Luxembourg

What a fantastic, though whirlwind, visit to Luxembourg we had thanks to CouchSurfing. Though this tramp through Europe is structured based on going to places where we had contacts who could give us a more local's perspective on their hometowns, there are a few tiny countries in our path that I have never been to and and wanted to pay an overnight visit to even though we had no contact there. Such as the small monarchy of Luxembourg, sandwiched among Belgium, Germany, and France. It is the richest country in Europe and seems to have a reputation among non-Luxembourgers as a bit of a snooze, only useful as a banking tax haven. But the more I heard people diss it, the more I wanted to go. SO glad we did.

Trying to keep up our streak of staying with locals, we turned to CouchSurfing and hit the jackpot with an amazing host: a German transplant, P. He picked us up at the train station, stowed our big backpacks in his car, and pointed us in the right direction for a 5.5km historical walk through Luxembourg city, a typical tourist circuit called the Wenslas walk. It definitely gave us a feel for the city and provided some amazing views.

Some of the fortress walls still standing in Luxembourg City are more than 1000 years old. Mind-blowing.

Outside of Luxembourg City, though, the country is basically rural. P lives in a little town called Eisenborn, where he welcomed us to spend the night in the amazing, uber-energy-efficient home he designed and built himself (he's an architect, by the way), made us a delicious dinner, and kept us entertained all evening with great conversation about life, liberty, and European politics and culture.

The next morning, he took us in a drive through the countryside. Note that this single GPS screen shows Luxembourg AND cities in the three countries surrounding it--giving you an idea of how small it really is.

We ended up in the lovely village of Clervaux, with its beautiful church(es)...

...and a castle housing a museum with memorabilia from the American troops that were here toward the end of WWII, playing a pivotal role in the Allies' triumph in the Battle of the Bulge (which happened in this very region), which in turn played a pivotal role in the end of the war on the European front. Definitely a part of history that was foggy, at best, in my mind, and that was fun to revisit here with some context to place it in.

From there it was already time to head back to the train station for our onward journey into Germany, but it was definitely 24 hours to remember thanks to P!