IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER because organizing pictures on this thing is a HUGE pain in my arse, these are some of the pictures from my Luxembourg and Germany section of my European trip. For your sanity, my trip went as follows: roughly 4 days in Luxembourg, then down to France for a few days, then back to Luxembourg for a few days, then to Berlin for about a week. From Berlin we went to Manchester, England, to Whitby, England, and then at the end of our England trip I went, by myself, to Amsterdam, Holland for a week. The following images are from our first and second time in Luxembourg, and then our adventures in Berlin.
IN BERLIN there was this super cool hippy chick in what almost seemed like a major hippy center, downtown Berlin (in reality, most of Berlin seemed like 'downtown'. That's how crazy busy it was). She had a little kiddy pool in front of her and this huge weird contraption in her hands. Then she lifted it and this happened. :O :O :O I would have loved to speak with her, but I'm not sure what the chances would be she knew any English. :(
Museum Island in Berlin. A location with about 5 different museums, all housing art from prehistoric times to nearly modern day. A lot of it I had recognized from first year Art History, but unfortunately I only studied it once, so my memory of facts was not so helpful. All of the museum/art type stuff you'll see in this entry is probably from one of those five museums on Museum Island in Berlin. Including these outdoor statues that are TO DIE FOR oh my god.
Though this my look like a timeless relic, it is in fact my father. He is the one that accompanied me to Europe. Also, he was basically my entire travel guide. I couldn't have made this trip a reality without him.
This was some cathedral or something right by the Museum. I forget what it's called, though apparently Berlin is basically known for it. It played bells all the time and there was a huge grassy area round it for people to just sit and chill. It was beautiful. Kinda cold that day so we didn't do any said sitting or chilling, just the chilling part.
Bum.
Look at these beautiful marble statues. I know I studied them in school, or at least ones of similar nature and timeline. Only thing I remember about them though is their awesomeness.
A human skeleton. Like, a super super old human skeleton.
This is from a segment in Luxembourg on our second trip there. It was a very old industrial factory, one that used to be used for the creation of steal pipes and things like that. It's shut down now but they still had it open as a type of museum. We got to go in and look around and there were (in Deutsch) little wordy bits about what these things were and what they were used for. I didn't care so much about the mechanics, it was just a really cool space to be in. Similar to that of a coal mine, except above ground. Waaaay way above ground. This structure/building just kept going up and up.
This isn't it. I think this is from Berlin too.
River Saar in Germany. This river was AMAZING. Buying some postcards with the picture of the river, I saw that people had taken photographs of the river during different times of year and different times of day. The sunsets that exist around this place, the different colours of valley.. Well, I think you should go google it right now.
Because this is the river. It's world reknowned, apparently, and that doesn't surprise me. Look how unique it is! You can't see from here, but smack dab in the middle of that tree part in the centre are some old castle ruins. Super cool.
My father and Jorg, the boyfriend of my dad's second cousin, Svenja, of whom we were staying with whilst in Luxembourg. He was a fantastic travel guide. Fluent in English and very happy and willing to show us around.
This was in Berlin. I believe this was a radio station? Of some sort? I can't remember, but it's super famous too (I'm a great travel host, hey?).
This is from that industrial location in Luxembourg. The entire place looked so haunted, I wouldn't be surprised if it had ghostly activity throughout the year.
Yech. My only slug I saw that entire trip. My friend Stephanie told me that if I saw a slug in Europe, I was to pick it up and have my father name it. Well, neither of those things happened, but I saw one, so I decided the least I could do was get a picture of it. It had a million teeny tiny little leg things and yech, it was just.. yech. :)
Eltz Castle, or Eltz Burg. I believe this is the oldest, completely still standing (I know there's a better way to phrase that but I can't think right now) castle in all of Germany. It was left completely untouched during the war, because the owners of this castle, the Eltz family, were very rich and well known. They struck a deal with someone during the war so that all the bombing and such that they did in these areas would stay far away from the castle. The castle is located in the middle of a huge valley. It's essentially completely hidden from view until you walk down a super long trail, going further and further into this moist, green valley. I started to doubt we would ever come upon a castle, and then all of a sudden there it was, before my very eyes.
Svenja and Jorg, and their little 4-year-old daughter Johanna. She was adorable. Didn't speak a work of English, and similarly I don't speak a word of German, so communication was a bit tough, at least for the first couple of days. Coupled with the language barrier was Johanna was a) very very shy, and b) four, so it's not like her talking skills were that advanced to begin with. But we ended up getting along great.
The drive down to Eltz Castle was green and humid and absolutely beautiful.
Johanna and I passed the time during the long road trips to each tourist location by taking pictures with my phone. Selfies were a big hit.
The trek to the castle.
This is in a park in Luxembourg, near Trier, where we spent a good portion of one of our days. Old ruins from the Roman Catholic time, I believe.
Looking down into where there used to be a tunnel. The ceiling must have collapsed in forever and a day ago. But you can see in the brick how they did the arches, and the amount of time and detail they put into building these structures. Absolutely extraordinary.
Inside of said tunnels, what I like to call the catacombs. I doubt there are any buried bodies around here, but it certainly felt old and spooky enough to believe it was catacomb-like. This picture is a great representation of just how long and far those tunnels went. It's light because there are holes in the ceiling every once in a while to let in sunlight. In the areas where there are no such holes, it's daaaaaark.
VINES AND IVY grow on the walls E'RYWHERE
Trier, Luembourg
This is a good representation of how fricken humid it was there. Green and mossy and almost Caribbean-like. My clothes felt damp as I was putting them on every morning. It got better as we left Luxembourg, but the rest of Euorpe wasn't much dryer. I got used to it within a week though.
This foot is super famous. I remember studying it in Art History. It's like Caeser's Foot or something. It did used to belong to an actual statue, a huge statue (clearly, since this is just the size of the foot), but I believe the story going something like, Caeser had it build during his reign, but once he got overthrown all the slaves that built it completely tore it down. I think that's right.
Archways! Trier, Luxembourg.
Super old buildings!
And wonky-ass trees. Like seriously.
Churches everywhere.
Inside that hole in that great piece of work is allegedly the Veil of Jesus (or Robe of Jesus or something). The Cloth of Jesus? It's the garment he was wearing as he was crucified. Allegedly they only bring said cloth out once every 30 or so years so to keep it preserved. I have to believe that whatever it is they have, even if it isn't the actual robe Jesus was wearing, it's something they believe to be quite significant. That hole in the wall is no simple task, and the closer I got to it, the more bright light and gold I could see, even though it didn't make sense for it to shine that bright. They were probably hiding magic. I'm calling it right now.
My father is the same size as a building.
Something I decided about all the art and architecture I saw in Europe, was that I'm not a huge fan of the juxtaposition of the white marble with the gold embossing. It just looks flashy and unnatural. It's a reminder of how the Catholic church screwed up what faith was supposed to be about.
THIS is the Porta Nigra, a large Roman city gate in Trier. Porta Nigra is latin for the Black gate, and I know for a fact I studied this in school. I don't remember anything else, but I know for a fact that I've seen it in a book! And now I've been under and through it too!
And so concludes my random and probably very confusing tour of Luxembourg and Germany. Stay tuned for equally as confusing versions of Franch, Holland, and England!
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