Luxembourg City

Gillian

We arrived in the capital city here early afternoon and I couldn’t help but wonder, “What was the point of going here, even for just a day. Especially for just a day”...

First off, as mentioned above, I made/forced Gillian follow me on my hunt for Patton’s grave. That was quite an experience. The graveyard was huge and very well-kept. I kept thinking of “in Flanders Field the poppies grow...” when looking at the rows and rows of crosses, spotted with stars of David for the Jewish soldiers. I don’t want to say it was “cool” because that sounds offensive. But I don’t remember ever being to a military cemetery, and certainly not one of this magnitude. The Luxembourg American Military Cemetery is massive and has a huge monument in the middle, which you can actually walk into and pray. They even had two sides to the prayer room - one for Christians and one for Jewish folk.

After the cemetery, Gillian and I wandered around the town. The area our hotel was in was kind of gross and nothing special, but once you get into the city, it’s quite nice. The architecture is cool, a lot of pretty old buildings like in Brussels and Bruges, and in the middle of the city there’s a bridge that overlooks this massive beautiful green valley park. Gillian and I walked down a bit and eventually located ourselves at the top of this beautiful steep hillside. Down below we watched dogs play, people walk by slowly, and smell a couple guys smoking up behind us.

After dinner at night, Gillian and I were watching the French Open on TV. I wanted to go out for a walk and get a snack. Gillian stayed in. So before I picked up some food for us, I walked around. And with all the castles or castle-like buildings and parks and places, all lit up at night, it was quite beautiful. Kinda romantic, actually.

I even came across an Ionesco World Heritage Site - a monument known as The Golden Lady, commemorating the Luxembourg volunteers who fought in World Wars 1 & 2 and the Korean War. It had such an interesting history, too. It was originally constructed to honour the volunteer soldiers from World War 1. When Hitler came to town, it was torn down because it was a representation of Luxembourg independence and strength. In the ‘50s, it was reconstructed to commemorate those who fought in all three of the aforementioned wars. In 1981, I believe, it was knocked down in a riot for some reason only to be rebuilt a few years later at the request of the townspeople. I don’t know what all the significance of this was in the grand scheme of things, but I just thought it was kind of cool to see that. And unfortunately I’d forgotten my camera, so I can only go on my memory of it - a simple structure, but still very cool.

So it turns out that Luxembourg City is one of my favourite cities I’ve been in. Gillian was saying that, if she had the money and spoke the language (French seemed to dominate there), she would love to live there. And frankly, I agree. It’s beautiful, fun, interesting and, yeah, romantic. Plus, I got to practice my French and found out I can still hold a shaky conversation in it.

If I get a girlfriend next year, I’m totally gonna take her to Luxembourg City. :D