Tiny Europe

Trip Start Nov 02, 2010

Trip End Jan 15, 2011

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of Luxembourg Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Sunday, November 21, 2010

We left Brussels and drove about 2 hrs to the country of Luxembourg - which pretty much consists of the City of Luxembourg. The whole place is just 84 km long and the world's 3rd richest country. They have their own language (Letzeburgesch), but most inhabitants also speak German, French, and English. We were able to get a tour in the Old Town from this old man who did his speeches in 3 different languages and had lived here his whole life. We have tried to take a tour in every new town that we go to and highly recommend them. We think it's really important if you only have a limited amount of time in a certain place to hear a local tell you why their city/country is special. This man remembered being occupied by German troops in WWII - he remembered them tearing down monuments. No travel book or online guide can compete with that.

Luxembourg, even though it's incredibly tiny, is blessed with an (almost) impenetrable location

The Royal Palace

. They are surrounded by cliffs on three sides. These cliffs are a relatively soft rock into which the citizens carved an underground fortress. Most of their carving and digging was done between 1737 and 1746 - so with only handtools and peasant labor. Today there are still 17 km of tunnels that sheltered 35,000 people during WWII bombardments.

As we were driving the short trip back to Landstuhl, we stumbled across Luxembourg's American Cemetery. There are over 5,000 Americans buried here that gave their lives during the fight to liberate Luxembourg and the Battle of Ardennes. We were all very glad that we stopped to spend some time here. It is interesting and sobering and so important to see. I can't help but notice that most of these men died between November and January of 1944-1945. That's the exact same time of year that we are here. It is incredibly cold and wet - sometimes snow, sometimes rain - always something falling from the sky, it seems. We have down jackets and long underwear and sleep inside with heaters. These men didn't have any of those things and they spent their Thanksgiving and Christmas here fighting for this tiny little country (and obviously bigger reasons, in the long run). Needless to say, Luxembourg takes very good care of this place and is very thankful for their sacrifice.

Slideshow