Luxembourg + the beautiful Castle Eltz

This weekend was fabulous.

Saturday morning the Three Fins, the Australian and I piled into a car and drove to Luxembourg. What a neat little city!! Since it was Saturday, it was pretty packed. I bought a postcard and a stamp and wrote on the postcard, but have no idea what happened to it... I guess I lost it, and I'm hoping whoever found it was nice enough to put it in the post box, otherwise you won't be getting a postcard, Mom! We visited the casemates, which are a bunch of tunnels underneath the city... that was really cool! In Luxembourg they speak French, German, and Leetzebergisch, their own mixture of the two-- it is WILD... the newspapers have articles, advertisements, etc. in ALL THREE languages!!

Sunday we walked to the main station because we thought there was a bus on Sunday, but there wasn't... I think if I could summarize yesterday in two words it would be "we walked". Because that's what we did-- we walked 45 minutes to the train station, 70 minutes to the castle once we got off the train, and 50 minutes back (we HURRIED, otherwise we would have missed the train home!). The castle was really great and well worth all that hiking. Just the hiking was worth it, the trails to the castle are gorgeous; right next to a valley and a cute little creek. Then, all of a sudden, you turn another corner from the many and BAM there it is, this amazing medieval castle just perched on the mountainside. We picnicked there and took a tour of the castle. Everyone in that time was really short, even the knights in shining armor. When I was little I used to want to be a princess (who didn't?!) but now as I've gotten older that has changed... I couldn't imagine wearing my pretty little princess dress and have to live in that place. I'd never get out! The Castle Eltz is owned to this day by the von Eltz family, and I asked the tour guide if the $8 we paid to get in went to them and he said yes. I was like "shucks, ain't they got enough money?!" What kind of luck is that? Well, I suppose it's a family business. There are also paintings from the artist Lucas Cranach (the older) hanging throughout the castle, which are loaned out for Lucas Cranach exhibitions. Wild. Castle Eltz was also on the back of the 500 DM (Deutschmark) bills before they were phased out and is known as the most famous castle of its sort in all of Germany...

Something interesting... in Germany and in the language there are two different words for "castle"... "Burg" generally refers to older castles existing in the Middle Ages and before, and "Schloß" (ß is pronounced as a double S), which refers to newer castles and some palaces, such as those that belonged to Crazy King Ludwig II -- Neuschwanstein (Cinderella castle), Linderhof, Hohenschwangau, and Herrenchiemsee, along with many others throughout the country.

Last night I watched "Dan in Real Life", battled a huge green monster, and went to bed early.

Today I went shopping in Koblenz.... :-) Didn't find any record-breaking spectacular deals, but
some pretty good stuff I guess. I realized that when I packed I forgot all about summer clothing, and just ignored the fact that this place does not have air conditioning... so I found some tanks and some shorts and a skirt for summer... great travel clothes--take up less space!!    

Oh and last week we had a picnic on the Moselle-- it was kind of cold but it was neat to get to know the rest of the new crew a little better.