16 March 2008 - Luxembourg / Zürich
It was a bit of a slow start this morning. But then I remembered Luxembourg as a small city from my last visit nearly two decades ago. That visit was a sunny summers day. Today, however, was a colder and much, much wetter day with only brief let ups in the rain. Still, the show must go on.
We had a fantastic sleep in the Golden Tulip Central Molitor. So much so, in fact, that I would be inclined to stay here again when I return to Luxembourg. The Golden Tulip Central Molitor is also only around 10 minutes walk from Luxembourg train station and a similar walk, albeit in the opposite direction, from the Old City of Luxembourg. So location's pretty good too. Reception was pretty quick and efficient. Didn't do breakfast on account of excellent sleep.
Our
first stop this morning were the Bock
Casements. We had already decided to enter the Bock Casemates
having read our guide book yesterday and found the entry price
of 2 Euros to be quite reasonable. A fortress has existed at
the Bock promontory since 963 when a fortified castle was built
here by Count Siefried. The casements themselves were built
by the Spanish troops in 1644 who wished to reinforce the existing
city fortifications and are a warren of tunnels running upto
40 meters into the cliff face. Today 17km of the original 23km
of casements remain - not all at Bock though. Only the Casemates
at Bock and Pétrusse remain
open to the public. Our 70-odd minute of wandering through
the Bock Casemates of Luxembourg was a welcome relief from
the rain outside as well as interesting perspective of the
town itself. We were able to peer at various parts of the city
through canon and rifle openings as we made our way through
the different levels the triangular fortification.
Next
stop - the Cathedral
of Notre Dame. The Cathedral of Notre Dame is an eccletic
combination of styles and designs which have been progessivly
added to/changed/altered etc over the years. This does make
for an unusual look which is certainly not cohesive but neither
is it what the 2004 Lonely Planet to Belgium and Luxembourg
describes as "ugly." Hotch-potch yes. Uncohesive yes. Ugly
no. But I guess we're just going to disagree on this matter
of opinion - the Cathedral is still worth visiting.
Sadly
the rain did put a bit of a dampner (literally) on the day
but wandering around the town was still a bit of treat. The
bridges over the large valley between the two sides of the
town made for an excellent vantage point to view the fortifications
of the town which clearly had been impressive their heydey.
Pottering around town also revealed some of the more "interesting" street
art at statues in Luxembourg.
Luxembourg, whilst compact, does have history and the buildings, fortifications, churches and statues do reflect that. I really like to come back when there's blue skies and blazing suns which would really make for good relaxing weekend.
