Who's that in Luxembourg?

We left our Paris apartment in the morning before 7:00 a.m., trying to be quiet so we wouldn't wake up our nephew's family that we have been traveling with for the last two weeks. We will sure miss them as we continue our travels! This morning we had to make two metro rides and a walk to get to the Paris Gare de l'East train station for our 8:19 a.m. train. After being pampered with others making the plans and figuring things out, we were on our own for the first time in two weeks. We had made a reservation on the TGV high-speed train, and used our first Eurail pass day. We had done our homework on the train we needed, the pass we needed to buy, made the seat reservations and paid the extra $22.50 reservation fee, and researched how to activate the pass. We did all those steps while we were sitting at home last month. Even though we felt prepared, our on-line pass wouldn't scan correctly at the turnstile at the station. Then it wouldn't scan right when the conductor checked our ticket when we were hurtling down the track at 180 miles per hour. Just about the time we were worried they might throw us from the train, suddenly our tickets came up correctly. So far, we're not great fans of the new automated Eurail pass system. Traveling with a rail pass isn't as easy as it was 20 years ago when you just flashed your pass and went anywhere on any train! Our high speed TGV train made three stops on our way out of France, and we arrived in Luxemburg City at 10:32 a.m. Whew! But wait . . . Who's that in Luxembourg with Mark?

While we said "good-bye" to a nephew in Paris last night, we said "hello" to another nephew in Luxembourg this morning. Stephen has spent time in Europe for most of the summers of his adult life. This year he flew to Europe specifically to go to as many Eurocup soccer games as possible. When he heard we were going to be in his part of the world, he planned to meet us in Luxembourg. He took the train from Trier, Germany, this morning and arrived nine minutes ahead of us.

We left our bags at the station for 5 Euro each, and took off on a little-planned bus and walking tour of the capitol city of Luxembourg. Denisa did enough research to know that all public transportation was free in Luxembourg. But she didn't do enough research to know which bus we needed to board. It was a good thing it was free, because we jumped on, then off, then back on buses until we finally got the right one. We jumped off close to Notre Dame church.

This shouldn't be confused with the more famous Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, but it was a nice start to our walking tour. We were hoping to find a cross to buy from this new-to-us country, but we did not. We checked our first stop off Denisa's list.

Denisa had a check-list of places to visit in Luxembourg City. Second on the list was the Palace of the Grand Dukes (also known as Palais Grand Ducal to the locals). This is the official residence of the Grand Duke, and guards were on duty outside. Check!

We picked up a map at the local information office, and then almost immediately got lost. So we just started wandering around, finding things on the list randomly. Our first "find" was the Chemin de la Corniche. Known as "Europe's most beautiful balcony," it is a pedestrian street high on the hill overlooking the historic old city below. Check!

This lovely walking path was once the ramparts of a fort built in the 1700s. Now it is patrolled by tourists and ringed with summer flowers that were obviously very happy here. 

From our perch on the Chemin de la Corniche we could look down on the historic old city known as "The Grund." Denisa kept saying that she wanted to get down there, so we took every path leading downward . . .

 

until we found ourselves down in "The Grund." Check!

We were also searching for a bathroom, and we might have found the best one in Europe. During our first two weeks in Europe, Denisa and Katrina developed a rating system for bathrooms based on their cleanliness, availability of soap, toilet paper, and paper towels, location, price to use, etc. We gave this one a 10 out of 10 on our rating system! Check!

We wandered around and through the arches and old walls. Who's that in Luxembourg? It's Stephen, who even agreed to be in some of our pictures. 

We had beautiful weather and nice temperatures for our wandering. After a very hot start to this European vacation, we had traveled far enough north to enjoy some cooler summer temperatures.

Because we weren't following our map well, we didn't always know exactly where we were on Denisa's list. But we're going to put a check mark beside the Bock Casements . . .

and the lovely church in the Grund. This was St. Jean du Grund Church.

This church had been sitting on the banks of the Alzette River since 1606. While we thought the views were great from the balcony trail looking down, we had to say it was also lovely from the valley looking up to the balcony.

We found some fun art on our walk, including a pink mermaid . . .

and some locals dancing their way across the square.

Lunch was at a local favorite--Kumpir Happy Potatoes. The owner had to explain all the toppings that we were allowed to pile onto a giant spud. We needed that food to give us energy to make the walk back up out of The Grund. The plan was to take the free public transportation back up the hill. But we never found it, so we slogged all the way up to the top on our own.

It wasn't until we had already walked up, that we finally found the Pfaffenthal Lift. 

So we rode this glass elevator to the bottom of the city again, just for the experience.

It even had a glass bottom so we could see where we were going. The trip was free, and we rode down, and then right back up again. Check!

While we concentrated on the old historical parts of Luxembourg City, we could look out from the top of the elevator to see more of the modern bridges and buildings in the distance.

We walked through the modern shopping district with its trendy shops and restaurants. We could spend days here exploring more of the different levels of Luxembourg and its capitol city.

We took a picture of the Luxembourg and EU flags on display at this tiered park on our walk.

After a great time in Luxembourg, it was time for us to head back to the train station. We collected our bags at the station and then parted ways with Stephen. He headed towards another soccer game, and we took the train to another new-to-us country. But for this stop, we were glad to answer the question of "Who's that in Luxembourg?" with another of our nephews. It sure was fun spending time with family in Europe this summer!