“Really small and lots of fun” could be an ad for a car, but it also nicely covers Luxembourg. The country is the clear outlier on the GDP-per-capita list among its European sisters, but what a cool place it is!

I was first there in October, for just a short time on my way back from Brussels. It was cool enough that I had to return, so Rachel and I spent a day there for the “New Year” half of our December-January break. I will be going back for a third time in June when my parents visit, regardless of whether or not they finalize their travel plans cough cough. (update: Because I write slowly, plans have since been at least written down somewhere).

Autumn overtakes Luxembourg City.

This doesn’t show much of Luxembourg, but it does show how happy people might be while they’re there.

Luxembourg is one of the handful of non-Germany, german-speaking countries in the world, but French and Luxembourgish are also official languages. Although my spoken french has dwindled to a mere speck since I started studying German, I was surprised to find that the french signs in the museums and on the monuments were far easier to read than the german ones that contained the same information. I also managed to “parle français” to secure us museum tickets “pour deux étudiants,” though the receptionist may have just been patient and polite. Hard to say for certain.

Before we get going, here’s a short list of things not to like about Luxembourg:

1. The flag looks like a faded version of the flag of the Netherlands (both are in the generic “2 darker colors with a lighter band in the middle” pattern)
2. It’s not the cheapest place to visit
3. You might have to explain where it is to people who haven’t heard of it before.

Flag of Luxembourg, and royal residence. From my brief stopover in the fall. The single car on the road does not reflect reality.

Walk out of the train station and go to the right down the big road. You’ll be wanting to handle Luxembourg City on foot, since the traffic isn’t that great. You’ll be doing a fair amount of walking, but that’s the best way to see the city. Go straight past the expensive shops and the malls – they’re just the same as anywhere else. You’ll come to a viaduct over a gorge, and that’s where the real fun begins.

This is just a bridge, but it’s a cool looking bridge. Stone viaducts are nice distinct bits of architecture, and if you look at the people, you can get a sense of just how deep the gorge is.

I could try to explain the layout of the city, but if you just know that it has gorges going right through it,

View down the gorge from above.

View up the gorge from below. Notice the people both above and below the walls. I know this is basically the same picture as before, but whatever.

What is it that makes Luxembourg so much fun? It’s tricky to say for certain. Maybe I was excited about celebrating the new year with Rachel, but that doesn’t explain why I enjoyed it the first time. A city with this much topography in such close proximity to your usual urban amenities is bound to be a good time.

It probably has something to do with the public and accessible ruins. In one place, we just walked into a residential area, which led us right into some more ruins. Unlike Heidelberg, these ruins were explained. Not a complete history, but at least signs that gave a brief indication of historical significance.

The ruins are typical fortress parts, and the newer building is a retirement center. I think it’s this juxtaposition that makes the place so neat.

I’m really not sure why we didn’t take more pictures. Sorry about that.

This is just another rail viaduct, nothing special. But the picture was taken from an old mill/protective structure to keep bad guys out of the ravine while still letting water in, and in that sense is kind of neat.

Who needs a selfie stick when you have long arms (and when you can find other ways to look like an idiot, not pictured)?

More picturesque. Old town.

“Oh, you’re going to be in Europe? You have to see _______.” –many people to me, prior to my departure.

Many times, this advice is wonderful. Such tidbits have led me and/or my family to discover gems like Hallstatt (Austria), Ulm (Germany), and Bruges (Belgium).

However, there are plenty of duds mixed in with this well-intentioned advice. Here are my recommendations of places you can absolutely skip.

Real quick, one of the quickest ways to judge the value of wherever you travel is the density of selfie sticks. The fewer, the better. This method certainly isn’t 100% foolproof, but it’s a great quick test.

Some clever Germans will refer to the selfie stick as a Deppenszepter – an idiot scepter. I absolutely love this term, and have made it my mission to tell everybody who cares to listen.

So many people recommended the Nürnberg Christmas Market. It’s the largest in the world. Christmas markets are wonderful, so it would make sense that the largest delivers the largest dose of wonderful, right?

My fiancée and I were here on our way to Prague, and spent the afternoon at the market. It was the last Saturday before Christmas, and the crowds were INTENSE. It was nothing short of underwhelming and awful.

Instead of checking out the Nürnberger Weihnachtsmarkt, I would recommend going to Oktoberfest in München to experience the crowds (and the alcohol to take your mind off of them), and then just go to any Christmas market anywhere other than Nürnberg.

I apologize for the low-quality picture, but it both shows the crowds in Nürnberg and reflects the low-quality time that was to be had there.

A slight redemption came in the form of a choir comprising old Bavarians. They were singing Joy to the World in the most stereotypically German way possible, particularly with regard to their pronunciation. Accents can tend to be masked by singing, but this was not the case here. Some of them were proudly sporting grumpy frowns. Like Rachel and I, they clearly wanted to be elsewhere. No amount of christmas joy or red tacky holiday sweater could have made the guy on the top left smile. While the sight of this particular gentleman did bring us smiles, it did not go very far to redeem the experience.

My German friend Dom told me when I visited him in September something to the effect of “I’ve heard Heidelberg can be beautiful and romantic, but I’ve never been there”. Or something to that effect 🙂

Heidelberg has the looks of a good destination, and it has the tourists and the reputation for being potentially worth the visit.  There’s an American Air Force base nearby, so many Americans have Heidelberg on their mind. I received several recommendations from people stateside, as well as from some people I’ve met here. There’s a castle in a great location above the city, with a sweeping view of the valley below.

We got there, and saw a glimpse of the castle ruins on the hillside. So far, so good. We walked the way from the hauptbahnhof towards the ruins to check them out. Hiking up the hill, we came to a ticket booth and gladly paid the fee to get to see the ruins. There were some good outlooks, full of people taking selfies and pictures against a backdrop of the valley underneath.

All three of me took advantage of the scenery in Heidelberg.

We walked inside, and the most notable attractions pointed out by any kind of sign were the exits. There was an apothecary museum and a stupid-large barrel. We skipped the museum, but scraped the bottom of the barrel and investigated the barrel. It was impressively large, but completely inadequately explained. Every sign that referenced the barrel was indicating its location. Nothing discussed its purpose or any significant facts. We walked around further. The only other accessible parts of the castle were outside, so that’s where we went. Looking at the place from the outside, it should have had promise. The ruins looked cool, and had chain-fences – clearly designed for people to be behind. Yet nobody was behind them. Maybe there was a good reason for this, but since this reason wasn’t made clear to us, we’re going to chalk it up to the castle, and the city along with it, as a stupid place to visit.

Part of one of the towers looked like it had fallen off. I had to go to Wikipedia to learn that it was for power storage, and was split in an explosion. This would have been great to know at the time the picture was taken.

Take a leaf out of Rick Steves’ travel guides. He excludes Heidelberg, and for good reason.  Here’s a list of “good” reasons to visit Heidelberg:

1. You’re completing a degree in tourist studies, possibly with a concentration in the Deppenszepter.
2. You have a family member or friend who was/is stationed in Heidelberg, and you want to get a sense of their locale.
3. You’re thinking about studying at, or are otherwise interested in the university – the oldest in Germany.

In some sense, Dom was right. Heidelberg has everything it needs to look fantastic. Really beautiful postcards of gorgeous ruins in a spectacular landscape. And Rachel and I didn’t have a bad time in Heidelberg – it was a pleasant way to spend our day. However, our enjoyment was largely due to getting to spend time with each other, partly aided by the ease with which we could mock the lack of things to do there.

“Only Americans go to Heidelberg – Germans never do!” admonished  Isa, a close German friend, upon our return. “I hope you learned your lesson to ask the locals first next time.”

I’m going to add Dublin to the back of this list, with the warning that my opinions are likely tainted by the fact that I wasn’t feeling so great while I was there.

The whole place smelled like manufacturing or welding, somewhat burnt-metallic and cringe-worthy, which definitely did not help to make me feel better.

I had also assumed that my expectation of ‘people being drunk in the streets’ was a false supposition. It was, unfortunately, an entirely correct supposition. Dublin is a great place for a lively party out in public, which is another way of saying that it’s not that great of a place.

Additionally, I am proud of my German heritage. I’m protestant and reserved and opinionated about the definition of good beer. Admittedly, I went to Dublin because I wanted to check Ireland off my list and because the $15 flight from Birmingham was too good to pass. This is massively unfair to Ireland, and I know that. I do hope to return at some point (especially to the lesser-populated parts of the country), and I hope that I will be feeling better when I’m there.

This is a continuation of the best parts of my spring break trip to the British Isles. Find part I here.

As promised earlier, this post is to contain details on Northern Wales and an awakening of sorts. Let’s start with Wales.

Caernarfon Castle at night.

Caernarfon was calm and empty, which probably contributed to 1/3 of my enjoyment there. I shared the hostel with no more than two other people the entire time, and had a six-bed room to myself the whole time. They furnished cereal for breakfast, which was easy for them, but was an extra treat for a person who hadn’t had cereal for breakfast in way too long. The hostel also had surprisingly fast internet, though this was likely due to the emptiness. ALSO: They had a brand new puppy. Like, they brought it home the day before I arrived. It figured out stairs while I was there, but still didn’t quite get the hang of running and barking. So cute!

Caernarfon Castle, the city, and the Strait of Anglesey, on a beautiful cloudy Welsh day.

The city is situated right on the Strait of Anglesey with a view of the similarly-named island (the island is not also called “Strait of Anglesey – it’s not a strait. Duh). Snowdonia National Park is very close, but wasn’t visible from Caernarfon due to the welsh fog and/or night time. The castle was about 100 meters from my hostel, which itself was only separated from the Strait by the town wall and a bike path.

The castle is “where the Prince of Wales gets princed,” which how my dad contextualized his recommendation. Another part of his recommendation was written in a journal from the days of film cameras: “I went overboard and took ten photos that day.”  In the 21st century, I enjoyed not having the film constraint, as is made obvious in this post.

When I visited the castle, I kept saying “WOW!” Thorough recommendation on that one. It had the ruiney good looks that castles should have, but it also had plenty of information on why the ruins were the way they are (not that I’m mad or anything…Heidelberg!). Plenty of passages to scramble around, plenty of tiny staircases to climb. There was also a fair deal of head-bonk danger, but the cool factor made up for this.

You don’t have to look hard to find people enjoying their time at Caernarfon Castle. You will have to look hard to find some dead bird parts, more on that below.

Inside Caernarfon Castle. The circular disk is “where the Prince of Wales gets Princed”

This room in Caernarfon Castle did not pose any immediate headbonk dangers, but the doorway could have caused problems.

One weird thing about Caernarfon – there were uncomfortably many parts of dead birds, just hanging out all over the place. Seagull wings, complete skeletons of smaller birds, and the like. I didn’t particularly care to know how they got there or what happened to the rest of the birds.

None of these birds were dead or incomplete.

Quite close by is a rather unremarkable place with a most remarkable name: Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch, often shortened to Llanfair PG. The sign at the train station was particularly suited to being recorded in a panorama.

Just in case your eyes glazed right past the long, foreign, and likely unpronounceable-for-you word, take a look at four L’s in a row near the end. Welsh orthography will catch you off guard if you’re not careful. Here are a few tricks I picked up:

1. “F” sounds like “V”, but “ff” sounds like regular “f”.
2. A “w” goes “oo”
3. A double “dd” makes a “th” sound
4. The double “ll” is when your mouth makes the shape of an L, but then you breathe out. This is the best way I’ve come across to explain this particular noise. It’s not that easy.
5. Everybody in Wales speaks English, so just do your thing. They’re accustomed to you butchering their words, but are nonetheless really friendly and welcoming.

After Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch, I walked along the strait towards Beaumaris (“beautiful marsh,” approximately french), another nearby castle. Along the way, there were some fantastic views of Snowdonia. These mountains aren’t particularly high, but they apparently pose enough of a technical challenge that they served as a training platform for the team that first summited Everest.

Snowdonia and the Strait of Anglesey. Snowdon itself is on the right.

Beaumaris would have been pretty thoroughly awesome had I not been to Caernarfon Castle the day before.  It was still cool, don’t get me wrong.  But it just wasn’t nearly as well-groomed as Caernarfon. However, the ruin-factor made it nonetheless VERY enjoyable. What it lacked in amenities was more than compensated by the sheer size of the place.

Beaumaris from above. Check out the person in the middle for a sense of scale.

The complex has a concentric design, with a taller “keep” surrounded by a wall with an open-ish space between the two. The whole place is massive, in a way that could be explained, but is really best left to personal experience. The ruiny quality of the castle was also quite cool. Plenty of stones to scramble around, and plenty of staircases to run carefully walk up and down, and plenty of opportunities to imagine Castle life in the 1200s.

Beaumaris interior ruins

While we’re on the subject of castles and fortifications, let’s talk briefly about moats. Moats are not filled with alligators – this is Europe, not Florida. Rather, they’re open-ish areas that make attackers easy to fill with arrows. Bonus points for the defense team if the attackers are slowed down, for instance by the muddiness one might find in a beautiful marsh.

This image of the outside of Beaumaris Castle doesn’t really help to give a sense of scale, but it does show the moat.

My least favorite part of Beaumaris was definitely the multitude of seagulls and pigeons that were hiding out in the nooks and crannies, waiting to fly out and scare you shirtless. At the very least, very few of these birds seemed to be dead or mutilated.

And now for the awakening. This was in Cambridge. Last day on the trip, before heading back to Germany. Of course I’m going to spend my last day in the English-speaking world watching the new Star Wars film – The Force Awakens, of course! And what a treat it was. The theater was as empty as Caernarfon, and the film lived up to all of my expectations. I was embarrassingly excited, which made the emptiness of the theater even better.

Edinburgh and Caernarfon. I could probably end this post there, but that would be boring for you and displeasing to the Valpo Voyager Blog-Gods, so I won’t.

Quick note: the last entry was a bit of a downer. Sorry about that. This one should be much better.

London was also a highlight of sorts. I’m not going to talk about it though. It’s one of the biggest places in the world, and definitely worth a visit. However, the abundance of literature about the place doesn’t merit my musings. Just go there.

Also, enjoy some pictures.

Albert Memorial, Royal Albert Hall, and uncharacteristically nice weather for London.

I got carried away, and took this illegal photo inside St. Pauls Cathedral in the City of London.

What can I say, it’s London. Here’s your seat-of-the-british-government photo.

Coventry Cathedral gets a definitive stamp of approval, though that’s more than can be said for the rest of the town. The medieval church was destroyed during the Blitz, but instead of knocking the ruins down, they were incorporated into the new structure, in a very cool way. After getting a tour of the new building (led by a Roman Catholic lady from Plochingen, 20 minutes away from Reutlingen), I spent some time enjoying this holy and wholly photogenic space.

Creation mosaic window, Coventry Cathedral

Ecumenical Chapel, Coventry Cathedral

Looking Down (or up?) the nave in Coventry Cathedral.

The ruins of the medieval Coventry Cathedral.

Edinburgh is a wonderfully distinct place. It’s built on and around the remains of a volcano, and it that alone doesn’t make you want to visit, I’m not sure what will (fine print: you can’t really see the volcano, but you can see the volcanic basalt, and you can imagine what it might have looked like millennia ago). If you’re interested in literature, your options include Robert Louis Stevenson, Sirs Arthur Conan Doyle and Walter Scott, and JK Rowling. If architecture and city planning is your cup of tea, there are fascinating contrasts to be found between the old and new cities, and plenty of history to explore in the valley between the two. If you’re fond of whiskey, old enough to buy it, and mature enough to actually enjoy it, Edinburgh can be pretty good (though this is only because it’s the capital – the best whiskey experiences are farther north, apparently).

The castle provided plenty of information and wonderful views of the city and the surroundings. I arrived right after it opened, and was able to walk right in. By the time I left an hour and a half later, the line was well out the gate. Suckers.

When I got to the castle, I was able to look to the south and see mountains covered in snow. As soon as I snapped some pictures and thought to myself, “Wow, I wish it would snow here!” it started sleeting, and did not stop for the rest of the day. This time the sucker was I.

The old city is very pedestrian friendly. It’s full of “closes,” which look like sketchy alleys but are far from sketchy. Go down any one of these to escape the tourists and see another part of the city, even if only to see something different. It’s a great place to “get lost” because you’ll never be too far from where you need to be, and yet you’d never be able to guess it by just looking at your surroundings.

One of the super highlights for me was meeting people from England, New Zealand, and Alaska in the hostel, and spending the evenings with them. Fred, Dom, Ant, Alicia, Reid, and Daena sucked me into a game of Scrabble in the lounge, and Jack and Jenna were soon to follow. We split the costs of drinks, but the conversation was free. And it was well worth it. Cultural compare-and-contrast, discussion of the New Zealand Flag Referendum, and discussions of the impacts the refugee crisis has on day-to-day lives in London, Nottingham, and Reutlingen were all punctuated by juggling and puzzles and more Scrabble. I even considered adjusting the end of my itinerary to get to see the Nottingham people again, but it turned out not to be feasible on my end, so I dropped the investigation before asking them if any of them could spare a couch for a night.

We also came across some Germans in the hostel. The couple was from Herrenberg, which is like half an hour away from Reutlingen. It was pretty refreshing to get to talk German with somebody for the first time in a week. However, they were interested in what I’m going to call ‘chemical tourism,’ and the conversation fizzled out after they asked us, “Nimmt ihr Drogen?”

Admittedly, Edinburgh probably appealed to me as much as it did because it immediately followed Dublin, which did not appeal at all. I think I would still have enjoyed the city on its own, and the experience in general – even without the comparison to Dublin. The strong winds grayness provided a perfect contrast to the warmth of the architecture, and the weather made that warmth feel doubly welcoming once you got inside.

I found out after visiting that, like Cincinnati, Edinburgh has Munich as a sister city. However, Edinburgh and Cincinnati are not sister cities. I think I’ve exposed a serious flaw in the sister city system. Also: sister city system. Say that five times fast.

Edinburgh at sunset, taken from Arthur’s Seat. Really, this is mostly just sunset taken from Arthur’s seat, but there IS some Edinburgh somewhere in there, I swear!

Looking south from Arthur’s Seat. There’s some fire/ice something or other here, but I don’t feel like being metaphorical and verbose at the moment.

They say that sunset is supposed to have the best lighting. I used to think that this was true, but now I’m not so certain.

Part II continues with Northern Wales, and an awakening of sorts.