Loving the Lux

April 16, 2014

This morning we woke up to another nice bright, sunny day and went down for breakfast. We had the usual bread, cheese and sliced meats, as well as boiled & scrambled eggs, yogurt and cereal. Our hotel also had a wide array of spreads for toast, so Ben and I snagged a few spreadable cheeses and pate to go along with the crackers we already had for our lunch on the road.

We hit the road at about 9:30am and headed towards Vianden Castle. The drive was really beautiful, lots of rolling, green hills and bright blue sky, plus a very satisfying twisty road for Ben to drive on. 

We got to Vianden at 10am, just in time for the opening of the castle, and (Bonus!) we got a free parking spot right next to the path to the castle. It only cost 6 euro each to get in and we paid and extra 2 for an audio guide and there were only a few other people wandering through while we were, so it was nice and quiet and we could take our time going through. 

The castle itself was very impressive and the audio guide was very informative; apparently in medieval times people slept sitting up, only dead people were laid down flat to rest….how awful is that??!!!?! I thought the beds were so small because people were smaller back then (which they also were if the size of the armor is any indication), but apparently they didn’t need large beds because they didn’t lay down in them.

After Vianen Castle we headed to Diekirsh to the Military Museum, which was so packed with artifacts and memorabilia that we could have been in there for hours! We spent just over an hour looking at all the displays and dioramas. Some of the artifacts were obviously donated, but much was found in the areas surrounding Diekirsh after the war was over. They also had a lot of photographs.

 Everything was a mix of American and German. I have watched the miniseries Band of Brothers several times, and the company that the series follows is on the front line during the Battle of the Bulge. Actually being in the area where the battle took place and seeing photographs of the men on both sides and their belongings and letters recounting their experiences was quite moving.

After the museum, we headed out of Luxembourg back into Germany. I must say, I really enjoyed Luxembourg and wish we had spent more time there. It was very peaceful and tranquil. The last thing we wanted to see in Germany was the Nurburgring, which was about a 2 hour drive from where we were in Luxembourg. Nurburg itself is a very small town, but the racetrack is huge. 

There is this large main building with a go-kart track, rollercoaster, plus several gift shops, etc. most of which was closed as it wasn’t an actual race day. Initially Ben had wanted to rent a car to drive on the track, but there are limited set days that the public can drive on the track, and today was not one of those days (plus it seemed like a waste of money considering how much we have already spent on cars this trip…). Also, there wasn’t really anywhere from the main building or surrounding area that you could really even see any of the track.

To me it seemed like a bit of a waste of time to go to the track if we couldn’t even see any part of it or any cars driving on it, but for whatever reason Ben didn’t really seem to care, he just wanted to be able to say he had been there. So if he didn’t really care then I thought, whatever, let’s have lunch then.

 So we found a picnic bench in Nurburg and enjoyed our crackers with cheese, pate spread, olives and gherkins.  On our way out of Nurbug on our route towards Belgium, I saw a section of the track with an adjacent gravel lot and driveway, so I told Ben to stop and pull in. There were a bunch of other people there watching cars go around a couple of sweet corners of the track, so we stayed there for a few minutes and Ben was happy he actually saw some of the track.

By this time it was almost 4pm and we still had about 3 hours of driving before reaching Ostend, Belgium where we would be spending our last 2 nights before meeting up with Ben’s family in Amsterdam (or Doorn to be more accurate). So we hit the road again and on the way we passed a couple more nuclear power plants, saw lots of wind turbines, and a machine that seems to be used solely for cleaning posts along the side of the road. 

We also passed through the Netherlands before we entered Belgium, so today was another 4 country day (Luxembourg, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium). As we were driving I asked Ben what language they speak in Belgium to which he readily replied “Belsh”. I’m pretty sure this isn’t accurate (they speak Dutch or “Flemish”, so I told Ben this would be the perfect time for him to practice his Dutch).

We have been pretty fortunate so far that we haven’t been stuck in any traffic, with the exception of getting through that 17km long tunnel in Switzerland, but today we got caught in some nasty traffic near Brussels. Finally around 8pm we made it into Ostend, which is right on the coast, and our hotel is about a block from the beach.

 I had booked this hotel because it was cheap, they have a free breakfast, wifi, and “parking”. Well it turns out that the parking is any street parking you are lucky enough to find, which means there is no parking and we had to park in an underground lot that is probably going to cost a fortune.

Toilet Tally: still 0!