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Schloss Erbaut viaduct
Schloss Erbaut viaductRandom thoughts about countries so far:
Scotland - Cold, windy, beautifuly! Drive on the wrong side. People are friendly. Galic is weird! Really like Irn Bru soda! Neil, our guide rocks!
Germany - Warmer, but windy on the Rhine. Enchanting towns. Everyone rides bicycles. Inexpensive for a tourist area. Dogs are everywhere... even restaurants, stores, and train stations!
Luxembourg - To be determined
Auf Wiedersehen Germany, bonjour Luxembourg! After another good breakfast in the hotel, we said goodbye to hostess and headed to the Sankt Goar train station. We had wanted to buy train tickets to Luxembourg online since they were 38 Euros on special or 78 normal, but the hotel didn't have a printer, so we had to take our chances. By the way, I don't think I mentioned the cost of the hotel, Hotel An Der Fahre (which means Hotel At The Ferry I think), so here it is. 45 Euros per night for the room, breakfast included. Anyways, we bought tickets at the Sankt Goar train station for 15.80 Euros for both of us to Koblenz, but were unable to buy tickets there to Luxembourg. We arrived at Koblenz smallest bills we had were
Just part of the climb up from the hostel
Just part of the climb up from the hostel 50 Euros and the machines only accept up to 20. It turned out that we only paid 38 Euros for both of us anyways. Our train left at 11:06, was quite comfortable, and soon had us arriving at Luxembourg Gare Central station. My recollection of French from school started to pay off as we found the right bus, number 14, to take us to our hostel near the Plateau Altmunster stop. Unfortunately I panicked when the bus show the stop prior to ours, then didn't stop and the sign changed to our stop. I hit the "I want to stop" and the driver stopped on the bridge, but I think was trying to tell us that wasn't our stop. Since we'd already grabbed our bags and muscled our way to the exit, I just kept going. It turned out we were probably just as close or closer to the hostel that way. We wound our way downhill and easily found the hostel, partly thanks to the signs pointing the way to the Auberge de Jeunesse, or in our case, the Luxembourg City Hostel.
The hostel in Luxembourg is a far cry from the one in Edinburgh. This one is
View of hostel area from path up
View of hostel area from path up an HI (Hostelling International) hostel and is quite modern... and more expensive. Also, although they have fancier rooms with keycards, and a nice restaurant, there is no communal kitchen and the common spaces are mostly outdoors and not as cozy. After getting our room and putting things away, we wandered up the hill, and I do mean up, to check out the city. Since we hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, and it was now after 2pm, we started looking for some place to eat. The hostel had a restaurant, but the fixed price menu for lunch was almost 10 Euros! Right across the street from the Grand Ducal Palace, we found The Chocolate House. Although their specialty was chocolate and cocoa, they had an expensive selection of salads and quiches, so we sat down. We watched all sorts of important people coming and going at the palace, with a police motorcycle escort while we ate. Manoli decided to "chocolate out" and ordered a fancy hot chocolate drink and an assortment of chocolates. Her drink came as a glass of hot milk with a chocolate square on a spoon to dissolve in it. They had her go to the chocolate counter
Grand Ducal Palace
Grand Ducal Palace and pick 5 different chocolates of her choosing. She said everything was good, so I can't complain. I on the other hand had a salmon quiche with a nice size and delicious salad on the side, with a good cup of cappuccino. I think the total bill was about 15 Euros. After lunch, we wandered around doing some window shopping and sightseeing, ending up at the beautiful city park. By this time it was getting to be about 6pm, so on the way back to the hostel, we stopped at a "fast food" place (I guess it was) that we'd seen along the way to pick up something light for dinner. Manoli got a fried sausage of some sort, which she snacked on along the way, and I got a crab salad sandwich which I'll eat after I finish this blog.
Tomorrow we hope to get a Luxembourg Card which will allow us to use the buses and such all day, and give us free access to a lot of museums and other sights in Luxembourg City.
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