Lux Go and Explore! Mon, Mar 06, 2017
Pop Quiz! Who knows where Luxembourg is? If you said “nestled between Belgium, France and Germany”, you’d be correct!
Last week I was in the area, and decided to take a trip to Luxembourg City, Luxembourg and see what the place was all about. Before I get to that though, here’s some information about the country:
- Size: 2586 km² (998 mi²)
- Compared to US states, Luxembourg is slightly smaller than Rhode Island (3144 km²). Almost 164 Luxembourgs could fit inside of California.
- Population: 582,291
- It is the only Grand Duchy in the world. And the Grand Duke is named Henri Albert Gabriel Félix Marie Guillaume, but they just call him Henri.
- The country has the highest GDP per capita in the euro zone. In other words, life is good.
- It has three official languages - Luxembourgish, French, and German.
- Compared to US states, Luxembourg is slightly smaller than Rhode Island (3144 km²). Almost 164 Luxembourgs could fit inside of California.
- Population: 582,291
- It is the only Grand Duchy in the world. And the Grand Duke is named Henri Albert Gabriel Félix Marie Guillaume, but they just call him Henri.
- The country has the highest GDP per capita in the euro zone. In other words, life is good.
- It has three official languages - Luxembourgish, French, and German.
On arriving in Luxembourg City I expected grey skies and rain. But I was pleasantly surprised with sunshine all day long! So I enjoyed it by wandering through the city, along the river, over old bridges and city walls, through a drained moat, down one hill and up a steeper one, into the medieval casemates (from which one shoots cannons out of a fortress), through a senior home, past Louis Vuitton, and on and on and on. It was a wonderful day in one of the prettiest cities I've ever been to.
A trilingual (quadrilingual if you count English, which is everywhere) country with its own regional foods, language, history, and feel. It had been so close by the whole time and I had had no idea!
How awesome is our world? And how often do we take that for granted?
Get out there and explore your own backyard. You don't have to move to Europe to find new and exciting places. Need motivation? Try geocaching, or finding a cool-looking restaurant on Yelp, or just get in your car or on a bike and choose a direction.
