The heatwave finally broke here in Devon on the evening of Thursday 25th June with thunder and lightning and welcome rain and the next day, while still feeling hot, was noticeably cooler, fresher and less humid. However the heatwave was still holding on in the east of the UK and we drove right back into it on Saturday 27th June as we headed up to Heathrow Airport for an overnight stay prior to flying out to Luxembourg the next morning.
The drive up to Heathrow went very smoothly, the traffic wasn't too bad even at Stonehenge as presumably people were staying off the roads due to the heat. We were at least cocooned from the worst of the high temperatures with the air-conditioning in the car on full blast and as we drove along the A303 the usual Red Kites were seen soaring overhead amongst the Buzzards.
It was hot and humid at Heathrow with a strong breeze blowing hot air over us as we sat on the terrace of the hotel bar and watched the planes taking off. The clouds were starting to build though and there were flashes of lightning in the distance and the next morning it was cooler and fresher again as the heatwave continued to move off east.
The flight to Luxembourg on Sunday 28th June was short and OK but delayed by an hour and on arriving off the plane in Luxembourg it felt very hot and humid again, we just seemed to be heading into the heatwave all the time. However the next morning it felt cooler and fresher but still hot as we started our sightseeing in earnest.
Luxembourg is a place we have never really visited before although many, many years ago we went on a holiday to Austria and travelled by coach from Plymouth to a small village near Salzburg and back which involved 2 nights spent trying to sleep on the coach. On the homeward journey we stopped off briefly at a motorway service station in Luxembourg at 2 O'clock in the morning but I don't think that this really counts as a visit. Also, with our last 3 holidays (Sicily, Copenhagen and Japan) having been tense, awkward and stressful affairs due to a falling out with our travelling companions we wanted to get away and have a relaxing and fun time for a change.
Anyway, on Monday 29th June we headed out to Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourgs second largest city, and the journey only took around 30 minutes on a very comfortable double-decker train. All public transport in Luxembourg is free for everybody unless travelling 1st class and it was strange to just get on the train without having to buy a ticket.
The purpose of our visit was to have a look around the old steel blast furnaces at nearby Belval, an unusual place to visit but absolutely fascinating and also a strangely beautiful place despite the stark industrial architecture. Climbing up the outside of the furnace on a stairway was not for the faint-hearted, I'm not too bad with heights but it did make me feel a bit queasy at times and especially so when looking upwards but I managed to get to the top deck of the open stairs at around 40 metres.
We then had a look around the city centre of Esch-sur-Alzette where there were quite a few Art Deco type buildings along the high street. A Black Redstart was singing away from a rooftop while overhead House Martins and Swifts buzzed around, in fact Swifts were seen everywhere during our visit and especially over towns, cities and villages and in numbers I remember in the UK from my youth - now they are getting increasingly scarce in the UK and our government wouldn't even approve the mandatory use of Swift blocks in new buildings to try and help them with new nesting sites (although the Scottish Parliament has done so).
The strangest sight was a large orangey-brown butterfly seen floating down off the rooftops and landing on the glass window of a shop. I thought it was a Large Tortoiseshell but on checking out the underwings I realised it wasn't and considered Map or Queen of Spain Fritillary, however on checking my photos later I managed to ID it as a Lesser Purple Emperor, Apatura ilia form clytie, an unexpected sighting indeed.
We caught the train to Trier in Germany on Tuesday 30th June, we had to buy a ticket for the journey from the Luxembourg border to Trier and back for €6.80 each and the double-decker train ride took just 50 minutes to reach our destination. We visited Trier many, many years ago when my sister lived in Germany, it was a long train journey from Monchengladbach to Trier and on the way back we stayed overnight in Cologne. The weather was dreadful, it rained all day and we got soaked as we had a look at the Roman ruins and Christmas markets but I've always wanted to return for another look. We got soaked again on this return visit, this time from sweat as it was an incredibly hot, humid, sunny and still day and quite unpleasant but we made the best of it and enjoyed our visit although it was bliss to get back on the air-conditioned train for the return journey to Luxembourg.
It was back on the train and bus on Wednesday 1st July for a day out at Vianden. It was another hot and sunny and humid day but less so than the previous day and Vianden was very picturesque and far less busy and touristy than Trier had been. It was also very picturesque and when the chairlift finally opened we headed up into the hills where the views were stunning. Even better was finding 3 Fritillaries flitting about over the vegetation below the chairlift at the top of the hill, there were at least 3 ptesent and they rarely stopped for long but I eventually got sone photos and was able to ID them as Marbled Fritillary, a Southern European butterfly expanding north due to climate change - maybe they'll reach the UK one day?
Other butterflies seen here were Brimstone, Purple Hairstreak, Meadow Brown, a Marbled White, Small White, a Painted Lady and a Skipper Sp. Along the river there were a few male Beautiful Demoiselles and Damselflies flitting about, I eventually managed to photo one of the Damselfly and ID it as a White-legged Damselfly, a species I've only seen once before in Shropshire.
Avian interest at Vianden included a Red Kite flying overhead being mobbed by Carrion Crows, a male White Wagtail along the river and a brief view of a Treecreeper Sp. feeding up an Oak tree near the chairlift which may or may not have been a Short-toed Treecreeper
It was back to the UK on Thursday 2nd July and the journey back to Plymouth again went smoothly, there were good numbers of Red Kites seen along the car journey from Heathrow to Plymouth including at least 3 in East Devon along the A30 near Monkton, the first time I've seen them in Devon airspace on this route and maybe a sign of them finally expanding their range into Devon.
Our trip to Luxembourg had been very enjoyable, a relaxed and fun trip for a change and better for it. Luxembourg is neat, tidy, clean and efficient and the people mostly polite and friendly, it felt in some ways like Japan although in Luxembourg there were litter bins but also litter lying around. Unlike Japan there was the usual graffiti adorning the railway line bridges and buildings and there were security men around the main station keeping the mostly immigrant drunks and druggies under a watchful eye and to prevent trouble so it did feel a little more gritty and real.
Luxembourg City was very beautiful and interesting but with it being an administrative hub of the European Union the city centre was full of Euro Bureaucrats and felt very uptight and stuffy so we spent very little time there other than our sight seeing visits, preferring the area around our hotel near the train station. The countryside was beautiful too, very bucolic with gentle hills, grassy fields, small farms, lots of woods and trees and very little development, probably how the UK looked 100 years ago, and passing through it on the top deck of the train was delightful.
The usual urban bird species were seen on the trip and my holiday checklist finished on 31 species, not bad considering the time of year and the excessive heat. Other avian highlights of the trip were singing Blackcap and Chiffchaff in parks and gardens, Red Kites soaring over the fields from the train and a pair of Egyptian Geese with 5 well grown goslings along the river gorge in Luxembourg City where 2 Peregrines were also seen soaring high overhead.
All in all it was a great trip despite the heat, Luxembourg is quite untouristy (at the moment) and very beautiful and interesting but also expensive and with cracks appearing in its veneer of orderliness, however I would happily revisit when hopefully it might be a little cooler!
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