The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg also not on our pre-planned route but it was so close, only 40km from Trier and we found on the Internet an impressive looking Chateau we could visit. It’s a small country wedge between Germany, France and Belgium with a population of only a few hundred thousand people. We located the area the Chateau de Bourscheid was in and set off along the nice “autoroute” (Freeways) as they were called there, only to find that the road marked in our 4-year-old road atlas still hadn’t been built!! Talk about slow progress, so we ended up taking a long time to travel 31 km’s up the Northern Luxembourg through lots of minor roads and towns.

The magnificent Chateau de Bourscheid is a 1000-year-old castle superbly situated on a rocky bluff overlooking farmland and the Sure River. It's one of the most beautiful castles in the Grand Duchy and, indeed, affords the best views. The central portion is the castle's oldest sector; surrounding it is a 14th-century wall dotted with circular towers.

So much for our quick visit, on the way back to France we found the Northern end of the autoroute, which hadn’t been finished, which ran for 14km before ending where they were still building the road. This time we followed some trucks that took us along a great scenic roads north of the capital, Luxembourg city, it traversed lots of woodlands with deciduous trees providing brilliant colour all around us, providing us with a beautiful end to the day.

The Luxembourg Web gallery