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  • Day 33

    Luxembourg City, Luxembourg pt II

    June 4, 2016 in Luxembourg ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Day 32:

    It seems unnecessary at this point to mention that we had another late morning... the forecast was bad, but the trusty window check showed a beautiful day. We headed east and soon were reminded of the volatility of the weather here. A big cloud burst later, we came upon the Cimetière Militaire Américain. Fortunately, the clouds cleared for us to visit the monument and pay respects to Great Uncle Donald who lost his life in Luxembourg in the Battle of the Bulge. Its a sobering experience to see the graves of so many who were fighting on foreign soil and realizing that those over 5,000 soldiers never returned to America. And triple that number were brought back to be buried at home. Studying the battles in school just can't put into perspective the true sacrifice. The best we can do at this point is feel love for those who fought against oppression, not hatred or regret for the aggressors.

    After a moving experience at the memorial, we headed back to the city center. It was an hour walk, with google maps trying to murder us by putting us basically in the middle of the street for half a kilometer. Danielle made friends with a couple of donkeys, as we discovered a super cool program Luxembourg has that puts sheep and donkeys on government lands to use grazing to naturally keep the plants trimmed. We also saw a little piece of home with some golden poppies growing along the road.

    We finally came upon the "Gibraltar of the North" just before the sky opened up and rained like we have never experienced before. But before we get into that bedlam... the whole reason Luxembourg exists is because this guy named Siegfried bought these sheer cliffs bordering the Pétrusse River. They were partially inhabited from the 4th century on, but once Count Siegfried purchased them in 963 to defend his lands in the surrounding areas.

    The Bock is a natural defense as amazingly high rocky cliffs, three sides around a river, which were dug out to create an intricate tunnel system, as well as built upon to make one of the most impressive fortresses in Europe. What we went through are known as the casemates, essentially places where you can launch stuff at enemies, but they have little to no chance of getting back at you. So basically this place was impenetrable. It was attacked a lot, but never taken, and each time expansions were built along with the repairs. But remember the brilliant British idea to ensure neutrality? Yea, this one had to be scrapped too.

    Back to our extreme weather experiences... we feel rain starting, and being seasoned experts on rain, we throw on our waterproof jackets and we were good, right? Wrong. This rain literally made us laugh it was so extreme. The lightning looked like it could be hitting trees righr next to us, and the thunder was literally right above us. To the point where we could hear it roll over us as it was crackling and shaking the ground. We hid under small rock out-shoots to escape momentarily as we made our way to wherever we thought we were going. But even then, water would flood over our feet as it poured down the stairs, so we were forced to keep moving. Then, Danielle explained it best, we felt like Mary and Joseph. Each time there would be shelter, people were under it and we would look at them like "please let us in" and each time people would look back like "no room in the inn". So at this point, our waterproof jackets kept our upper bodies dry, but our pants... soaked. Like jumped in a pool soaked. After some time, we finally made it to the entrance of the casemates, and of course, the rain stops.

    After getting mildly lost in what felt like miles of tunnels, we visited Saint Michael's Church, which was the site of the Count's castle chapel, built in 987. But as we've seen before, little lasts through wars, and it went through the same destroy and rebuild as most other churches. The current one was built in the 17th century, and that, in and of itself is pretty awesome.

    We picked up some waters and headed home from there. After stopping in to grab groceries on the way, guess what... rain. That crazy rain again. The locals were all hanging out under the eaves waiting before they left. But being crazy Americans, and deservedly receiving some looks, we booked it for home. Booking it being relative, of course, because we had a 29 minute walk from there. Protecting our hot chicken wings like they were viable eggs of a dinosaur, we made it home competely resoaked to the bone. Luckily there was no further flooding, and we even had an apologetic note from our host, along with Luxembourg sparkling wine and Belgian chocolates. Something must have happened to the wine because the bottle is empty. But chicken wings, cup o' noodles, and some sweet tunes were exactly what we needed tonight.
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