Tuesday, June 3 – Trier to Metz

No luck getting online last night. The hotel has wireless Internet and handed out user id’s and passwords, but no one could get in, except Miles, who got in briefly, but could not get in again later. We asked for new logins at breakfast this morning and we were all able to get in, so I posted yesterday’s story, but was still unable to post pictures. I will keep trying, but time is short to figure it out after a long day.

Here are some pictures of the tight parking spot that Johannes had to back out of this morning.

Since we made such good time yesterday and Mary Ann has dropped one of her stops today (She learned that there was nothing there for her.), we added a stop at the Roman amphitheatre in Trier first thing this morning. It was well worthwhile.

Then we were off visiting villages. First was Sankt Wendel. It is quite a large town/small city and the cemetery was huge. Not much success there. The church was quite impressive. It seems to have mostly been built in the 1400s. Then it was off to smaller villages at Namborn, Schwarzenbach, and Züsch before heading for our overnight stop in Metz.

The highlight of that leg of the trip was a stop at the home of our driver, Johannes, and a tour of his house. Here is the group on the way there after a hard day of checking cemeteries and churches. I am resting my eyes while the others are sleeping. Most of the time it is less than half an hour between villages, so we stay fairly alert. But on longer segments, heads get heavy.

When I booked our hotel rooms in Metz it was pretty inexpensive, so I was not expecting luxury accommodations. And we didn’t get them. The rooms are very tiny; the beds are narrow and short; there is no elevator; the stairs are narrow so there is hardly room to carry your bag up, let alone meet someone carrying a bag down; and the bathrooms are like in an RV. But, it was clean and it is just a place to sleep for the night.

Pat and Kathleen were meeting a cousin tonight, so we were pressed for time to eat. We all just picked up sandwich type items at a nearby grocery store.

Weather was great again: warm, mostly sunny, and light winds, except for a period in the late afternoon when it became cooler, cloudier, and windier before returning to good conditions.