Luxembourg

SANY1010
Originally uploaded by sarahkatina

If I could think of one word to sum up Luxembourg, it would be "XTREME." You think I'm joking, but I'm not. Just wait.

Off Hallie and Tim and I set with our very American backpacks and very American accents, into the great unknown that is the third part of Benelux - booked it through Brussel-Nord, and made it in t-minus 6 hours to a delightfully picturesque little country (one of the smallest in the world, although I don't know the exact statistic, and am too lazy to look it up). The weather could best be described as "grey" and "abysmal" or in the terminology of my beloved parentals "43 and dank," but we nonetheless spent some happy hours wandering the capital (which is also called Luxembourg). And you can bet we felt Xtreme, battling the weather to enjoy beautiful scenery. I got to practice my (very rusty) French on a few occasions, which was super cool. The city has a lot of hills and greenery and topiary and bridges and squares - it's not in the mountains (I think they would qualify as "very tall hills"), but in pictures it almost looks like it could be. The whole place feels like a miniature out of a fairytale. And, shockingly enough, every touristy store in the nation has a preponderance of light-up dragon statues in 8 different shades of glitter and similar whatnot - they're not shy, in Luxembourg, about their fairytale heritage.
After having wandered for about two hours and taking an obscene number of pictures, we looked at a tourist map only to find that we had stumbled upon about 95% of all the remarkable places in Luxembourg Stad. This is one of the beauties of a small country.

We spent a long time looking for affordable dinner, only to discover that such a thing is not really possible in the home of the World Bank - and so, embarrassingly but happily, ended up in a Chi- Chi's off the main square (yeah, that's what you think it is). It was really nice to eat Mexican food after not having found any in Amsterdam for so long. And it was really nice to be indoors, where it was not 43 and dank. The funny thing about roaming when we were roaming is that the ghosts of beautiful summers were everywhere. I half expected to see Grace Kelly stepping out of a lit up terasse and strolling down the majestic bridges to a cozy villa overlooking the city, arm in arm with a debonair Prince Renier. I know they lived in Monaco, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there are a lot of similarities between the countries. And Luxembourg looks surprisingly Mediterranean - this is because the Moors conquered it once, long ago. I am really curious now, having been there, about how such a teensy-weensy Grand Duchy managed to be conquered so many times by so many imperial superpowers and somehow always regain independence.

I won't tell you when we went to bed, 'cause it's not very Xtreme. But I will say that our hostel was really nice. HI all the way.

We had read that Saturday was sposed to yield high winds and heavy rain, and woke to something akin to that - but it stopped, thankfully, before we were done with breakfast, the sun peeked out, and the day turned balmy (relatively speaking, anyway). I bought an ice cream cone from a vending machine for 1.5 euro and was delighted to discover that it was even called "Extreme" (except with a circumflex over that second "e," because it was in French). We did a scenic walk up and down hillsides by crumbling castles and a rushing (if a little brown) river, and then headed out to Xtreme Destination #2, Vianden.

Vianden is Xtreme because a) Victor Hugo lived there for three months while he was in exile b) There is an Xtreme number of religious figurines tucked away in the surrounding forest c) it is Xtremely close to Germany (we actually walked to Germany, which I only know because my cell phone sent me a "Welkom in Duitsland" message) d) there is an Xtreme castle there. The castle was seriously wonderful, and the town was seriously charming. I was pretty entranced the whole time we were there. Pictures are up on Flickr. The castle was inhabited by William of Orange at one point. It is one of the best curated sites I've ever been to - most of it was open to the public, and there was lots of information in every room. They didn't babysit you through it at all though, which I appreciated. There was a room with pictures of everyone who's made official visits there - including but not limited to Patrick Swayze circa George and the Dragon, and Salvador Allende's wife the year after his assassination (one might wonder what she was doing in Luxembourg at that juncture). We spent a solid hour and a half, and I think we moved through it pretty quickly. You could easily spend hours (and I think even picnic) in the summer when it is warm and beautiful. There's not much to say about what we did in Vianden, except that we wandered very happily and I think we all preferred it to the capital. We were very Xtreme in that our hostel didn't open til 5, so we spent the whole afternoon lugging around all of our belongings. That includes Castle Tour, Town Walk, and Forest Walk To Germany. Once the hostel did open, we discovered that the sole employee did not speak or understand English or French. This barrier meant, ultimately, that we left 7 dollars more than we owed and split without saying goodbye (or officially checking out) in the morning. Before morning, though, was night, and some of the best (wood-oven) pizza and (elaborate) ice cream (sundae) I've ever had - not what I expected from a teeny pub in a teeny town in teeny Luxembourg, but very welcome.

Today was all train and bus, all day, and I'm glad to be back - I think I'm coming down with a little cold, and have a lot of work to do. But I was very taken with the Lux, amassed some pretty hilarious postcards of the royal family to send to friends and loved ones (these are cheesily posed and ubiquitous), and, if I can work out a way to have the money, am going to try to go back for a hiking weekend sometime when it is a little warmer.