Aachen and Luxembourg The photos are up, but it was a wet and gloomy day so they're not spectacular. Also, you weren't allowed to take pictures inside the Aachen treasury, which is where the real action was. There is more medieval gold than you can possibly imagine, but the really mind-blowing thing is the number of relics. Not content with building a giant gold forearm to exhibit Charlemagne's forearm bone, and a giant gold bust of Charlemagne that contains his skull, there are also spectacular gold reliquaries containing: some of John the Baptist's hair, some of St. Stephen's spine, some wood from the cross, a thorn from the crown of thorns, some of the spounge Jesus drank vinegar from, a nail from the cross, some of the rope used to scourge Jesus before his trial, the dress mary wore while giving birth to Jesus, and sundry other pieces from various saints. It's completely nuts. You can just imagine Martin Luther shouting "No! Stop! Enough!". Genuinely weird.

We went to the 11:30 mass in Aachen cathedral which was nice, the cathedral seemed like a small chapel compared to Cologne the previous day, but the ostentatiously roman stylings were cool and the whole place was very beautiful. Again, the pictures I took don't really capture it, but that's the way it goes with cathedrals.

After a snack we drove into Belgium (past the Spa-Francochamps racing circuit) and on into Luxembourg. The first thing you see in Luxembourg is about 17 petrol stations in a row. The tax is much lower, so everyone drives over the border to fill up. Next are the supermarkets and perfumeries - for similar reasons. Then the country is basically very quiet, rolling farmland and small villages. The city of Luxembourg is on a sort of rocky outcrop, with spectacular bridges across the gorge. The centre of town is all pedestrian zone, and has a nice, relaxed, civilised and European feel to it. You could walk right up to the president's front door, there are no police outside or anything. We had some good Belgian beer in an excellent little cafe (called chiggeri, check it out if you're in town), and then headed home. Filthy weather on the drive back, and it's been raining ever since. Che pioggia, as I said to the ladies in Da Serio this morning (probably wrongly..)