Saturday we continued on our trend of weekend day trips and went to Luxembourg City. It is a close 45 minute drive from our house. We've been there multiple times, but so far our trips have only included the English speaking movie theater, the airport, and the American Military Cemetery (which was totally worth seeing). We'd heard of some worth-while sites in the city, and Josh wanted to go see The Avengers... so we decided to head there for the day.
We didn't have any set plans and really only had the priority to do one thing, which was the casemates. The casemates is a series of tunnels running through fortified stone walls. They were originally created hundreds of years ago as a city defense, but they were added to during the world wars. Now portions of the tunnels are open to walk/tour through. We heard about this last summer and it's been on our "to-do" list since then.
We got parked in the middle of the downtown area, and (as usual) started to wander... just to see what there was. The first thing we came across was the Notre Dame cathedral, the city cathedral. Well, I have a thing with churches, so of course we had to go inside to check it out. We weren't disappointed. The interior was beautiful with lots of stained glass windows, and we were there are the perfect time in the morning so the sun was hitting the widows in just the right way.
We left the church and stumbled upon a farmers market. There were booths full of fresh vegetables, plants, flowers, bread, and (our favorite) fresh Italian pastries. There were different types of little cookies, and you picked out your own types/quantity and were charges by the weight. We picked out a few to share, and then wandered around the market eating our cookies. My favorite was a cookie filled with Nutella and covered in powdered sugar. YUM!
We got a map and directions to the casemates from the tourist office (which, conveniently, was on one side of the market). We wandered out of the market and towards the palace. Yes, you read that right. The directs we were given were "Walk straight towards the palace, walk around it, then turn right...." It was a little surprising to see the palace in the middle of the city. It was a beautiful building, although nothing too grand. In a way it reminded me of Buckingham Palace as from the outside it isn't overly decorated, and there was a guard standing outside (although he looked the opposite of one of the guards at Buckingham... and he was holding a large gun). We made our way to the casemates, which provided some great views of the city and some photo opportunities.
The different openings within the walls and openings you can look out from as you walk through the tunnels. The tunnels are laid out with different "galleries" which are labels A-J. Some galleries are pretty open... others have winding staircases, narrow passages, and dead-ends. As you walk along you are taken both lower and closer to the river, and higher towards the top. The inside is well lit with electric lights, which I was grateful for, but at the same time it kind of took away from the creepy/medieval feel of the tunnels. It was fun climbing through the tunnels. I really enjoyed the views of the city the most.
After our tour of the casemates we headed back towards the market and stumbled upon some sort of "battle of the bands" ... only instead of bands it was drumlines. We watched one group perform for awhile. The music was good, but (as always) the people watching was better. We walked around the main downtown area for awhile longer taking in the sights. I really like Luxembourg. We have always encountered very friendly people, and although it's a small country, they seem to have such pride. I really enjoyed my time.
We then made our way to the familiar movie theater... and The Avengers was awesome. I highly recommend it, and I generally don't enjoy any of the Marvel comic movies... so that's saying something.
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