Sweets, Sights & Sunshine - and then to Amsterdam

I'd set my alarm for 7:30 Saturday morning. It went off, I rolled over to hit snooze and contemplate my original intent to hop a train to Vianden, a hillside town with a big castle, a house Victor Hugo had lived in, and a few other sights. And then my joints voted.

"Remember that weight you said you were going to lose before this trip? Remember how you didn't lose it? Well, we do. Plus, it's raining cats & dogs out there." So I switched the alarm clock off, slept in until almost 11 (!) and then switched to Plan B, which was to see the two museums in the Old Town.

But after wandering down to the ATM at the post office I heard something familiar. Heading into Place d'Armes yet again, I discovered another band, this one playing - of all things - Carpenters songs, followed by a "Jesus Christ Superstar" medley. Ah, well, so it was raining - time to grab one of the umbrella-covered tables of Cafe Francais and fortify myself against the cold & wet:

After a pleasant if slightly damp half-hour or so I made my way over to the Museum of History & Art. (No photos permitted.) This is a remarkable facility that extends five levels below the entry level and five above - 10 floors in total! The overall floor space is nothing like the Louvre or something like the Smithsonian Air & Space museum, but it's still an excellent museum. Starting from the bottom through the first floor, one works through Luxembourg from Paleolithic times, through the Bronze & Iron Ages, up through the Gallo-Roman period. More recent history gets comparatively short shrift - perhaps because the region was so often a possession of some other power - but in addition to a remarkable trove of artifacts there is a massive bronze cast of the town's massive fortifications as they stood in 1867, when Luxembourg became neutral and the process of razing the fortifications began. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could usually puzzle out the French placards at each exhibit at least well enough to understand the gist of the display. It probably helps that these are likely written to be read by kids Ben's age. ;)

The upper floors are devoted to art from a variety of periods. There's a little bit of everything in there, from medieval through Renaissance through the 19th century and Impressionism and on to modern pieces. There's supposed to be a sketch of Schengen Castle by Victor Hugo somewhere in the collection but I seem to have missed it.

Back to the main level; a few purchases in the Boutique and then a cup of excellent vegetable soup with croutons and a few slices of dark bread, and then downhill and a few blocks away to the Museum of the Hitory of the City of Luxembourg.

This was another multi-level museum. There are three floors below the level of the main entryway, with the lowest actually having a street exit on the back side of the building - it's built into the eastern face of the city, above where the ramparts lay. It's actually three buildings now joined together, with the oldest parts of the structure dating to medieval times; the complex was an abbey at one point, and parts later served as merchant's homes. This musuem is very modern and makes use of a lot of multimedia features. For example, there are a number of wooden macquettes on the various floors that show the development of the town and it's fortifications throughout history, from 963 onwards. Next to each macquette is a touchscreen video terminal displaying the overall view of the macquette. You can zoom in to various sections, and key structures are in red with a little movie projector icon next to them. Touch the icon and you get to see a short video that starts with early photographs of the scene (if there are any) and follows with film and photos of the structure through the years, ending with pictures or video of it today.

Various sections of the museum cover politics, municipal facilities like water & sanitation, life under the Nazis (really disconcerting to see soldiers goose-stepping through Place d'Armes and recognizing the buildings, and seeing a Nazi general speaking from the bandstand), local heroes, etc.

On the main level and upper levels is temporary exhibit space. The current temporary exhibit is one Michelle would have found fascinating and appealing - it's about faith, belief and non-belief. You're issued a neck lanyard with a plastic card containing an embedded USB memory stick, which at various points you insert into terminals and answer questions about your faith (or lack thereof) and attitudes about religious belief and faith. Along the way, you enter small booths to listen to audio or watch video of a selection of people (all living in Europe - the audio & video were produced in Switzerland, I think) with varied religious beliefs - an elderly Catholic, a Muslim woman in her 30s, a young evangelical Christian, a young Jewish girl, etc. At the end the system tallies up your answers against a six-axis grid and tells you where it thinks you fall on the scale. You can optionally enter a bit of demographic data (age, gender, level of education) and the system is tallying all the visitors.

(I came up as "Irreligious, with a tendency towards 'culturally religious'" - no great surprise.)

But wonder of wonders, when I left the museum, the sun was starting to break through the clouds! I wandered back into the main part of town, hungry for something but not sure what. I ended up parked at another cafe/restaurant having something to make Michelle & Alexa jealous:

Profiteroles and a Coca-Light! Yes, the glass really is made in that tilted shape!

After enjoying my snack and some jazz (yet another band had taken the stage) I wandered down towards Place de la Constitution again to get some pictures of the Petrusse valley again in the sunlight:


I also strolled over to and across the Pont Adpolphe, getting a grand view of Luxembourg's Notre Dame, and a close-up view of the building with the intriguing clock-tower on the south side of the valley.

I went back to the hotel, rested for a few hours, and then met my colleagues from work for dinner that lasted until 11 PM. Had a lovely conversation with Sue from the Facilities team in London who had driven in the day before with her partner, John. Turns out they were heading today to their cottage in Normandy, just outside of Honfleur. I told them that I'm insanely jealous that they get to go there every three weeks! Turns out they bought about 6 years ago, when prices were still reasonable.

By the way, the Brits seem pretty sure Gordon Brown is going down, possibly by the end of the week. He's got Bush-level approval ratings it seems.

Monday was spent in the office making sure the local associates got settled and everything was working satisfactorily (it was, and they were very happy) and then packing up for today's trip to Amsterdam. Dinner at a Thai place recommened both by Lonely Planet and George from the London office, who's here with me now in Amsterdam, then off to bed.

Today was automobiles and planes. Luxembourg to Amsterdam is a relatively short flight, a bit over an hour, in yet another city-hopper. Schipol Airport here is very large (Europe's 4th busiest) but extremely well laid-out. It's also got a full-blown supermarket in the shopping concourse! Caught the shuttle bus to the hotel and checked e-mail, napped and read a bit while waiting for George to arrive from London so we could meet up for dinner.

Amsterdam and this entire part of the Netherlands is flat. Like, not even Great Plains flat. I'm talking billiard table flat here. It's also got to be some of the most well-watered ground I've ever seen; remnants of canals and ponds were everywhere in view as we flew in. (Being largely reclaimed land, this makes intellectual sense, but it's another thing to actually see it.) The section of the city we're in is supposed to be relatively genteel; it's largely made up of bronwstone and brick buildings built in the classic narrow and tall fashion, complete with the ancient hoisting hooks & beams protruding from the front of many. (Pictures forthcoming.)

We strolled up north in the direction of Vondelpark and eventually settled on what seemed to be a neighborhood cafe (read pub - cafes here are pubs as opposed to the French mode) and enjoyed a leisurely dinner of lasagna (George) and a hamburger (me) with wonderful small salads and a few pints of Grolsch. Fortunately for us the rain has held off and we had sun for both directions of the trip.

Most Amsterdamers all seem to speak excellent English, by the way, often with distinct American accents - which actually sound funny to my ears after hearing so many French and British accents recently.

Back at the hotel we picked up tram tickets (we're over a half-mile from the office and tomorrow we both have to lug toolkits & such) and made arrangements to meet up at 8:30 to head in.

Further adventures to come..