Day 19: A Quaint Little Duchy

Duchy (dooh-shee, n.): The political area subject to the control of a duke or duchess.

Monday was the officially-observed birthday of Luxembourg’s Grand Duke Henri, so all of the shops (but thankfully, not all of the restaurants) were closed. Given the status of our luggage, that’s probably a good thing.

The rigors of travel and my late night with the USMNT caught up with us, as we both slept in very late. I grabbed a shower while Mary Beth met me at McDonald’s (yes, I know, but five euros for a breakfast sandwich beats 20 euros at the posh hotel) and we started our sightseeing.

We walked across the bridge and did find a souvenir stand for Mary Beth to get a keepsake from her homeland. As we were crossing the bridge and looking out over the countryside, Mary Beth said that she had a feeling her grandmother (who was full-blooded Luxembourger) was happy at that moment.

We walked around the city a little, finding the Place de Arms and getting our bearings. I will say, the city looked a lot different without it being jam-packed with revelers from the night before. Maybe it was just in comparison to a few days in Rome, but we were both struck by how fresh and clean the air felt in Luxembourg on a gorgeous sunny day in the mid-seventies.

We were pointed to the Luxembourg City tourist information office, where we got directions on how to get to the American Cemetery and Memorial from World War II, where George Patton was buried. As the tour bus we had bought previously wasn’t running, we decided that would be a good plan B.

To get there, we had to navigate the city bus line, which ended up working pretty much like any other bus system. We found the proper station, but realized we had about 20 minutes to wait until our bus arrived. We took a short walk through a nearby park before returning to the bus stop and getting on.

The bus took us through, and ultimately out of, the downtown area of the city and into a more residential area. It’s a fair guess that it was a pretty swanky residential area, as all the houses had BMWs and Audis in the driveway. Then again, I’m not entirely sure there is a non-swanky area of Luxembourg. If there is, we didn’t see it.

We got off at the end of the line and followed the directions to the memorial, about 1.3 kilometers away. The route took us alongside what appeared to be a fairly major highway, but we kept seeing signs pointing us in that direction. Unfortunately, we reached a construction area where the way to go forward was blocked off. The only way to proceed would have been to walk on to the highway roundabout, and neither of us felt that committed to the plan B project.

So, disappointed, we walked back. But as we did, Mary Beth took a look through a row of hedges, and saw what appeared to be a cemetery, lined with a reflecting pool and beautiful flowers. This must be it, we thought, so we decided to cut through the hedges and see what we could find.

(I know, cutting through hedges in the Ardennes to see a World War II memorial.  Go figure.)

So we made it through and down a hill without hurting ourselves, and with Mary Beth in her surgical shoe that was a pretty impressive accomplishment. We got our bearings and looked around, and I noticed that one of the signs was in French and German.

As in, not in English. It’s unlikely, I thought, that an American memorial cemetery wouldn’t have signs in English.

We looked around a little more, and realized we were in a cemetery. A private cemetery (or more accurately, a crematorium). It was open, so I don’t think we were trespassing per se. But we both thought discretion was the better part of valor and walked out of the crematorium, trying to act as if we belonged there so no one would come up and yell at us in a language we didn’t understand.

We had to wait about 20 minutes or so for the bus, giving me time to walk around and explore the neighborhood a little. As I was walking back to the bus stop, a mini-van stopped and asked if I knew if there was a place nearby to camp. I thought for a moment I had reached the ultimate status of a tourist, to be mistaken as a local by another tourist. But then the man in the passenger seat leaned over and said “you’re Australian, right?”

I still have no idea what the right answer to that question is.

We took the bus back to the city center, and decided to have a snack. Surprisingly (as in not surprisingly), it’s not easy to find a margarita in Europe, so we stopped in at a Chi Chi’s. Mary Beth had a margarita and we split a plate of nachos. Once we were refreshed, we walked around the streets that I wandered last night.

Luxembourger flags were flying everywhere. There were pictures of the Grand Duke and his family in nearly every window. The band playing in the main square was (we were pretty sure) singing songs of praise of Henri. It’s hard to say this without feeling patronizing, but there’s really no way to describe the Luxembourg we encountered as anything other than quaint. As Mary Beth observed, it’s like a smaller, cleaner version of Paris. It’s even got its own version of Notre Dame, which we visited. We also got our obligatory selfie and the obligatory picture of me with someone dressed in costume, this time as (we're pretty sure) St. Joan de Arc.

After we walked around, we stopped at a French restaurant for dinner. Although it was pretty clear that the restaurant was a local chain (where else would have their own brand on packages of ketchup and mayonnaise?), we figured it was about as authentically local as we could get—at least more so than Chi Chi’s. We got a concert from a military-style band in the background as we finished our meal.

We headed back to the hotel room and checked in for the evening, finishing some postcards and packing to leave for Stockholm. Tomorrow we will get up in the morning and take our bus tour before leaving at around 3:00 p.m. for the airport.