Luxembourg

We went to Luxembourg with JAckie on a beautiful day (sunny and 79!).  It took us about 2.5 hours to drive from Wiesbaden and we followed the same twisting, two lane roads that you do to get to Trier.  In fact, on the way home, we stopped in Trier for gas and McDonalds.

Once we got to Luxembourg City we got a little turned around finding our parking garage, but it turned out ok because we ended up parking in a garage that exited directly on one of the main plazas, right near an information office.

 

 

From there, we went to the Place de la Constitution and spent a moment at the monument there, erected to be a memorial of nazi hostility there.  Amazingly, fresh flowers, labeled with different countries, were still being left at the base of the monument.

 

We also got a good look at the Adolphe bridge (once the world's longest stone arch).  We then crossed the bridge and wandered about the other side of town, glancing to our right at the sprawling city and to our left at the castle ruins, casemates, and green areas (trees, grassy parks, etc) marking where the city's fortifications once stood.

 

We then sat and ate lunch around noon and wandered the city for another two hours, stopping in shops, having some Italian ice cream, and changing a massive diaper (thank you Caedmon) on a park bench.

We then decided to visit the American military cemetery, which was only 3 miles outside the city.  The grounds were perfectly maintained.  We went to the chapel, stopped to read some of the monuments, and walked along the rows of white crosses.  THere were two fountains in each of the two pathways with the names of the four gospels on the back and flowing water with dolphin and turtle statues on the front.  It seemed almost out of place.  We stopped by the place where General Patton was buried before moving on.

 

 

Our plan was to then tour the Valley of the Seven Castles, but when we discovered that we were only 10 miles from the Belgian border, we made a last minute decision to make it a three-countries-in-one-day trip.  The first thing we saw after crossing the border was Ikea, followed immediately by cows.  Welcome to Belgium!  We got off at the first town we passed, which was called Wenzel, and were surprised by how run down it appeared.  It reminded me a bit of Manlius, and it was rather small, so we were out of the town about as soon as we entered it.  Though I'm sure it wasn't representative of all of Belgium, we weren't impressed by its dilapidated state, so we headed back to the board, waving good bye to the cows as we crossed.

  

Back in Luxembourg we began our castle-hopping tour.  We used a guidebook and a GPS to follow the Valley of the Seven Castles trail, stopping at Koerich, Setpfontaines, Ansembourg, Hollenfels, and Schoenfels.  We skipped Mersch because of getting turned around.  Most of the castles were either small or in ruins.  

Koerich was a quaint town, but the castle ruins were under construction.  

Septfontaines was seemingly inaccessible by car, so we snapped some photos of it and the 7 fountains at its base.  

Ansembourg supposedly had two castles, one of which we found, thought it appeared to have residents in it.  We snapped a few photos while Caedmon and Oma sat in the car.  It turned out the gardens were open to the public but the part we were in was private property, so we quickly went on to Hollenfels. 

Hollenfels was probably the most impressive of the castles.  The castles itself was 18th century, but the keep was from the 13th century.  The view was what really made it extraordinary though.  In present day, the castle served as a youth hostel.  

Schoenfels was our last stop, but it looked more like a big stone tower than a castle.

All in all, the valley trip was very nice, winding us through the Luxembourg countryside.  The scenary was beautiful: rural farms and small winding roads almost too narrow for Jackie's SUV.  I would say comparable to driving through the foothills of the Appalacians, only with a European feel.  The trip made us feel like we really got to experience Luxembourg, though I can only imagine trying to get all those places without a GPS!