Hi All,
Another short trip and we were in Luxemburg. The higher GDP per person country in Europe. We didn't have any bookings and thought we might have to continue on to Germany as accomodation was going to be expensive as we hadn't been able to book at the hostel online. We stored our bags at the train station and wandered to the only hostel in the city and found that they did have beds available. Apparently they reserved a section for people coming in without a booking. Seems like a bad business model to me. Anyway the hostel was really well located, very large, sterile and more like a hotel than a hostel and was not that expensive so we decided to stay for two nights.
Luxemburg is a beautiful city and has great natural protection in the sandstone around the area which made it ideal for defense.
Next day. We discovered that there was a 4 Euro day transport pass which allowed us unlimited travel across the country on trains and buses. We went to every province. Ok so the country is only 70 by 50 km. Was great fun and the country is really beautiful. It only takes a few km from Luxemburg to get to the forests and along the way were lovely old castles. Our first destination was to Vianden which was a beautiful old town on a river with a large castle towering above it. Victor Hugo also lived in a house on the river. Next destination was Echternach which surprisingly had a huge roman villa and not surprisingly a large benadictine monastery. Another lovely town. We really didn't have a travel plan and we hopped on and off buses and trains to places all day.
At one stage late in the afternoon we were in a small country town after being dropped off at an intersecting train line. We sat at the small station watching trains going by not stopping and wondering whether we would have to catch another bus but after about 1hr a train stopped (as expected). We were relieved and headed back towards Luxemburg. We didn't get back until late.
Luxemburg needs more time. It looks good for walking as well. Probably could spent at least a couple of weeks travelling around but we needed to move on again.
Bye,
David and Vanessa
