2005 Trier - Vezelay Walking

..walking towards Luxembourg I took a rest in Merzkirchen, a small village housing the oversized "Gasthaus zur Zentrale". I could not find out why it was so big, nor what kind of "Zentrale" it was named after. Neither could I find any headquarter near the "Guesthouse to the "Headquarter"?...

...roadside crosses seemed to have been very popular around the "Zentrale" . This colorfulone is from 1653....

...while thisone in Koerrig is about a hundred years younger...

....that day, I left Germany, "crossed" Luxembourg and walked into France...

..a barge in the channel next to the Moselle...

...welcomed by an old weathered prilgim in Gorze. During the 10th century here was famous Gorze abbey, the center of a monastic reform movement, when Cluny was still a small, unimportant abbey in Burgundy. The monastery was founded in 749 by Bishop Chrodegang from Metz, an important friend of Pepin the Short, father of Charlemagne.

..the Romans had build an aquaeduct, about 2000 years ago..

.....after more than 35kms I discovered that there was no place to stay in the whole town of Liverdun. So I had to walk on. And later had to build my "emergency tent" on the empty local camping ground next to the river Moselle. It looked quite idyllic in the late afternoon sun, but during the following night it became horribly cold - and I felt as if I was in my coffin already...

...a rest and stayed for two days to recover...