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| Highway passing through Belgium |
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| Pastures in Luxembourg |
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| Highway, Luxemburg |
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| Limburger hof |
We travelled onwards from Calais to Germany passing through Belgium and Luxemburg. The nine-hour drive with occasional breaks seemed a little bit tiresome though the landscape appeared very fascinating with spacious tracts of grassy plains with spacious tracts of grassy land with herds of cattle seen grazing on luxuriant grass. Here and there some farm plains cottages are seen like far-flung islands floating on the sea of verdurous green. Our bus passed by Dunkirk, one of the prominent port towns in northern France, just ten kms. from the Belgian border.Apart from being a naval port, Dunkirk has many industrial establishments like coal, nuclear and thermal plants, oil products, cement, sugar and gas lines. Belgium is a landlocked state which serves as the main gateway for many surrounding countries like Germany, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland. As a country of mixed population, three languages (Dutch,French and German) are used. Belgium is famous for mirrors and diamonds. It has also many chemical plants, textile, electrical, automobile and pharmaceutical industries and factories. Being a country blessed with fertile soil, it also produces cereals, vegetables, cocoa and has many food-processing units. Though we did not enter the interior parts of the country, the lush green fields, pastures, trees and distant view of elegant buildings gave us an impression that we were travelling through a fertile and well-developed region unpolluted by over-industrialization.
Luxembourg, the safest tax haven for billionaires, came into our view--almost a pastoral country with green carpeted valleys, broad plains and herds of cattle. Having internet giant organiztions like Sype and Amazon, Luxembourg has latest advanced telecommunication systems and industries. In the late hours of the evening our driver after driving through a maze of narrow lanes stopped before a hotel called Residenz Limburgerhof in a small German village of the same name situated in the Rhineland Palatinate. The tiny tiled houses on both sides of the road with small front yards gave a typical picture of a German village. The whole village remained silent with dim street lights. The hotel rooms are quite comfortable with all modern amenities. This village is seven Kms. away from the city of Ludwighshafen which is located on the Rhine river opposite Manheim.
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| A View of the Neckar River |
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| Residenz Limburger hof |
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| Ludwigshaven |
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| "BASF"(Agro-chemical) Company, Ludwigshaven |
Ludwigshafen is the headquarters of the world-famous Agro-Chemical company, BASF. This city is also the birthplace of the former German Chancellor, Helmet Kohl and the Famous German philosopher, Ernst Bloch. As the streets and avenues are laid out in a grid pattern, this city is called "the city of squares"(Quadratestadt). During the Roman occupation water tanks were first constructed here for the sake of water supply to the town. So the civic symbol of Manheim is a Romanesque water tower (Wasserturm). As a memorial a sixty-meter high water tower crowned with the statue of Greek sea-goddess, Amphitrite,was built in 1886.
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| Water Tower |
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| Manheim, City of Squares |
Next day while continuing our journey through Mannheim , our tour manager pointed at the Neckar River. Mannheim is a famous well-developed city having I.T.Companies like IBM, SAP, Roche and Siemens. Being in the forefront in adopting and inventing new technology, Mannheim is adjudged as the eleventh in the top fifteen inventive cities. This city is in the south-west part of Germany at the confluence of the rivers, the Neckar and the Rhine. The Rhine river separates Mannheim from the city of Ludwigshafen.
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SOMASESHU GUTALA
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