the castle, with the canal in the distance.

The second a panorama view of the castle looking in the opposite direction to the previous image.

More fountain videos

Day two in Paris started well and we managed to get into town in a more reasonable time.

Sacre Coeur

In fact we went all the way to the Sacre Coeur on the Montmartre to get a nice view of the city. Unfortunately the weather was not good in the morning, so we spent some time sheltering from the rain showers in the local cafes and thrift shops.

Eventually the weather brightened up after lunch, so we walked up the hill to the church.

The view from the top is fantastic, but unfortunately the Eiffel Tower is hidden off to the right behind the trees, although from the right spot you can see it peaking out in all its grandeur.

Just as we were sat on the steps, a deux chevaux drove past with it's exhaust banging on the ground. Paris at it's best. 🙂

Centre Pompidou

We headed back down the hill and into town using the funicular, which we only then realised was actually included in the local transport system.

In the afternoon we headed back into the centre of Paris. First to look at the Centre Pompidou and then to do some more thrift shopping.

The walk also took us past the Hotel de Ville of Paris - it's townhall.

We arrived in Paris late afternoon on Saturday. Our hotel was about 20km to the south of Paris, chosen because it had free parking and was a rather miserable affair. Whilst everything was OK, the room was tiny, the beds were poor and the bathroom squashy. But it was cheap and close to public transport to get us into town.

Into town

So on Sunday morning we headed into town. First we had to get the tram line T7 from Moulin Vert and then switch to the metro line 7 at Villejuif Luis Aragon. Or that was the idea. Unfortunately the metro line was blocked due to a broken down train, so what should have been a 40 minute journey into town took about an hour and a half.

Pantheon

We started our journey at the Jussieu metro station and headed towards the pantheon.

Notre Dame

After the pantheon and a first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, we headed towards the Notre Dame cathedral. This lead us past a flea market selling all sorts of worthless overpriced junk.

The Notre Dame was still being repaired following the fire in the spring of 2019. So we couldn't go in, or even get too very close to it. It still remains an impressive cathedral sitting in the middle of the Seine.

Louvre

Next we headed to the Louvre, the world's biggest museum. We skipped going in, deciding that deserved a holiday in itself. Mona Lisa will have to wait.

We continued on through the park, past the place de la Concorde and onto the Champs-Elysees.

Arc de Triomphe

We walked up the Champs-Elysees, a much more ordinary road than I was expecting, and on to the Arc de Triomphe. The Champs-Elysees was shut to cars that day, due to an open air cinema being prepared at the eastern end, just in front of the Arc de Triomphe. This made it a nice leisurely stroll.

We got to the roundabout in the centre of which is the Arc de Triomphe. It is certainly an impressive monument. We used the underpass under the roundabout to get to it and strolled around the bottom of it for a while.

Eiffel Tower

Next we headed to the Eiffel Tower. This led us past a statue of George Washington. So much for freedom fries.

Finally we reached the Eiffel Tower, just as the sun decided to make an appearance on what had up until then been a rather grey affair.

The Eiffel Tower really is impressive in its size compared to the rest of Paris. It sticks out like sore thumb, but a magnificent one! As you get close, the size becomes ever more apparent, until you are staring one of it's arched feet and feeling truly insignificant.

We finished the day's sightseeing with a coffee at a café in the gardens of "yet another museum" in Paris. In front of us was an elderly couple sharing a cocktail, with the man not letting go of the glass desperate for a drink and the woman making sure he does not drink it all himself! 🙂

And so concluded our first day in Paris. We headed back to our hotel with yet more disruptions on the metro, arriving there around 10pm. Next time we will go by train to Paris and book a hotel in the centre, but this time we needed the car to carry on our journey after visiting Paris.

We saw this lovely sunset whilst walking the dog in the let evening of this unusually hot and humid day in May in Bofferdange.

This was a great Dream Theater concert I went to on Sunday evening at the Rockhal in Luxembourg. The fantastic opening act was Devin Townsend. It's been a long time since I went to a rock concert... too long.

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Rockhal

Rockhal is located next to Luxembourg university on an old steel works that is now creates a bizarre backdrop to the area.

Devin Towsend

Dream Theatre

A simple slow ride to Mersch and back in the lovely weather, before the Dream Theatre concert. Around 18km in an hour and a bit.

A nice 7.2km walk around Echternach lake. It started off with a steep climb into the forest to one side of the lake. The path returns to the level of the lake after about 4km in the forest. It then winds around the lake, past the Youth Hostel and back to the starting point. It was a lovely walk on a wonderfully warm and sunny day and the dog had a great time.

I cycled to Colmar-Berg and back, which is just under 40km. Took me three hours, including some breaks. Narrowly avoided a rain shower by cycling into the shower before it really started. It also meant going against the wind, which was tiring. On the way back everything was wet and there was unfortunately no wind in my back!