(Vianden, Luxembourg)

On August 9, I left Reims for my next destination: Vianden, Luxembourg. I chose this place for the castle and the hiking; I also had fond memories of a 1987 family trip to another small town (Clervaux) in Luxembourg.

It was not a simple journey. First, I took a local train from Reims to the “Champagne Ardennes” TGV station, then a TGV to the Lorraine TGV station, then a bus (actually a large van) from Lorraine TGV to Luxembourg City, then a train from Luxembourg City to Ettelbruck, and finally a bus from Ettelbruck to Vianden.

While I was waiting for my TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse), another one passed through the Champagne Ardennes station. I now know what a dog feels like during a thunderstorm: I didn’t really know what was going on but I knew I didn’t like it. I suppose the closest equivalent is standing right beside a runway as a jet is taking off; it was incredibly loud and fast.  The ride on the TGV itself is much smoother than on VIA Rail, even though the TGV travels at up to 320 km/h.

Obviously, the TGV portion of my journey didn’t take long and I was soon in Luxembourg.  Luxembourg is linguistically fascinating.  Everybody seems to speak at least three languages:  French, German, and Lëtzebuergesch (Luxembourgish, in English), which seems to be an unusual hybrid of Dutch, French and German.   Most people also speak English reasonably well.

Vianden is extremely close to the German border (although one could say that every town in Luxembourg is very close to a border, as it has an area of only 999 square kilometres), so on my first day I decided to walk to Germany.  I took a circular route and was back within about an hour.  Roth an der Our, the German village on the border, is tiny and probably has been in decline since the elimination of border controls within the European Union.  Even though crossing borders is a non-event in the EU, it still is fascinating to look for traces of the old system.  Usually there is only a small concrete marker in the ground, but sometimes there is a more substantial reminder.

On August 10, the forecast was for heavy rain by the afternoon.  As a result, I decided to go for a longer hike in the morning and visit Vianden’s famous castle later in the day.  The tourist office recommended a hike through the Kammerwald, so I would be walking to Germany for the second day in a row.  This time my route would take a few hours and take me through the thickly forested “mountains” that rise above Vianden.

Within 5 minutes of departure, a large deer and I startled each other on the trail.  By the time I retrieved my camera, the deer was nowhere to be seen.  I really wasn’t expected to see large animals here, as the hiking route is well-publicized, but I encountered very few hikers along the way.  In fact, at one remote part where the route runs alongside a highway, a motorist even offered to give me a ride as I must have appeared to be out-of-place.

With the lack of traffic, my hike was very relaxing.    I often heard streams before I saw them; the relative silence of the forest meant that the streams sounded much bigger than they actually were.   The rain started just before I returned to Vianden; it added a mysterious mist to the deep woods.

I found out later that many of these paths were first established by smugglers.  It was nice to discover this, as I imagined while hiking that this would be a good place to train border guards.  One of the highlights of the hike was the Königseiche (“The King’s Oak”), a huge tree which is nearly 400 years old and has a circumference of 5 metres.  I would like to try some more hikes in this region – my schedule doesn’t permit it this time, but I am sure I will return to Luxembourg at some point in the not-too-distant future.