This trip was very fun...and the least touristy we've been on a trip. We set out early on Saturday morning and took the train to Luxembourg. We again had our own compartment on the train, so we all got some good naps in. We arrived right before noon, and after grabbing some sandwiches in the train station (which were actually DELICIOUS!) we headed out in search of our hostel.
The first thing I noticed was how hilly Luxembourg was. And by hilly, I mean hills and valleys, and bridges everywhere to connect the parts of the city. The city was so charming, and everywhere you looked was a great view. Our hostel was in the older area of town, so we mainly saw that area...the big glass buildings of the Luxembourg financial district weren't near where we were. :)We got a bit turned around, as the streets are all so windy and hard to follow on the map. Finally though, from the top of one of the many bridges, we spotted our hostel down below the hill. We walked down this long path (which we realized we'd have to walk up everyday, joy) and checked it. This hostel was a cross between a hostel and hotel. The rooms were bunk beds and typical of our other hostels, but there were SO many people staying at this place, including families with small children. It wasn't bad for one night, but was my least favorite hostel we've stayed in up to this point. Oh well.
We set out that day to see the buildings in town and then Sunday would be for wandering in the valley areas of town...which was more parks. Saturday we took lots of pictures, and discovered how cute, small and relaxed Luxembourg was. We did a lot of walking around the edges of the hills. This is hard to explain, but along the top of the hills were walkways which had great views of below. Perhaps pictures will help to explain. Either way, we walked around these walkways quite a bit. We walked around the little city streets for the duration of the afternoon, eating some ice cream (it was finally not TOO cold for ice cream!) and did a little shopping. It's fun to see some of the same European stores in all of the cities we visit...it makes things a little more familiar. We've already found the European clothes store chains we like the most...which is also a bit dangerous! ;)We were in the mood for a filling, causal sit-down dinner on Sat night, and found this restaurant, "Bananas" which was a nice burger place. I had this HUGE fish sandwich, which was impossible to finish. But, VERY tasty nonetheless. Our waiter laughed at us when we ordered pops to drink with our meals instead of beer. Apparently that's unheard of! It was the first time I've ordered pop while out at a restaurant instead of a beer (except at the traditional Dutch meal my first week, but that was ordered FOR me). Oh well, it was refreshing to drink something other than beer for once. We were exhausted after a long day so we went to bed SUPER early Saturday night.
Sunday was exploration day...and it was so quiet and peaceful as we walked around that
morning. We weren't even out that early, around ten maybe. No one was out! We found how to get down the paths to the valley below and wandered down to the river. We took SO many pictures, haha. I also got extremely turned around. My sense of direction usually is good-to-go once we've been in a city for a day, but in Luxembourg, I never knew where we were walking. I just blindly followed! :)We grabbed lunch at what we thought was a cheap restaurant, to find it was not! A normal lunch was around 15 euros, so Carolyn and I decided to split. We had a really tasty warm goat cheese salad (don't think I've ever had goat cheese before, but I really liked it!) and then a steak for lunch. And actually, with the lunch options available, the steak was just as expensive as the chicken or any of the other meats. So steak it was - and it was wonderful. I haven't had grilled meat for awhile, so that was the perfect lunch.
After lunch, we headed to the train station. We had planned on leaving later in the day, but due to running out of things to do, we ended up leaving mid afternoon. Our train trip took a bit longer coming home, and the trains were a bit more packed with people. But, we made it back to our rooms in Maastricht by about 7:00. All in all, Luxembourg was wonderfully relaxing, even though there wasn't a whole lot to do other than walk around. Glad we made it a short weekend trip; though I would definitely go back again!!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment