Accommodation: Hotel Francais

I woke up this morning after a horrendously bad night’s sleep. It was really warm in my room and there was no fan or A/C, so the stagnant heat kept me up all night. I finally got up around 8am, completely exhausted, but ready to start the day. I had breakfast at the hotel which was a standard European breakfast. Breads, meats, cheeses, fruits, yogurts, and cereals. It was nothing special, but it was fine.

I hit the road at about 9am having made up my mind that today I would see everything outside of the city, and tomorrow I would see the city itself. The first place I wanted to check out was a small town called Esch-sur-Sûre. It was just over an hour to drive there and it was a really pretty drive. A lot of nice rivers and bridges, and then I got to the town. It was one of the cutest little towns I’ve ever seen. I stopped at Tourist Information to find out what I should see and it started with the castle in the middle of the town, and then a walk up to the tower overlooking the town. There is a horseshoe river surrounding the town that made it look like no other town I’ve ever seen. I really wanted to fly my drone nearby, but I asked at Tourist Information and the guy said it is forbidden in this area and he knows of people who have been fined for flying them. He recommended a place about 10 minutes away where I could fly it near a dam, so I took that advice, but it wasn’t as cool as it would have been to fly it over the town.

After I was done there, I headed over to the next town I wanted to see called Vianden. This town was nice too, but was much more touristy than the first place I visited. The main attraction in Vianden is the castle which is perched up on a hill overlooking the town. It was nice, but didn’t feel special. I parked the car at the bottom of the hill in the only parking space I could find, had a hell of a time finding the parking ticket machine, and then walked up the hill to the castle. If nothing else, at least I was getting my workout for the day.

After checking out the castle, which wasn’t that impressive (maybe because I’m spoiled by living in Scotland), I headed on to the next place. I wanted to visit Beaufort Castle, I was really hoping I’d find a castle with a clearing nearby where I could fly my drone and not get in trouble, but that proved really difficult. It was not possible at all to get to Beaufort today as the roads had flooded and were all closed. I moved right on to the next place on my list, which was a town called Echternach.

This town had the most German name of any place I visited today, but it was the most French place I saw. All of the shops and signs were in French and all the people I heard speaking were speaking French. Luxembourg is a very strange country. With a town named Echternach, right on the German border, you would think they would speak German, but nope.

I walked around the town for a little bit, they had some sort of fair or carnival on, and there was also a wedding on at the Abbey which is the main attraction to see in the city. I had a look at the map and decided that I would try to see one more thing before heading back to the city.

I found the American Cemetery and War Memorial. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit Arlington Cemetery once before and this reminded me a lot of that. It was cool to see what the military does for the soldiers who die overseas and make sure they are not forgotten. The most famous grave that is there is General Patton, which was a surprise to me, but interesting to see.

I made my way back into the city and got to my hotel just before the rain started. The sky opened up and I haven’t seen rain like that in a really really long time. I was happy to be in my hotel and not driving on the winy roads in that kind of weather. I had been so tired all day that I found myself falling asleep while driving, so I had to pull over twice and rest because I was so afraid I was going to crash on these crazy roads. And then of course when I get back to the hotel and have the comfort of my bed, I can’t fall asleep. That figures.

I ended up having a really good night though because I have a friend who used to live in Edinburgh but moved to Luxembourg City about six months ago, so I met up with her for dinner tonight. Sai also had a couple of friends visiting from Spain for the weekend so the four of us (Alex and Paula) went out for Mexican food at Restaurant Mamacita, which was excellent and then went for a drink at one of Sai’s favorite bars, Max + Moritz. I had a couple small local beers while the girls each had a tea (we were a wild bunch) before calling it a night at 1am. It was a really good night and it was nice to see Sai in her new city.

Now it’s time for bed and tomorrow I’ll be checking out the city and then driving back to Brussels to fly home. These weekend trips go by quickly!