Luxembourg - Winter Wonderland!

I think yesterday took the cake of all my travels so far. We went to Luxembourg, a small country to the south, smooshed in between Belgium, France and Germany. It's the last Grand Duchy of the world (its leader is a Duke) and its capital city, also called Luxembourg, is just a 3.5 hour train ride from Gent. So, we all decided to get up at 5am and catch the earliest train, so that we could spend the day there! It was still snowing when I biked to the train station, which is the craziest thing ever. I mean, who bikes in the snow? Me! and it was rad!!

This also means I travelled almost the entire length of Belgium in one day - from Gent to the southern-most city, Arlon. And the amazing thing was that I got to see it all covered in SNOW. It was so awesome. Then from Arlon it is just a 10 minute trip to Luxembourg. Also, the train we took also went to Zurich in Switzerland! How very exciting!!

Luxembourg is different from Belgium because of the landscape, and the building style. Firstly, unlike Flanders which is completely flat because its mostly reclaimed land, Luxembourg has hills and ravenes and stuff. I can't describe to you how nice it is for me to see land contour after living in a completely flat place for only 2 months. Also, In Luxembourg they speak Luxembourgish, which I am told is a dialect of high German. Also there is a lot of French spoken there.

One of the most amazing things is that the castle establishing Luxembourg was built in the year 962 AD. We even got to visit the casemates/crypts below the castle, and the rooms. It was pretty darn cold and creepy down there though so we didnt stay long. We walked a tour route of the city that included all the historic buildings and history of the town. We didn't really make it to the modern city on the outskirts, but did visit the main squares etc. There was a music festival on in the city centre for Easter, and lots of bands from New Orleans had come to play. So we had lovely music over lunch and listened to all the Americal accents. Also, because it was Easter Monday there was a big fair and lots of stalls in the street. Luxembourgers make bird-call okarinas called Peckvillchens, they make lovely sounds just like real birds. Lucky I have to travel light or I would have come home with a lot of neat stuff from that fair!

Then we took a bus to the European Commission buildings - the European Parliament and the Court of Justice (which is just being finished and is possibly the most heinous set of buildings I have ever seen). Then arrived back to Gent to find that the snow is starting to thaw and re-freeze. Isobel's chain came off so I walked home, which is probably lucky considering how slippery the ice is!


I had a great time in the snow, and Luxembourg is a lovely city (we didn't get to see any other towns yet) so if anyone is passing by I would reccommend it!