August 19, 2019
The town of the European dream
Malling to Alzingen (Luxembourg)
THERE was no British flag outside the museum in Schengen. Not because of Brexit , which would have been premature, but because Britain never to joined continental Europe in opening its borders.
It was here in this small Luxembourg town that the continent's leaders did away with borders other than as lines on a map and let the world pass in and out as it chose. There are rules, of course, but Europeans no longer need a passport to travel from the Arctic Circle to Gibraltar.
Britain, an island, has always been suspicious of Johnny Foreigner coming to steal the nation's jobs and women and so British people still need a passport.
Why was it signed in Schengen, a place only those who lived there had heard of? Because it sits neatly within a few hundred metres of Germany and France and therefore had a symbolic value.
To me, this freedom of movement, the right to cross borders that in my father's lifetime would have led to being shot and in mine demanded a passport and a change of money, is fundamental to the European dream. And I am nothing if not a Euromantic.
And so, for both of us, Schengen wasn't just geographically convenient but almost a pilgrimage.
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We came here from France, rode a few hundred metres in Germany and crossed into Luxembourg, all within half an hour. We could have ridden up the river on the German side but neither of us had ridden in Luxembourg and so we chose the west bank of the Moselle instead.
Ten kilometres further on we took an hour-long boat trip, disappointing for its lack of commentary. Traffic between the two countries flowed unhindered over bridges and we noted that the German bank had the campgrounds while Luxembourg had the posh houses.
And then, after days of flat riding, we were thrown into Luxembourg's hills, over a hill on a path that once more followed an old rail line. And quite a line it was, too, and the locomotives must have needed a rack and pinion to get up some of the slopes.
We could have camped along that path but we had no water, so we re-emerged into the torrential Luxembourg traffic for an hour before finding a quiet road through vineyards that took us closer to the capital.
Tonight we are in a campground within a bus trip of the city. Chance has it that Vanessa-the-Belgian is here as well, she and her husband having given up riding south.
Tomorrow we'll ride the remaining stretch into Luxembourg city and spend a day looking around and getting in people's way.
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