Blogs from Vianden, Luxembourg, Europe

Heute bin ich in den Norden von Luxemburg nach Vianden gefahren. Die Autobahn dorthin war wirklich sehr schön. In der "schönsten Stadt der Ardennen" angekommen, habe ich glücklicherweise einen sehr guten Parkplatz gefunden. Danach bin ich gleich in ein empfohlenes Restaurant, wo ich eine kalte Platte mit Ardennenschinken und danach Pferdefilet mit Pommes Frites gegessen habe. Pferdefleisch hatte ich zuletzt 2002/03 regelmäßig bei Nestlé gegessen. Damals wie heute mit einer Pfeffersauce. Es wäre auch noch Käsefondue angeboten gewesen, aber das mache ich lieber selber oder esse es wie im Sommer 2014 in Zürich im Herkunftsland. Es war aber trotzdem keine leichte Entscheidung. Das Restaurant war in der Grand Rue, die auch vom Reiseführer angepriesen wurde, aber ich bin nicht diese Straße weiter ins Tal spaziert. Dazu war ich zu faul und ich habe die Straße noch ... read more

Luxembourg is a home to about 130 Châteaux. Some are fortified castles, others are lavish mansions. So, our weekend getaway would not be complete without visiting one of them. Mightily sits on a high ground, the eleventh century castle of Vianden glowed in the dusk. The mixture of Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance features of this castle made this castle a perfect place to have a Halloween party. Many kids and their parents dressed in scary, funny, and medieval customs were dancing in a very large, tall, and airy hall at the heart of the castle. Walking around the castle ground, we soaked the fairy-tale panoramic view of dark deep blue sky, orange band of sunset on the horizon, and rolling lush hills highlighted by lights from small towns below. It was a great place to end ... read more

Wednesday 2 March 2011 Another cloudless but cold and misty day, with a strong biting wind - the locals tell us we're lucky to be getting this sort of weather (we're not complaining). We headed off to Luxembourg City today in our little hire car. Thank gods for the GPS - it got us right to the carpark we wanted without a hitch. We shouldn't be too surprised as it's a fairly small city, housing around 88,000 people (about 20% of the total population). Making a bee-line for Place Guillaume II (the main city square) we found it jam packed with a food and flower market. We didn't buy anything, but we did drool a bit! Luxembourg is a pleasant city to walk around; it's light and airy, as is its cathedral (Notre Dame). Ali was ... read more

Sunday 27 February Up early to the unaccustomed tones of the alarm clock (groan!). Our very friendly landlady, Françoise called in to say goodbye and to take a photo of us in her apartment. Then we shouldered our bags and made our way through the near-deserted streets (!) to Gare de l'Est to board our first ever TGV (very fast train). Two hours and ten minutes later we were freezing our bits off in Luxembourg City. However, the friendliest taxi driver we've ever met took us in his flash Mercedes to the airport to pick up our hire car. Driving from the airport to Vianden was interesting - the GPS seemed to want us to go on all the smallest roads it could find. It was a very pleasant drive though, and not at all a ... read more

On day 8 we awoke in beautiful vianden, Luxemburg with the intention of exploring its famous chateu de Vianden. After breakfast at the hotel (where mum and i ate a trayfull of mini crossionts and i made myself sum lunch and made mum sneak it out) we set off for the castle. Mum and i were planning on catching the chairlift up to the mountain peak and then hiking over to the castle. After dropping us off at the chairlift opa and oma riet drove up to the castle. We were surprised that the chairlift wasn’t moving already as it was supposed to have opened a couple of minutes ago, but we sat down and waited. Fifteen minutes later an English couple came over and told us it was broken and they were waiting on people ... read more