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We got up around quarter after eight in the morning, had some breakfast and made a quick stop
at the local grocery store before heading out to Luxembourg. Luxembourg is the sixth-smallest country
in the world with a total area of just less than 1000 square miles. In comparison, Rhode Island,
the smallest state in the U.S., is 1,214 square miles.
In AD 963, Count Siegfried built his "Lucilinburhuc" (little castle) on a rocky promontory overlooking the Alzette river.
Thanks to its strategic location at a crossing of Roman roads, "Lucillinburhuc" grew rapidly.
Many times the city was besieged and occupied by a multitude of foreign powers: Prussia, Austria, Burgundy, Spain, to name but a few.
We took 51 south to A64 which turned into A1 when we crossed the border into Luxembourg. We had not been sure whether we would be going to
Luxembourg on our honeymoon, so we had not done as much research about this country as we probably should have prior to arriving.
We had known that street signs would be in French, but in our hurry to leave that morning, we brought our
German Signposts book with us, and
left our French Signposts book
at the timeshare by mistake. Luckily, we had already learned a few simple phrases in French, so we figured we'd get by.
The linguistic situation in Luxembourg is characterized by the fact that several
languages are spoken and written at the same time in the same place.
On all levels of society, only one language is used in oral communication: "L�tzebuergesch". This is the everyday spoken language
of the people and the symbol of the Luxembourgers national identity. "L�tzebuergesch", however, has limited vocabulary and grammatical
constructions available, and as soon as a conversation reaches out into the higher levels of abstraction or refined sentiment, other
languages are usually used. Similarly, most written communication is not in "L�tzebuergesch". Names of streets, shops, travel tickets,
hotel registries and menus are mostly in French (some street and place
names are also in L�tzebuergesch). Newspapers printed in the Grand Duchy
are mostly in German, but some cultural articles, many advertisements and social announcements are in French.
We parked in an underground garage near the center of the city and found a tourist information (TI) office
nearby. The woman at the counter in the TI spoke enough English for us to figure out we wanted
to buy two tickets to a double decker hop-on/hop-off bus tour (available in
eight languages via headphones). The bus tour was 12 EUR per person and also came with tickets to the
underground tunnels called "the Casemates" and tickets for a tour on a smaller tram/train.
We went on the bus tour first because we hoped to see a promising lunch spot from the bus, and we thought it would give us a quick way to
see much of the city and become familiar with some landmarks. The nearest stop on the bus tour was at Constitution Square, but first we
stopped at a McDonalds to use their free bathroom. Constitution Square is easily identifiable by the "G�lle Fra". The "G�lle Fra"
(Golden Lady) was set up in 1923 to commemorate the Luxembourgers who perished in World War I. In 1940, the Nazis pulled the monument down,
and it was not until 1984 that it was restored. Today it symbolizes freedom and resistance for the Luxembourg people.
When we got off the bus we were very hungry, and we saw many people eating flat grilled sandwiches
that they carried in paper bags. The sandwiches looked and smelled
delicious, and we figured they would be perfect for us, because we didn't want to waste any time sitting down to eat. We were able to track the
sandwiches back to
their source and ordered the l'Lorrain and the l'Florentine, although we just chose those because they were the only sandwich
names we knew how to pronounce (or at least thought we did). We got two sandwiches and a fanta "take-away" for 7.35 EUR.
We ate the sandwiches as we walked towards the entrance to the Casemates.
The many invasions of Luxembourg by foreign occupiers developed Luxembourg's potential and created one of
the strongest fortresses ever built; so impregnable that Luxembourg became known as the "Gibraltar of the North", protected by three defensive
walls with 24 forts, and honey-combed by a man-made 17 mile network of underground caverns, the so-called Casemates. The fortress survived
in its greatness until 1867, when it was dismantled according to the provisions of the Treaty of London. Not surprisingly, it took 20 years
to carry this out, even though some fortifications simply could not be destroyed, as the whole city would have crumbled away.
After walking through the Casemates we wandered through the city for a bit and bought some souvenirs for friends who were taking care of our
cats while we were gone. On the way to the Petrusse Express we saw a
little girl
playing jump rope in the town square. We did not see the Petrusse Express at its station, so we decided to quickly walk through
the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin. The cathedral is in the Gothic style with components and ornaments inspired by the Renaissance. Its
foundation was laid in 1613.
The Petruesse Express is a open air tram ride along walking paths of Luxembourg that are inaccessible to cars. Complimentary headphones provided
a narration describing the landmarks and life in ancient Luxembourg interspersed with classical music. After the tour
we got some ice cream (tropical, framboise, and pistachio) before heading back to our car.
After paying for our parking (17 EUR) we headed to the World War II Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial.
The Cemetary & Memorial lies just within the limits of
Luxembourg City, about three miles east of the center. The 50 acre cemetary was established on December 29, 1944 by the 609th
Quartermaster Company of the U.S. Third Army while Allied Forces were stemming the enemy's desperate Ardennes Offensive, one of
World War II's
critical battles. The city of Luxembourg served as headquarters for General George S. Patton's U.S. Third Army. General Patton is buried at the
Luxembourg American Cemetery. The burial area contains 5,076 American Dead, many of whom gave their lives in the "Battle of the Bulge" and in
the advance to the Rhein River.
We left the cemetary and started on our two hour drive back to the timeshare. We brought a variety of CDs with us on the honeymoon, but most of them
were CDs of mp3s. Our rental car's stereo only understood standard music CDs, so our choice of music was very limited, and we had been listening to
Outkast's Speakerboxxx/Love Below CD most of the time. On the way back from Luxembourg, we decided to listen to the radio and see what German music
sounded like. But, when we turned on the radio, the DJ said something in German, and then said, "Eins,
Zwei, Drei",
and Outkast's single "Hey Ya" started playing!
We had some leftovers for dinner and then packed up everything we would need for two days, because we would be spending the next night at a
castle on the Rhein River.
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