Sept 22 – We couldn’t be so near to Jim’s friend Boris without taking a short excursion to Germany so that the two old friends could catch up. Jim made it sound like it was just a short hop across the border, but it was actually four hours of train and bus connections to get us into Xanten (ZAN ten).

We got to our weird little hotel in the middle of an industrial park, and I started feeling odd. All the symptoms of a cold, but with a fever and chills added in. Now, we had our flu and RSV vaccines just before we left, but the updated Covid jabs were not yet available. Yes, I wore a mask at the airport and on the planes. No, I didn’t put on a mask once I got into town – no one here was wearing one, and I thought I had evaded whatever germs might be gunning for me. I was so wrong.

So, Jim had a grand time catching up with his friend, and I had a few days to contemplate the meaning of life.

Sept 24 – Today Jim and Boris visited Xanten’s biggest attraction – an archeological reconstruction of the Roman settlement of Colonia Ulpia Traiana.

Sept 25– So, Xanten is the only place in Germany that starts with the letter X. Boris had no idea what the word meant, so I turned to my old friend Wikipedia, which informed us that Xanten is a corruption of the Latin Sanctum (holy) or perhaps Santen (saint), both referring to St. Viktor, an early Roman convert to Christianity who was executed in this town during the 4th century for refusing to sacrifice to the Roman gods. There is a huge cathedral in town that bears his name.

So that was our trip to Xanten. As Boris drove us back to Netherlands to begin our Pieterpad hike, Jim started to feel odd…