Luxembourg City

Before we did the long drive down to Luxembourg (2hrs on back roads), we stopped by another castle that was “worth a visit” Chateau Borshied. This castle is currently going under extensive reconstruction but still allowed visitors to view it. This castle did give us some stunning views; it is perched on top of a hill looking down on the town. In its time, it would have been great to see, however, like most reconstructions we’ve seen; they go too modern and take away the rustic nature of castles. We typically enjoy the ones that haven’t been touched. We arrived at the same time as a motorcycle gang, and I found it quite funny to see the typically dressed and groomed gang speak about the history of the castle with a quite proper English accent. The group had a 3 wheeled bike that might have been in one of the Mad Max movies. We did notice the drastic change of scenery going from north to south. Darren and Kelly, you two would enjoy the northern part the most. The north is covered by the Ardennes forest, great hills and valleys and plenty of rivers, whereas the south is flat like Belgium, but with so much industry. This is probably why they have such a healthy economy. The two reasons we made this stop in Luxembourg were to view the Casements and go to an internet café. What’s left of the Casements isn’t much, that’s probably why it cost us €2 to get in. The casements are what is left of the strong fortifications this country once had, apparently it was called the Gibaraltar of the North. But when France and Germany declared them Neutral ground, they tore down the fortifications and were later invaded by Germany in WW1. They could house up to 30 cannons and 200 men, a series of tunnels and loop holes allowed them to defend up to 300 meters away. The casements were built by the Romans when they were in control of the city. We were off next to the internet café which was about 3 blocks away. During our walk we passed through the very full square, the only thing that seemed odd to me was the McDonalds. Normally you see fancy restaurants, café’s and brasseries, but nothing like McD’s. I asked the guy at Cyber Beach if they had a wireless connection. This would allow us to upload photos, more blog entries and use a keyboard we are familiar with. He lied to me and said no, I needed to turn on the laptop so Julie could copy the blog’s onto the other computer only to find their wireless signal. Well, we left shortly after, sat about two doors down and connected outside. After about 20 minutes of sitting there, I suggested moving to the city square and use the internet there. We would have stayed as long as we could, but we could only stay for 30 minutes as the laptop was about to run out of batteries. So we learnt something new, from now on, we check for internet access in the town squares. The picture below means "We want to remain what we are" and can be found on buildings throughout the city.