Luxembourg - Day 4 - The Moselle Valley

Before heading to Luxembourg, we made a reservation with a bike touring company called Feel for an afternoon of Biking and Winetasting in the Moselle River Valley. Our guide met us at our hotel, and drove us up to there. It was a beautiful day, and very warm.




We met up with another couple who were also joining us, and picked up our bikes. The Moselle Valley has been used for cultivating wine going back all the way to the Romans and is known for growing some of the finest Reising grapes in the world.




Everywhere were the signs of wine making in the little villages lining the river.










Traditional presses of all shapes and sizes.









Tony loves to bike ride, and you could clearly see how much he was loving this.



The vineyards were bright green and loving all the warmth. They are absolutely stunning right now lining the valley walls.


























It was an idealic setting with families of swans swimming near the beautiful grassy shore.




The Moselle river divides Luxembourg from Germany. And it is fairly distinct as one side is the laid back relaxed Luxembourg, and the other is the developed and more productive German side. (this was commentary from our guide - I'm not trying to offend).











We crossed the river into Germany, and biked to Apel Vineyards, a small Inn and winery, where we would have our wine tasting. It was nice to sit in the shade after biking quite a ways in the bright sun. They were having a BBQ, and it smelled wonderful. I'd like to come back here for a lazy long weekend sometime.

We tried several different wines, but the ones we liked best both came from the Elbling Grapes, which were they type of grapes the Romans were cultivating in the valley. It is a bright sweetish white wine, and particulary refreshing after a good hot bike ride. We also tried a late harvest dessert wine made from the Elbling grapes. We ended up buying a bottle of each.








The Inn was very nice and laidback. I could see sitting here eating BBQ and drinking some nice wine for the perfect Sunday afternoon.

The bike ride back to where we started was much easier than the bike ride up as we followed the flat path along the rivers edge. This did however afford us some beautiful views of the vineyard hills that we'd ridden through earlier.




Magnificent.










It was so nice to be bike ridding in the countryside, and enjoying the color of green.



We ended our bike ride at a wine processing, tasting, and dining facility back on the Luxembourg side of the Moselle.



We really enjoyed the bike and wine tasting tour as it gave us a completely different experience of Luxembourg from the city and castle side of it.





That evening, we had a well deserved Ice Cream Sunday to celebrate our last evening in Luxembourg.

Luxembourg - Day 4 - American WWII Cemetery

Luxembourg is home to a US WWII Cemetery. Tony and I got up early and took the bus as close as we could get, and then walked the last bit to it.






Though most of the fighting took place outside of it, following the war, Luxembourg gave the US this land in perpetuity.








It is a beautiful and moving tribute to the men and women who gave their lives in the war.









It was a grey and overcast morning, which seemed to only enhance the solemnity of the location.






General George Patton, upon his death had requested to be buried with his men in Luxembourg. He is buried facing them as if he is addressing them. He is the only 5 star general to be buried outside of the US.

The Luxembourg American WWII Cemetery is definitely worth a visit when in Luxembourg.

Luxembourg - Day 3 - Valley of the 7 Castles

When we first looked into going to Luxembourg, one of the main attractions was hyped as visiting the Valley of the Seven Castles, or more aptly named Chalets. We reserved a car through our hotel, and planned to spend a day driving around the countryside outside of the city of Luxembourg.


That morning before heading out, we went to visit the market in Place de Guillaume II. It is held every Saturday, and is a traditional German flower and food market. It is definitely not a tourist only event as we saw a lot of locals there buying vegetables and food.





It was a beautiful morning and the market was hopping. All kinds of beautiful cheeses and fruit (we bought 2 apples for the road), and sausages.

The flowers were beautiful too.











We hit the road, and headed out to the countryside. It felt a little strange to be driving back on the right side of the road after having driven on the left side for the past year.


One can drive the entire length of the country of Luxembourg in a couple hours so it wasn't long before we were at the valley of the seven castles, which is confusedly marked with a series of signs, and seems to actually be spread over a couple valleys.







Some of the castles are unoccupied and undergoing restoration, while others appeared to be private residences and not open to the public.






Some are only ruins of what they had once been.



One really nice, almost Italian looking villa, had become some sort of retreat center. It had some very nice grounds.





We took a break from the road and wandered around the gardens and enjoyed the very warm day that the day had turned into.





From the Valley of the Seven Castles, we drove up to Vianden Castle, which the TI office had highly recommended. It was by far the nicest castle we visited, and the town in which it is situated is very cute.










If we were to do the day again, we might skip the Valley of the Seven Castles, and just drive up to Vianden to enjoy the village for the day.




We rode the ski-like lift up to the summit above the castle, and walked down to it. We bought a return ticket, but elected not to do it, as it was a tricky walk down the hill, and ultimately, the walk from the castle back down to the town was a pleasant and picturesque way to return. I do recommend riding the ski-lift up as it affords some beautiful views of the castle and valley below.

The castle had been in a bad state of disrepair, but the town has restored it, and now it is a museum and cultural center. In many ways, it once again has become the heart of this community.



It was very pleasant walking around the castle, except for a couple annoying kids that were driving Tony crazy.

Luxembourg - Day 2 - The Underground Adventure

The main thing we planned to do on our second day in Luxembourg was to explore the Petrusse Casements. These are the old underground fortifications that helped to make Luxembourg impenetrable to invaders.


They are a combination of digging out the Valley Walls and adding additional rock and brick to extend the walls in specific areas.







The tunnels stretch all over the place, and originally linked up a lot of the different fortifications surrounding the town. There were large rooms built for housing and cooking and repair stations for armaments.






There are small openings for people to shoot rifles and cannons.











It is a fun and unusual place to visit, and it was fun to walk up and down the steep steps in this underground maze of tunnels.






















One thing sounded good after a long morning in the dark underground. Instead of McDonald's, we decided to go for the French version - Quick. It was okay, but I'm still a McDonald's man.

That afternoon, we wandered over to the other side of the Petrusse Valley to see what lay over there.







It is another pretty boulevard with beautiful buildings as one would expect from such a city. The people who live here, live well.

We walked all the way down to the main train station. It was a healthy walk on a very warm day. But the heat felt good.

Before long, it was time for one of our travel traditions - the afternoon Gelato break. And the tradition that goes with it - the picture of Tony eating it.