Luxembourg

2nd October 2011

This morning we packed up Mulder, kicking aside a large piece debris left where Rob and Belinda’s car had been that fellow campers had decided it would make a good picnic site the previous night. 

What remained of Rob and Bel's campsite

Looks like we were total pigs but we kicked it as far away from our van as we could so we wouldn't get stuck with the blame

Before we left (checkout wasn’t until 4pm) we headed in the Irish pub once again this time to watch the mighty manly sea eagles trounce the warriors in the NRL grand finale. We did miss the first 15 minutes as Dave found navigating us back in the light of full morning somehow much harder than it had been at 5am in the dark the previous morning.

We also got to see a little of the world cup rugby – Ireland vs Italy but left as soon as the Irish started dominating sealing their victory over Australia as leader of the pool.

We hit the road around lunch time for a 569km drive to Luxembourg. 

Hampered by road workers the whole way we pulled into camping Kockelscheur at 8pm exhausted. Ate a quick dinner and went to bed.

Luxembourg

3rd October 2011

Although mainly a stopover enroute to the Somme and Belgian battlefields we thought we should probably explore Luxembourg a little before heading off, given it is a while other country, making it now 15 in total. We had been to in over the last 15 weeks.

We heard that the city of Luxembourg has quite a fairy tale appearance and we weren’t disappointed. The first dream come true was the price of petrol 1.27 Euro/L – BARGAIN and all we had hoped for. Onwards from there we arrived in the centre of town after getting a view from its Point Adolphe from the city’s war memorial.

The Bronze statue dedicated to the people of Luxembourg who fought alongside the Belgians and French against the Germans

Pretty amazing view

We strolled through the squares - the place of d’Armos and place Guillaume II which link by a series of narrow cape lined streets where we had lunch and made use of the free wifi. We received an unexpected message letting us know of the arrival of Isabella Piper Galvin just past 6am on on Sunday morning 2/10/12 – congratulations Steph and Frank! 

From here we took a walk down to the Cheryin da la Cornicho which acts like a balcony from the top of the cliff and look down over the lower part of town called the Grund. The city is built on a high flat rock plateau which makes it’s architecture very interesting, especially that of the Block Casemates – Luxembourg’s most famous tourist attraction.

The view from the Cheryin da la Cornicho

Some of the block casemates built into the side of the cliffs

The Casemates were an immense underground military defence system built into the rock of the Luxembourg Plateau. At their peak usage under the domination of the Spanish and Austrians through the 17^th and 18^th centuries the maze of tunnels and rooms stretched 23km, housing troops, horses, artilleries, weapons, workshops, kitchens, batteries, slaughterhouses and more. A truly amazing site to visit with more amazing views as well.

Dave loading the guns

Chilly inside the tunnels

Worth it for the beautiful views

We exited the casemates walking along to the Rue du St Esprit and back across the valley bridge to Mulder. Dave was feeling the effects of the head cold (I was about one day ahead of him with symptoms, the side effects of Oktoberfest) so I drove (eek!) the 400km to Amiens in the French Somme region for our next adventures.