Day 8: Hi Luxembourg

Here we go again! This time a 6:30 train to Luxembourg. We arrived around 10:00, dropped our bags, bought a Luxembourg Card and headed out. First stop: a museum...any museum with a bathroom. Our card got us in to all sorts of sights so it wasn't hard to find one. The winner: The City Museum of Luxembourg. We did stroll around the museum a bit too, but the main purpose here was to find a bathroom. :)

Next up: Lunch. We didn't do much planning for Luxembourg so we didn't have a place picked out and that was a bust. We almost ate at McDonald's we were so desperate and Michael wanted to make sure Alison avoided a hangry attack. But, at the last minute Google led us to a cute sandwich place with Charles in the name and we had great little sandwiches overlooking the street. We'd say the city center is not the place to eat---too expensive and not well reviewed. Oh and things don't open until 12 for lunch and we were trying to eat at 11 so that was also a problem, but it all worked out!

Then, it was off to the castle! No trip to Europe is complete w/o a stop at a castle and for us this was Vianden Castle. It was a 1 hour trip via train and bus, but that was all free w/ our card. This little town was adorable and we walked around a bit to find the chair lift (also free w/ our card). It was a hot, sunny day today so we baked in the sun on the way up, but then got some great views and got to do this rocky climb over to the castle. Not sure we were wearing the right shoes for that, but we made it work.

The castle was nice. It had been reconstructed quite a bit, but it was still fun to walk around the grounds and get out of the heat.

Then, it was back to Luxembourg City. We checked in to our hotel and then tried to go have dinner. It was 6PM and apparently that's too early for dinner as all the places we tried didn't start serving food until 7. We didn't realize that at the Big Beer Company until after we had ordered drinks, so we drank quickly because we had another tourist attraction to see. Food had to wait and Alison had to fight off a hangry attack, but it was worth it!

The Bock Casemates were amazing! We were the only ones there and it was fun to explore them by ourselves. It was just a system of underground tunnels used to defend the city and such back in the day. So cool.

After that we strolled down a windy street to the area below the city known as Grund. There was an outdoor concert by Passenger happening so it was crazy packed with concert goers, but we got our name on a list for dinner at 8:30 and walked across the street to Scott's Pub for a drink and the biggest bowl of tortilla chips ever invented! Then we had dinner at this cute Bistro where we had Flamkuchen and spatzle! Finally!

Then, we strolled around this part of town a bit and heard some great jazz at Liquid Bar, so we went in there for a bit to listen to the great tunes. We could have stayed all night, but Alison wanted to check out a wine bar back in the city center. That was a bust, so we could have stayed longer. Bummer!

Then, it was back to the hotel, but Michael did have one more late night adventure searching for the scarce resource of cold water. He eventually returned w/ 4 bottles all of which were more than what we wanted to pay, but at least we could have some water before we went to sleep.