Luxembourg (City)

3/7

Small punchy run & ride as we’re roadside near the Abbey.  We clear off after school with destination Luxembourg.  Tot ziens/au revoir Belgium, a place that seems to have been annexed to keep the middle of squabbling Europe apart.  To another place with a critical strategic position on Europe’s chess board.  The border crossing is abrupt as we drive onto wonderful roads & a pristine, glossy surround (the lids of rubbish bins are closed rather than herniating their stinky contents) not unlike Switzerland but without the alps.  It’s historical ties seem closest to the Nederlands with an almost identical flag & it’s current day royals descending directly from the Dutch Nassau monarchy.  People even reckon it’s clog shaped on the map. It’s industry is largely finance and tax.

The campground is dinky.  We are handed a list of rules with every second word highlighted & in capitals all stressing the expectation of cleanliness and quiet. Switzerland?

Parked up, we bus into the capital, Ville de Luxembourg.  Wil & Kel snuggle up on a seat away from us fossils and big brother feasts on the parade of glitzy luxury & sports cars relaying details excitedly to little-sister-so-desperately-wanting -to-please-and-be-interested.  Softly, she asks ¾ of the way through the journey if they could perhaps talk about something else.  Big bro’ replies “ sure, hows about we discuss what the beanie kids are up to….oh woa, look at that Audi R8!”

human water feature, runs on money

Our stop Royal Quai, plonks us right in the centre of old L/bourg, the entirety of which is UNESCO world heritage listed. In 936 Count Siegfried built his fortress atop the Bock promontory overlooking gorge-like valleys.

  

It has been fought over ever since by everyone with it’s ramparts being destroyed, re-built, further fortified, added to with more girdles of bastions, turrets & gates only accessible over massive viaducts.  Modern times have seen angular glass EU towers shadow the old giants.  The CBD occupies both banks of a precipitous & lush gorge and is connected by fairy tale wooden bridges draped with willows, massive golden stone blocks impregnated ancient shell fossil  incredulously held together with simple principles of  bridge engineering and thin pencil line metal spans painted red.  The result is what is argued to be Europe’s most spectacular city promenade or ‘balcony’ - the Chemin.

Old and the new

We do our usual and rubber-neck about the place without going into much & messing impressions up with detail.  This includes bench side people watching, walking for miles, running up a few hills, 

a bit of exercise

balancing on thousand year old walls, taking innumerable photos and having an ice-cream of course.  The beautiful golden Gelle Fra, Nike, Goddess of War & Victory, gets a special mention.  Standing high, gleaming in the sun, she adds grandeur to  Constitution Square & commemorates loss in the 2 World Wars.  The weather is just perfect at 26 degrees & sunny - almost hot.

Nike

Home late, we showers off the last few days of trailer trash sweat and leap into bed with books.

4/7

Jeff’s OK for a run again some 3 weeks after the re-fracturing of The Rib. Bloody hell - he’s off, dragging me wheezing behind him!

Cereal & coffee in the sun before grade 3 & grade 8 sit down to their maths tests.

Our studious bubble is pierced by the fake french polished nails on the end of our officious, uptight camp hostess’s tanned mid 50s hand as she hands us a sheet of rules with pursed lips, indicating that our meticulously hung out laundry is unsightly & not allowed.  Jeff’s washing line art is something to see.  Items are in perfect order, size and colour coded and impeccably straight along the edges of the awning.  Quite Swiss really. The rules say we can’t hang out the washing after 1000 - que??  What, do we hang it out in the dark overnight??  And that it must not hang from campground trees.  Oh well…..we’ll wait for her to return by which time things will be dry anyways.

Around us is the perpetual background whirr of whipper snippers, electric hedges, mowers, blowers that, like Switzerland, whine on noisily from 0700-2200.

All done, fuelled with a hearty left-over lunch of stir-fry rice mit weisswurst and washing away, we clip our helmets on and in shorts, take the 20km broad, breezy piste around the city. Chatting away, we cruise beneath quiet tall leafy canopies, 

alongside the river that tumbles over mossy old large stone wiers with picturesque mill ruins and through pockets of mouth-watering fresh smells from plump brook-side community vege patches.  Kel’s little legs are hammering along up and down impressive gradients. As long as she is telling a story, she doesn’t seem to notice!  The river continues around delightful bends and beneath beautiful old chateauxs until we reach the river-valley of the ville.

This is how it works...."

A lift takes us, bikes and all, to the haut ville where we stop for Wil’s haircut, repair work to the camera bag, a snack of nougat atop a glorious vista and finally, the most spectacular coffee in months.  We pause to chat up a fellow diner, a local art dealer, who shares some useful travel pearls.  Spontaneity sees us purchase 2 cheap DVDs.  

Back on the bikes for the scenic run home, mostly downhill, found some interesting sculptures in the park next to the campsite, Wil found the skate park.

In pursuit of a good laugh, we watch the absolutely silly Johny English 1 and pile in, sprawled out with no bedcovers on a blissful warm night.