Day 14

Whew. Today was another crazy day. We were spoiling ourselves in Amsterdam with all of the relaxing and sleeping in. But that all changed today. My 6:30 wake up call was not pleasant. But after showering and having a nice breakfast, we were ready to hit the city. We only had one day to see everything in Luxembourg city, which made our schedule pretty tight. We made our way into the city and stopped at a few picture spots to capture the morning, the very cold morning. It was about 45 degrees! And I just had my sweatshirt over my clothes. We walked to Charles Square and attempted to rent bicycles to ride over to the American Cemetery. We were unaware that you needed an international credit card with a chip in it, something that we don't have. So no bikes today. And no cemetery, sadly. We started our city walking tour, but the cold was too much and we had to make a pit stop back at our hostel for more clothes. So if I look cold in all of my pictures, it's because I was! After redressing, we headed back outside and made the journey back to the Charles square. From there we went everywhere. We stopped by the Place d' Arms and saw the Grand Ducal Palace. We walked over to Constitution Square where the statue of the Golden Lady was erected as a monument of one of the wars fought (Sorry, I don't remember which). We continued walking and saw more buildings and churches and statues. But the real fun came when we arrived at the Bock Casemates. The Casemates, which I guess is a fancy way of saying caves and tunnels carved into a big rock hill, were pretty neat. There were so many different passage ways and stairs and ramps inside. It's amazing to think that they had the technology and man power to build something so large and fortified. We spent a good bit of time inside, but only because we got lost in one of the corridors. After traveling up and down 20 flights of narrow, spiraled, slippery stairs, we finally made it back alive. The weather had not let up yet and it was still cold, misty, rainy and foggy. We descended into the Grund Valley to see the Quinin Chapel, a small church built into the side of a rock hill. We continued walking under the Passerelle Bridge and the Adolphe Bridge and found ourselves faced with a very long and steep climb back to the main part of the city. After what felt like hours, we were back at the Place d' Arms and ready for a nice lunch at ...... McDonald's. But I was hungry, so it would have to do for today. After a leisurely break at McD's we headed out again to start our Wenzel walking tour. We started back at the Bock Casemates and made our way once again into the Grund Valley. I was enjoying it even less the second time. We walked along the Wenzel wall which was once connected to the main fortifications of the city. We walked through the Gate to Trier and up into one of the plateaus. The view was beautiful and yes, we took plenty of pictures. We walked and walked and finally made our way through the lower part of the Grund and back into the city. We still had one more stop though before we could call it a night. But it was pretty close to the hostel, so I thought it would be fine. However, we made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up walking up a very steep hill only to find that it was a dead end. We had to walk back down the hill, continue on the street and then proceeded to climb another hill. This one was even steeper than the first and by now, my legs were burning. We made it to a forest and even though there was not trail, we could see our destination, so we proceeded ahead. We finally made it to Fort Thungen. I'm not sure if it was worth the walk, but since we had already put so much energy into it, we started exploring the fort and going down into all of the nooks and crannies. At least there was a nice view of the city to reward us. Now it was finally time to go back to the hostel and relax. Or so I thought. A few minutes after we sat down, we realized that we needed food. We tried to locate a grocery store, but the closest one was near the train station, a 1.3 mile walk. And it closed at 7. It was 6:20, so we had to make a decision. Food won, so just as quick as we had sat down, we were back up again booking it to the store. How we made it with 15 minutes to spare, I do not know. But a nice dinner of salami and cheese crackers was our outcome. And I had to stop to get a twix bar. I couldn't even remember the last time I had one. I enjoyed that on our walk back. We made it back to the hostel, watched the latest episode of Chuck, and then called it a night. Early 6 am wake up call tomorrow!