Morges, Switzerland, and south to Geneva

Monday morning, we were happy to take advantage of the nice hot shower at Katja and Yves apartment. We were all laughing about how funny it is when you live in a van for weeks or months on end how much you appreciate things that others take for granted... like a real shower and easy access to laundry! 

Yves had already gone to work, but we said goodbye to Katja and got on the road back on the lakeshore towards Geneva. Thanks again for the invite, it was great seeing you guys again. We wonder where it will be in the world that we meet again!

Gorgeous day in Switzerland

We woke up to a cool overcast morning, but the forecast was for clearing skies so the four of us decided to hop in Yves and Katja's little car and they took us for a tour of the lakeshore.

The north shore of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) belongs to Switzerland, while the south shore belongs to France.

Welcome to Switzerland!

Switzerland is not a new country for us. When we were flying Montreal to Bucharest in November 2016, we had a five hour layover at Zurich airport so we took the train into Zurich for a couple of hours. But while we have officially been to Switzerland before, we haven't really seen much of it.

And we weren't expecting to visit with the motorhome at this time of year, but here we are!

A dull dreary driving day

Sticking to the backroads, we managed to put on 180 kms (112 miles) yesterday. 

The weather is exactly as we expected it to be... wet, and cool with a high of about 8C (47F).

Change of plans

Not that we really have plans... just a loose idea to continue driving sort of south west to somewhere warmer!

But now, it seems we are taking a little detour into Switzerland!

Welcome to France!

France is not a new country for us, even though we have spent very little time here. We were in Nice, France (right at the south east corner of the country, near Monaco) back in 2017 for a couple of days.

Yesterday, we left Redange, Luxembourg, and had to drive through Belgium to get to the France border. Along the way, we filled up Max's fuel tank because prices are cheaper in Luxembourg. 

The city of Luxembourg... more photo matching

Yesterday morning, we took the bus from the town of Redange into the city of Luxembourg. And the one hour bus ride bus was totally free. Since 29 February 2020, public transportations has been free for everybody, residents as well as tourists. This is the case for trains, trams and buses!

We were there to match up some more of my dad's photographs.

Welcome to Luxembourg, country number 56

Winter has arrived. Or at least that's the way it feels. Yesterday's high might have been around 6C (43F) although it warmed up in the evening to 10C (50F). This is actually the weather we had been expecting when we arrived back in Europe, and is quite average for this time of year.

Our first stop yesterday was in the town of Bastogne... still in Belgium, but near the Luxembourg border. There, my father had taken one single photo back in 1954, and we wanted to see if we could match it up.

We've been lucky with the weather, but that's about to change

First order of business bright and early on Sunday morning was to vacate the big city of Brussels before there was any traffic. So as soon as it was light enough, we got out of bed and hit the road.

We've been back in Max for nine days now and his tanks are starting to get full. And nine days is about the limit for his fresh water tank as well, so it's getting low. Free motorhome service points are really common in Germany and France, but apparently not so much in Belgium!

It was a great day in Brussels, up until...

At this time of year, Brussels has an average daytime high of 10C (50F). So we were very lucky that the day we chose to go in and explore the big city, the forecast high was 18C, and it actually ended up hitting a balmy 20C (68F). 

Ruth packed us a lunch, and we rode our bikes the 7 kms (4 miles) or so into the city center.

Such a civilized society!

Surprised there weren't more comments on yesterday's post. That's the way it goes sometimes though. We think it's odd when we post something really interesting (fossilized lightning!?) and it just doesn't get much attention, but when you post a photo of a puppy... well, everybody loves puppies.

And only two people ventured forth to guess what our guide was holding in his hand. And yes, one of them was right.

Interesting day at the Natural Sciences Museum in Brussels

Thursday morning, we drove from Antwerp down to Brussels on the motorway. No point in taking photos because you don't see much except for truck traffic. Definitely not an enjoyable way to drive in our mind, although if you have to get somewhere in a hurry, then I suppose it's the way to go.

And we were in a bit of a hurry because we had arranged to meet our friend Freya who works at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels.

Fantastic architecture in Antwerp, Belgium

Yesterday we hopped on the bikes and rode into the city of Antwerp. (Lots of photos... be warned!)

We haven't been on the bikes in over three months, so it felt good to get back to it. And Antwerp is so bicycle friendly, in fact the entire 7 kms (4 miles) from where Max is parked to the city center is all on dedicated cycle paths.

Booked some more flight tickets!

Bit of a quiet day yesterday. I hadn't had a good night sleep for a while, and I think it finally caught up to me. 

We did drive down to another overnight spot located about 6 kms (4 miles) outside of the city center of Antwerp with the intention of riding our bikes into the central area. Then, we were invited over to Bjorn and Freya's for dinner, but we ended up putting both experiences off until today.

Welcome to Belgium, country number 55

We had an interesting day yesterday!

The sun doesn't come up until about 7:45am, but as soon as it was light enough we set off to see a nearby castle. It's used as an event center and restaurant now, and unfortunately it was too early and we couldn't go inside.