I woke up early so that I could get to Metz by 8am. To judge by the CFL’s website, I should have been able to get a train ticket from Differdange to Metz for 21,60 €. The ticket agent at the Luxembourg station—the main station for the country—told me that the best he could do was a ticket from Belval to Metz for that amount. I’d have to pay for the 7 minute trip between Belval and Differdange. I didn’t think this was correct, but I didn’t argue. I was tempted to take that short ride without a ticket, but I didn’t. Good thing, too. Shortly after we left Differdange, the conductor went around looking at our tickets. So I had to show my 4€ all day pass, but I never had to show the ticket I bought in Luxembourg Gare to get to France.

As was the case with Trier, there’s no sign along the tracks indicating that you’re now in France.  I had hoped to go to the botanical gardens but I never could get the online maps to match reality. I never saw a sign for it, either. The city has very cool but very hard to read signs that are like reverse stencils. I did make it to Saint-Etienne cathedral and the Marché Couvert that surrounds it. The cathedral is one of the tallest in Europe, so it was difficult to get far enough away from the cathedral to get it all in:

As soon as I saw it, I was reminded of David Macaulay’s Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction, a book I had read as a boy. One of the other MUDEC faculty members is an architect and he reminded me that Macaulay’s book is about a fictitious cathedral and not this one.

The market is around the cathedral, as well as in its own building. I realized shortly after looking around that my French sorely lacked two important elements: numbers and fractions. This limited me to items that either I wanted an entire kilo of (like apples) or that were sold by the piece. I did find one vendor who had customers choose their own produce, which was helpful to me.

Among other items, I bought these great looking (and fortunately, great tasting), fraises:

On my way back to the train station, I saw the Temple Neuf.

Again, I’m going to blame the crookedness on needing to back up to get the entire building in.

Across the street from the train station is this Metropole Hotel:

The name of the first stop on the way back to Luxembourg struck me as funny:

When I returned to Differdange, I noticed for the first time a building that looks abandoned. I’ve passed it at least twice a day since I’ve been here. I don’t know how I missed it.

And so ends a very long day.