A weekend break filled with Scottish bars, delicious pancakes and lunchtime soups, and some hidden side streets.

I’ve never really liked France.  So when my friend suggested a weekend in Lille I was very prepared to not like it.

I don’t really have any reason to not like France.  I suppose it all came from a holiday many years ago when we crossed the border from beautifully clean and efficient Switzerland into a rather backward looking French countryside with the old “hole in the floor” toilets, rubbish strewn everywhere and absolutely no efficiency – in fact almost everyone was sitting back, drinking wine and not doing any work.

I’m ashamed to say that I reverted into some sort of British Army Major, and started sprouting thoughts such as “who do they think they are, lazing around, not working, you should be working”!  Of course another reason I had a dislike for the French is their love of disruption.  A cleaner was sacked, so the natural course of action is to block the port of Dover, causing chaos in England and ya de ya – oooo I feel a rant coming on, but that’s not what you want.

So we left on a Friday evening after work, sailing with Norfolk from Dover to Dunkirk (the ports weren’t blocked by striking fishermen this time).  2 hours later we rolled out of the ferry and onto French terra firma, Vive la France!

Lille is only an hours drive from the port, and with the sat nav bleeting out her instructions it was fairly easy to navigate to our youth hostel.

Parking at a youth hostel is a rareity, especially in a city, but we were lucky enough that ours had a small car park round the back.

We had pre-booked our hostel through hostels international, making the check-in procedure incredibly swift and without so much as a wiff of brie we were safely unpacked in our rooms.

Being young folk in a city and in need of a good cold beer to distract reward ourselves for actually making use of a weekend we headed off towards the bars of Lille’s “Rue de Solférino” and happily plonked ourselves in the authentic French bar called “The Highlander”.

This was indeed a happy little place.  the bar had more beers on tap than any other bar I have seen and whilst my travel partner picked a rather fruity cherry larger I opted for the rather more manly 1 litre of larger! After scratching my armpits, beating my chest and uttering a few good grunts I slaughtered my large beer, thrusted my manly glass at the waitress and said “Un autre, s’il vous plaît“.

Polite and manly.  I was on a winner here.

Until of course the tiredness kicked in, and I wanted my bed.  France, and Lille in particular, are looking on the up.

Stay tuned for the next part coming soon…..

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Seeing as this is supposed to be a travel blog I thought I might actually get some travel stories up here.

Seeing as I still have three weeks left at work and that I’m not actually on my travels yet, I thought I would add a little review of a Bank Holiday weekend away that changed a lot of my expectations.

Luxembourg – the little country that is famous for…… being small?

Yer, that’s about it.

So when I had a Bank Holiday / three day weekend and needed somewhere to go to that was within easy distance of the Port of Dover my first reaction was to look at everywhere else first.

I had been through Echternach once before, returning from a road trip down to the south of Germany. It was a good overnight stop and I remembered that the town was rather nice actually. So there we were, booked the campsite and then waited until the fateful weekend.

So, after booking my crossing on NorfolkLine.com (£19 each way – Excellent!) I left on a rather warm Friday evening after work and drove across Le Channel and on to Echternach.

We arrived quite late, partially because I forgot that Europe is 1 hour ahead of the UK, so my calculations were out and partly because Norfolk Line coffee is very strong and makes you need to stop at every motorway service station. After erecting the tent we settles down to a quite nights sleep at 4.30am – at 5.am the birds started singing. Bastards.

Honk! - yes ladies and gentlemen, the bread van is here. Despite being tired the lure of warm bread rolls and cakes could not be ignored. After a scrumptious breakfast it was off down to town.

We walked down from the campsite to follow the river into town. The square that makes up the centre of Echternach is another “picture perfect” place, so good in fact, we didn’t actually bother to take any photos of it (that and we forgot the camera and I wasn’t walking up the hill again)

We spent all of day one looking round the town and the nearby lake that hosts the ruins of a Roman villa. Also we found an amazingly new looking hostel that we made a note to check out again at some point.

(You can find more photo’s by clicking on the following click……CLICK ME)

In the evening we found a traveller’s nirvana – an ice cream palace, well OK not a palace in the literal sense – but you all know what I mean. If you go here make sure you got a Hot Amaretto, you will sleep very peacefully, no birdsong will wake you. (Bastards)

Day two, the day of THE WALK!

Yes, this is what we were really here for. Luxembourg, believe it or not, is home to some amazing geological features. Quite near to Echternach is a place dubbed “Little Switzerland” (Kleine Schweiz), which we didn’t go to – but it looks worthwhile. Anyways, we headed north west out of our campsite and up a bloody steep hill.

SUPRISE – massively forested hill, craggy grey rocks, steps in and out of deep craters, rivers running fast whilst walkways criss-crossed them and wound under, between and over the landscape. FAN-BLOODY-TASTIC

This is why you should come to Echternach, it is so close to an amazing array of walks and natural features that you really could be in Switzerland (albeit smaller as with everything in Luxembourg). The hiking routes are all signposted and your free walking guide (Tourist Office find) will give you all the routes. The trails are suitable for all ages and skill levels, although many do include stairs and one includes a ladder to get up to the top of a cliff.

We took 8 hours on our walk (including an hour for yet another ice cream!). You can make the routes smaller or larger depending on what you’re up to and you can even walk around the Whole of Luxembourg (“Yes – I walked around a whole country” boasts will gain you no mates at the pub if they find out it was Lux.)

On the third day we had to unfortunately pack up and bugger off home again. But this small weird little place will remain a favourite haunt of mine.

(You can find more photo’s by clicking on the following click……CLICK ME)

And as usual please add a comment, even if it’s just to say hi!

Happy Travelling
OverlandSi