Luxembourg and Brussels

March was a long, boring month with Cameron gone for most of it, but we are back to sightseeing and traveling for the next two months. Over the long Easter weekend we took a road trip with another couple through Luxembourg, Brussels, and Amsterdam. The weather wasn't great but it was fun to get a taste of each city (taste... we ate a lot!)

First was Luxembourg- here we walked through the city center and to the outer wall. Like Amberg and most European cities, the city was fortified with a wall. This wall was interesting because it has a system of tunnels still intact that can be toured deep into the wall.

This is a street in the city center- all cobblestones and row houses. Below is a picture of a section of the wall. You can see the holes for weaponry and tunnel entrances. In the World Wars Luxembourgians used the tunnels as bomb shelters. And yes, Luxembourgians speak Luxembourgish.

Beautiful view of the town from atop the wall ramparts. The water is part of a canal system.

After spending the day in Luxembourg, we went on to Brussels for two nights. The food in Brussels was amazing; french fries are actually Belgian, and their signature dish is french fries and mussels. The first night I had the best salmon of my life and a delicious waffle to wash it down. Cameron had rabbit, and surprise surprise, the Easter bunny didn't come on Sunday morning.

There were gourmet chocolate shops on every street, this one had a wall/waterfall of chocolate (like some places have a waterfall wall) as well as this chocolate baby filled with coco powder. Another thing that we saw frequently in Brussels were these chocolate tipped spoons. You melt the chocolate in hot milk for a delicious hot chocolate. Mmmm!

Brussel's "mascot" is this little boy peeing- Mannekin Piss they call him. There are several different legends telling his significance, but nobody really knows why he is there. He also has hundreds of costumes that different countries donate, and on special occasions the city officials dress him up. Its not impressive for the crowd that gathers to take pictures of him.

These are Cameron's mussels he had on Saturday night. They were tasty, but I had fried Haddock that was tastier. Our stay in these two cities was nice and short- there is not that much to do in either of them that we would need more than a two days in each.