Day 70, Monday 27th October 2008 (Cath)
Autobahns are FUN. I was lucky enough to be in the driver’s seat this morning when we decided to take a shortcut through Germany to Luxembourg.
On the way, we called in at the spooky Chateau Fleckenstein, carved atop cliffs, and then saw a part of the Maginot Line fortifications, which were built (but not entirely completed) by France leading up to World War II to keep Germany out. It could be considered a successful system in that, according to plan, it was never actually penetrated from the East – instead, the Nazis just went around the top, invading France via Belgium, where the defence infrastructure ran out because of incomplete funding.
Tank on display at the Maginot line – unfortunately the small museum was closed, as it is manned purely by volunteers who work only on weekends (the French Government still considers the Maginot line an embarrassment, so does not fund its maintenance)
Our first impression of Luxembourg City was tainted by road works, which were happening on literally almost every second street, rendering Dolores useless. Even our hotel was under renovation, but luckily it seemed like our rooms had already been done, because they were schmick. We stayed near the central railway station, and were somewhat surprised to find that to get into the old town centre, we had to cross a gorge! It was an easy twenty minute walk, and the conveniently located, tree-lined gorge made it quite a pretty one.
If anyone reading this has proud Luxembourgian heritage, please bear in mind that we only spent about six hours out and about in the country – not quite enough time to fully appreciate what I am sure is a beautiful and rich culture.
Some might regard a gorge striking through the very centre of a modern city as something that seems ‘not quite right’, even though it is unusual in a good way (and made a lot of defensive sense back in the day when the city was much smaller and constantly a target of conquerors). However, soon after entering the old town, Hamish began to point out various things about the city that seemed to him to be ‘not quite right’ (beginning with the various family portrait postcards of the Royal Family, which appeared to be taken in the mid-90s, with way too many awkward kids in matching white linen and denim). We began to believe him, and to spot further examples, and that is how Luxembourg gained its new unofficial motto – ‘NQR’.
Strange child mannequins made a comeback here, after not being seen on this trip since Eastern Europe. This may look like a normal display of baby clothes and accessories:
But look for a bit longer, and you will see:
The crazy spinning baby container – that can’t be healthy!
This statue looks just like any normal half-soldier, half-horse at first glance:
But it is holding both a spear (makes sense) and a giant compass (the trigonometric type, not navigational) – hmm
Apparently normal Christmas trees are so 2007. This year they have to be upside down, decorated with disco balls, and spinning.
A square in the old town – actually, this was just nice.
And although these butterflies looked like quite a cliche, the changing patterns of light being projected onto them were quite beautiful
