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[I originally posted this in May 2018, but I’ve reposted it to fix the broken image links]
The trip to Metz and Thionville came to an end with a rather delightful trip in Club Europe from Luxembourg to London Heathrow on British Airways.
I usually opt for an aisle seat, but I was allocated seat 1F and stuck with it. I was glad I did, as I got some unusually clear photos (well, unusually for me) of London as we descended.
And the UK coastline 🙂
[I originally posted this in May 2018 but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]
Since it was a lovely warm day, I decided to go to Metz. Above is the rather novel touch of placing a photo of the town onto the steps in Thionville. My train had been booked the day before using the SNCF ticket machines and the pricing wasn’t unreasonable, at €12. The ticket machines were very easy to use and were helpfully available in English.
One thing that British railway stations are usually quite bad on is indicating where a carriage will be when the train stops. With long trains it’s useful to know where to stand to avoid having quite a lengthy walk to the other end of the train. So, I was very impressed with this and everyone was very clear where to stand.
The train glided in smoothly, and it is a beautiful looking train. The train was on time, indeed actually a couple of minutes early, and there were clear announcements made. The train crew looked bored though and didn’t seem to be helping customers and instead just talked to themselves. Perhaps it’s not their job to help elderly customers with bags, but they could have done.
The other little problem was that the system to tell customers where to stand for their carriage entirely failed. The carriages were nowhere near where they should have been, leaving all of the passengers to rush towards where their ticket told them to be.
Which leaves the next problem, every TGV service requires a customer to have a seat reservation. But, it seemed no-one was sitting where they were meant to be sitting, so the whole thing becomes a little challenging. I just found a seat that wasn’t taken, but I notice a series of people shuffling around because it wasn’t very clear.
The interior of the TGV, could have been a little cleaner, but it looks like a well-made train. The leg-room on the seats was inferior to that of Amtrak in the United States, but to be fair, Amtrak do offer ridiculous amounts of space.
It wasn’t that busy on the train journey to Metz, although it was early on a Sunday morning. The seats themselves were clean and there were power points so that customers could charge their devices. It felt a comfortable environment and there were handy tray tables at every seat.
The train journey itself was smooth and rather pleasant, none of the clattering about of the trains on some regional lines. The service was also fast and it arrived into Metz on time, with the conductor making announcements in both French and English. My ticket wasn’t though checked and I didn’t see the conductor walking through the train, which might have been helpful for any customer who needed assistance of any kind.
The two photos above are of the TGV I got back to Thionville at the end of the day.
[I originally posted this in May, but have reposted it to fix the broken image links. Incidentally, I haven’t yet got back to Metz….]
This rather interesting fortified gatehouse is part of the medieval ramparts and towers over the river. It’s in a decent state of repair, partly through an extensive renovation effort that was completed a few years ago. Unfortunately, the limited opening hours meant that I didn’t get to see inside, but I’m sure that I’ll return to Metz at some point in the future.
An excellent view over the river.
The interior of the gatehouse, which is in an important part of the city’s history. So much so that Josef Bürckel, the German Gauleiter of the area, marched in through the gate when the Nazis took control of Metz in September 1940.
A rickety bit of the interior.
There are numerous rooms inside the gatehouse, most of which have now been turned over to use for the museum.
A view from the interior of the gate.
[I originally posted this in May 2018, but have reposted it and fixed the broken image links]
I took rather a lot of photos today, so below are just a random selection without explanation. I have rather a lot more photos to upload, hopefully I will manage at least a few more words about them.
I would say though that Metz is one of the most beautiful cities that I’ve visited, beautifully kept and numerous parks and areas to walks.
[I originally posted this in May 2018, but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]
It’s evident just from the exterior what a grand cathedral this is and there has been a religious site here since the fifth century. Work on the current building began in 1220 and was completed in 1520, before finally being consecrated in 1552. Sounds like a normal public sector project.
That is one high nave. Indeed, it’s one of the highest in the world, over 41 metres tall.
The stained glass is beautiful, and there’s a lot of it.
For reasons unknown, there’s an area at the back of the choir which is vandalised with pen and scratches into the stonework. It’s relatively recent and not very dignified.
Wall painting on the pillar by the nave.
The decoration at the main entrance.
That height, those windows, just beautiful!
The apse, I think.
A rather nice triptych, I don’t often see these in cathedrals and churches, they seem to all have been collected up and placed in museums.
[I originally posted this in May 2018, but I’ve reposted it to fix the broken image links]
The exterior of the railway station, although the bright sun has rather ruined this photo. It was built during the period of German occupation in the late nineteenth century. The building was constructed on rather boggy ground, requiring some quite extensive piling to take place.
A little museum area. The railway station used to have apartments belonging to Kaiser Wilhelm, although they’re SNCF offices now.
The side room of the main terminal building.
The grand interior, nice and bright.
The man at the front of the photo is on an exercise bike.
[I originally posted this in May 2018, but have reposted it to fix the broken images]
It’s not a glorious stout, but the sun is shining and the beer is cold. That’ll do 🙂
Kronenbourg.
[I originally posted this in May 2018, but I’ve reposted it to fix some broken images links]
I thought a little snack was in order after busying myself with visiting churches, museums and walking for miles along a walk I hadn’t realised was three miles.
First impressions were positive, it looked as good as Greggs.
That’s a decent stack of meringues.
Some of the meringue menu.
How lovely, the strawberry and caramel meringues. I must admit, they package them better than Greggs. Although Greggs customers, such as myself, don’t want to waste time unpackaging the high quality produce to be fair. They were quite hard to eat, as they’re easy to break and they’re a bit big to put in the mouth in one go. I decided in the end just to delicately break them in two. Actually, I did that with the first one and it was more faff than I needed in my life, so I shoved the second one in my mouth whole.
A chocolate brioche. Very lovely.
[Ah, the days before Untappd…. I originally posted this in May 2018, but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]
It’s not exactly stellar in quality (there’s probably a pun there given the name of the beer) but it’s drinkable, albeit not burdened with intense flavours.
There are a lot of armed police / military officers around the city (not the couple in front, don’t think that they were armed).
[I originally posted this in May 2018, but I’ve reposted it to fix some broken image links]
It’s too hot today. The sun is shining, there are no clouds and the temperature is too high. So that means the outside must be avoided and museums found which are shady and cool. This museum actually transpired not to be as cold I had hoped, but it was a welcome respite from the global warming issues of outside. Literally meaning ‘the museum of the Flea Tower’, parts of this building date to the eleventh century. Today, this is used as the town’s municipal museum.
From the first century, a Roman dedication to the God of Mercury. It’s the first time that I’ve realised that the Mercure hotel chain, part of Accor, means Mercury….
I’m slightly puzzled by the restraints, but the building was used as a military prison, so perhaps there is some link with that.
The view down inside the main part of the building from the top floor.
It’s a rather complex building with staircases and doors all over the place….. It reminds me of the Excalibur hotel in Las Vegas, a place that I miss very much.
An early Thionville document.
A map showing the early fortifications of Thionville.
More evidence of the number of different levels in the building and the steps to get to them.
There were a couple of skeletons on display at the museum, this one is from the prehistoric period.