Hey everybody!

It has been three years since I was a brand new student, fresh out of high school. I'm currently in my fourth year. I started this blog in an attempt to keep my family, friends and any prospective students up to date with my life at the University of Lethbridge. I'm continuing with it this year as it worked well. Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, 11 March 2014

March 9th, 2014

So today I went to Luxembourg!! It was amazing! I went with Franny and Elena (Franny and I met her on the ESN Lille trip). We met at the train station at 6:45 to take the 7:15 train from Liege to Luxembourg city. I bought a GoPass, which is a train pass good for 10 rides in Belgium. It was cheaper to do it this way, take a train to the border and buy an in-country ticket for Luxembourg. So the trip cost 10 euros (there & back) instead of 60, so I think it was a very good idea!

We had a direct train from Liege to Luxembourg and we arrived a little after 9 am. It was a Sunday so all the stores were closed, which is ok because the tourist spots and the museums were all open. From the train station, we walked 15 minutes to the Visitor Information Centre in downtown Luxembourg. The city is absolutely gorgeous!

The Visitor Information Centre gave us a walking tour guide for all the historic and interesting spots in the city centre. I bought a set of Luxembourg Euros at the VIC. In one of the more tourist areas, I stopped to buy postcards and other souvenirs. We did the first part of the walking tour and ended up in front of the Duke's palace. Luxembourg is ruled by a monarchy led by a Duke (instead of a King). Facing his residence was The Chocolate House, a small cafe & chocolatier, famous for their hot chocolate drinks. It was right around lunch time so we stopped for lunch. We had quiche and salad. For dessert, we had to try some of their famous hot chocolate and we shared a piece of cake. Their hot chocolate is famous because it arrives separately. They give you a large mug of hot milk, and  a lump of chocolate (with the flavour you chose) on a wooden spoon. You lower the spoon into the milk and stir until the chocolate all melts. There was over 20 flavours to choose from, plus alcoholic and childrens flavours. I have Almost Raspberry and Franny had Hot Chili Orange.


After lunch, we continued the walking tour, seeing the entire city centre of Luxembourg. I can't believe how stunning this city is! Everything in the main part of the city is ancient, like they built the new city in and on old castle walls. It's stunning.

Our next big stop was the Bock Casemates and Acheological Crypt, and underground defence works, built in the Spanish era. It houses the origins of the city. There were tunnels and crypts that zig zagged forever. It was a little scary being underground with the traffic rolling over,  but the scariest part was the spiral staircase on the tour the steps were maybe four inches wide at their widest, and you could tell they were well used because they were all slanted downwards, there were several occasions I thought I was going to fall. It was terrifying but I'm really glad I got to see it. The Casemates are a Unesco World Heritage Site.



We then finished the walking tour, through the valley and back up to the Visitor Information Centre. We were all getting really tired so we stopped at a cafe for something to drink, and stopped back at the Chocolate House to buy some souvenir chocolates.

We then headed back to the train station to see when the next train for Liege left. We had two options, one that left in a half hour and took 3 hours to Liege, with a transfer in Nemur, arriving at 9:15 pm in Liege. Or a train that left an hour and a half, took 2 1/2 hours, straight shot, arriving in Liege at 9:40 pm. We decided to wait for the second train and have supper before leaving Luxembourg. Across from the train station was a small restaurant in a Best Western, so we had supper there. I had an amazing lasagna and we had plenty of time to get to the train.

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