Letter about Metz from 2008 trip: In the morning, we drove a few hours more to get to the city-owned campground in Metz. The campground is right on the Moselle River and very nice. Not that we noticed much. We were off to visit the city as soon as we parked. The warden assured us it was only a five minute walk to the old city. Since we’d already spoken to our Dutch neighbor in Arlon about this, and he said it would only take us 15 minutes or so, we knew the old city really was close.

Of course, the part of the old city that we wanted to see was a bit further on. Let me put it this way. We left our camper at 11:15 or so and returned at 5:45. Except for twenty minutes eating lunch and less than an hour using a computer in an internet café, we walked. To the Cathedral and around it, around the main streets to find a place to eat lunch, an afternoon at the museum, a visit to a downtown mall with a grocery store and then home. Think we were tired at the end? If not, why was the only song that Adelle had in her head on the way back to the campground "The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be"?

To get back to our day, the Cathedral was, of course, stunning. It was very tall and had stained glass on at least three levels. Even better, they have begun the process of cleaning the stone, so a lot of the outside looked clean and new, which really does spruce it up.

Then we walked to the Museum de la Cour d’Or. You need a heart of gold to see everything. It is situated in an old Carmelite nunnery – up and down stairs like you wouldn’t believe. But the Gallo-Roman collection of artifacts is among the best in Gaul (France) and includes the Roman baths they found when they were first constructing the museum itself. It has far more than we saw after at least two hours – but by the time we’d seen this huge Gallo-Roman collection, we’d had it. We did not stay for most of the medieval and Renaissance collection. We decided to go to the internet café so we could sit for a while! This museum is the biggest bargain in all France! It only cost 3 euros 50 to get in!