Luxembourg

On May 22, we went to Luxembourg, Luxembourg. It was only like 3 hours away, so it was a good trial to see how long-distance driving would be, and we could easily make it there and back plus have a nice, full day of sightseeing. It wasn't bad at all! Yeah, we were a bit tired, but nothing horrible.

Luxembourg is beautiful. The country looks a lot like Germany, but the city is gorgeous. There's a huge park in the middle, with a really cool pirate ship play area. Back behind, there's a whole water play area, too. We both started and finished our tour of the city in the park, since our parking structure was right next to it.

Let me tell you, I love those City Sightseeing buses. They're a tad expensive, but the hop on-hop off is priceless. Plus, they have some great commentary that we would never have gotten otherwise. As a homeschooler, any time Em can get some info, I'm all for it. Since she learns really well through audio tours, we get all of them we can.

After the park, we strolled down to where the bus tickets were sold. We hopped on a bus & took off. We stopped first at the Grand Ducal Palace stop. It was Saturday, so there was a Farmers' Market in the square. We decided to get lunch there. :) It was also the Louisiana Jazz fest, so we got to have BBQ. We were all broiling hot by then (we had no idea it was supposed to be warm, it had been long-sleeves weather before), so we ran into a department store and bought some cooler clothes.

Then we popped over an looked at the Palace. We didn't go in (I don't know if you can), so we walked past it to the Casemates. Luxembourg used to be a fortress, and the Casemates are a series of defensive tunnels that look out over the city. It was nice and cool down there, and just really neat to see. Not all of them are open, but there is a significant amount to explore. 

We got back on the bus and headed to the Thungen Fortress and Fortress Museum, because I thought it sounded cool. At first, I was very confused. I saw the Museum of Modern Art (which, by the way, was designed by IM Pei), but no fortress museum. Turns out, part of the fortress is part of the art museum. The fortress bit of it seemed closed, but we walked down the hill to some of the walls of the fort. It was pretty neato.

Back to the bus, where we then stayed on for the rest of the tour. We saw the banking district and went past the European Court of Justice. We hopped off back at the beginning, where we walked over to the Cathedral. I'm on a mission to see as many Notre Dame cathedrals as I can while here. I had no idea there were so many. It was one of the smaller cathedrals that I've seen, but it had the prettiest altar. I think it must have been set up for some holiday.

We walked back to the park, where we got some lunch at the snack stand, and then Em played in the water for a while. Then we went back to the car.

We decided to take the 7 Chateaus tour outside of town. There is a little river valley that is covered in castles - some in ruins, some still being used. Along the way, we made a slight detour to a little town called Kielen, so we could get a picture of the sign for our friend Kielen in MD. We didn't see all of the chateaus, because it was just getting too late, and we still had the drive back home.

We made a stop at Rue Wenzel so we could take a picture. (Wenzel is the German spelling of Em's middle name), and then we made a wrong turn. For some reason, instead of taking us back to the freeway that was very near, it took us through the countryside. It was beautiful. We went through a little town named "Soup", but I wasn't fast enough to get a picture, and it wasn't an easy place to try and turn around.

All in all, it was a very satisfying day.

Em says - The park was totally awesome! I wanted to play for longer in the beginning, but I only got to play for like 10 minutes. But, in the water at the end, I got soaked! There was a cool Archimedes Screw to get water from a bottom pool to an upper one, and a cool thing with a series of ramps and pools. You had to use sand to plug up some of the ramps to get the water to flow the way you wanted it to go. And I wore my hat.