I was mostly slept out by 6:30 but rolled over and pretended to sleep some more until my alarm around 8:00. I again felt less than refreshed, but at least I was less less-than-refreshed than yesterday 😜

I grabbed my laptop, got back in bed, and got busy. I went through personal emails, logged money, deleted photos, logged a few but not nearly all of last night’s geocaching trackables, coordinated via messaging with my Airbnb host in Bruges, did a bit of journaling, and looked up contact info for Caves St. Martin, the one winery along the Moselle River that most tourists seem to visit, probably because so many of the others require an appointment for tastings and this one doesn’t. Also, they apparently have a pretty good tour.

Today is Europe Day, a national holiday, and many businesses are closed. I wanted to make sure Caves St. Martin is open, but they didn’t answer when I called, which I realized is because they close between 12:00 and 13:30.

Yes, I was still at the listing after noon. Despite giving myself permission to travel slowly on this trip, I am still feeling anxious, as I did last year, especially in Japan, about the time I spend documenting my trip. I find it so, so valuable to have all my journal entries from those five weeks, but ideally it wouldn’t come at the cost of spending time out in the wild. I attempted to reassure myself repeatedly that: 1) I have pretty much seen what Luxembourg has to offer.. whatever I see/do today is a bonus, and 2) it’s still raining cats and dogs and just generally sucks to be outside right now.. so what if my day starts in the afternoon.

I got dressed and headed out at 13:00. I wanted to get on a bus to the river right away but I’d only had coffee and my leftover biryani and needed more food if I was going to taste wine. I walked down to Bouneweger Stuff, a cafe/bar I’d seen recommended on one site or another, and found that they were open but the kitchen is closed. I tried to ask if this was for Europe Day but the server only spoke French. A Vietnamese place across the street was also closed.

This left Snack Lara, which felt like a Turkish version of Subway. I ordered the veggie kebab sandwich, which came in a pita, and attempted to buy a city bus day pass while I ate. The app wouldn’t even attempt to connect to PayPal over the shop’s wifi. When I disconnected and used data, the PayPal login page would spin and spin and ask me to verify my identity, which I did with a code, and then I would reach a page saying, “Things don’t appear to be working at the moment. Please try again later.” This happened 3 or 4 times, and I gave up when I remembered I had €4 in coins I’d received as change yesterday.

I called Caves St. Martin again and confirmed that they are open. The last tour in English begins at 15:00, which is right about when the transit app estimated my arrival to be. The staff said I could still do a tasting if I missed the tour.

I walked to the Dernier Sol bus stop and then across the street to the other Dernier Sol bus stop going the opposite direction, and then back again and then back over again.. I couldn’t make up my mind or figure out from the transit app or Google Maps which stop I needed. Thankfully, I landed on the correct one and got on the bus that goes all the way to Remich by the river.

Given my late start, the initial idea I had to use the local bus that runs north/south to visit multiple wineries was terribly ambitious, but as it turns out, most were closed for Europe Day anyway. So all my eggs were in the Caves St. Martin basket.

The sun peeked out from the clouds as the bus arrived at the river. I was using two different transit apps, one that offers trip planning in Europe generally and one specific to Luxembourg, from which the first pulls the same data. So I’m not sure how it is that I got bad info from the general one that I was using more often when I probably should have defaulted to the local one. It was not possible to walk from the stop to the winery on the streets indicated by the general app. I was to have gotten off at the third-to-last stop but instead rode the line to the end. This left me backtracking on a 16-minute walk instead of a 7-minute walk just as it was starting to rain again 🤷‍♀️

The bus also ran a bit behind schedule, so I arrived at Caves St. Martin at 15:25, long past the start of the English-speaking tour. A large outdoor patio looked like an inviting place to enjoy wine overlooking the Moselle on a much nicer day. I entered what I thought was the tasting room but was instead their restaurant.

I walked around back and found the tasting room occupied only by a single employee. She said the next and last tour at 16:00 is in French, which would not do me any good. Their website offers a variety of tastings, and I asked for the one for €20 that includes 1 Crémant, 3 wines, and amuse-bouches. Alas, that does require a reservation and wasn’t available.

Luxembourg’s signature production is Crémant, sparkling wine made with the fermentation method of champagne outside of Champagne, primarily in France and Luxembourg.

For my tasting, I chose 2 Crémant, brut and brut rosé, and 1 wine, white Pinot noir. Maybe the best wine I’ve ever tasted, or at least my favorite, was a white Pinot noir from Erath a few years ago.

I sipped my tastes while rain came down steadily outside. The brut, a blend of Pinot blanc, Riesling, and Auxerrois, was light and floral. I generally love a dry rosé, but the brut rosé was way too dry for my taste. The white Pinot noir didn’t make much of an impression on me either way, but I found it interesting that only Crémant may be blended in Luxembourg, while wines must be 100% one grape.

The staff member offered me two more that she believes are interesting to taste after the ones I had: Chardonnay and Gewürztraminer. They were both off-dry and fruity/floral complex. She’s from Burgundy, so these wines are her jam. I was glad she shared them with me.. I loved them.

Alas, no bottle purchase while traveling. I approached the cashier counter to pay for the tasting and she said it was free. I guess the pricing I’d seen on the site are for the tour/tasting combos. I was a bit bummed that my late start resulted in missing the tour. Bit by the FOMO bug.

There wasn’t much signal in the tasting room as I tried to search the bus planner for a ride home. Behind the restaurant and before the tasting room is the visitor center where the tours start. I used the bathroom and the blazing fast wifi there. I could catch a bus back in a half hour or so, which left some time to mosey along the Moselle.

The sun peeked out again at just the right time for me to enjoy an idyllic view of vineyards across the water in Germany and a swan taking a bath in the middle of the river, until she spotted me and came over to the bank to say hello. She paddled along the bank in my direction and so we ambled together for a moment.

I rode the bus the 45 or so minutes back into town, past the stop where my listing was because I wanted to head back to Ville Haute to hunt a cache I had passed by while on my walking tour yesterday and of which I was reminded at last night’s meetup. I had saved it in the app back at home because it has hundreds of “Favorite” points on the site, and I’d completely forgotten to look while I was there.

The bus transfer point was the train station, which was good reconnaissance for my departure tomorrow. I checked out the ticket office and the signboard while I was searching for a restroom. I followed the signs for WC but wasn’t seeing them. Oh, I see now.. through these double doors are stairs going down and a wall with the universal symbols for men’s and women’s restrooms in GIANT neon blue and pink. At the bottom of the stairs, I saw turnstiles. Ugh, I have no more coins and I hesitated in front of the machine as I didn’t really want to break a €10 to pay €0,70. I was about to when a gentleman who’d followed me down the stairs to chat with his friend, the attendant, saw me hesitating and put change in the machine for me. Thank you, kind sir 🙏

As I ascended the stairs back to the entrance, I heard the unmistakable sound of heavy-ass rain on the station’s roof. Sure enough, it was barrels and buckets of water coming down. I stalled in the entryway as there were a couple buses I could take from there to Old Town so it didn’t much matter when I got on. It was already about 18:30, though, and I had a mission before I even tried to figure out where to eat dinner.

The rain let up a bit and I rode a bus to the Casements du Bock and walked into the hilly, narrow, medieval-ish streets, back to the Passage de Palais I had seen yesterday, right near the turreted window with the national motto on it. Unfortunately, the cache’s description was quite minimalist and I am really not very good at geocaching, despite my 550+ finds. I spent 45 minutes there and came up with no geolove. Goddammit.

I walked down the hill back to the Palais Grand-Ducal because there is a virtual cache there, meaning there is no physical container to find, rather the cacher usually has a question or two to answer about the site and/or provide photo evidence of having been there. I took a selfie in front of the two guard shacks as directed and called it good on my Luxembourg caching.

It was 19:45 as I emerged onto Place d’Armes to find the stands at the Europe Day fair being packed up. I had thought I’d like to have some street food for dinner, but my timing is just off today 🤷‍♀️

I Googled some nearby joints with food that was reasonably priced and sounded good, but a couple places I landed on were closed for the holiday. I came upon an open sandwich place with a veggie burger that sounded good, Charles Sandwiches: mushrooms, goat cheese, onion, lettuce, mustard, and ranch. Little did I know that the goat cheese would not be crumbled but rather two thick, round slices 😳. Nope.. I pulled one off before slicing the burger in half and tackling the rest.

Arriving home at 21:45, I had a brief chat with Kasia and Jerome about checking out tomorrow. As I said goodnight and walked to my room, I realized I wouldn’t see Kasia again and wished I’d taken her photo and/or hugged her goodbye. I really enjoyed meeting her and being on the receiving end of her warm hospitality.

I got ready for bed and brought my laptop with me, logging money and journaling and researching train travel for tomorrow. So much for jet lag .. I went to sleep at 00:45!