Lovely Luxembourg City

Here you gaze upon the lovely Old Town Luxembourg City, taken as we walk across the bridge from New town. The weather was quite beautiful today and we enjoyed walking around the old town and seeing many of the interesting sites that the city has to offer. Of course, we had our tour guide, Ernest along which made things so much easier for us.,

Once in the Old Town, we stopped into the Cathedral of Luxembourg, known as the Church of Our Lady.

It is discretely located off of side alley.

In Constitution Plaza, there stands a statue to William II.

It stands in the middle of the square surrounded by unique buildings.

Our first venture was to the Casements, underground tunnels dug into the cliff in the late 1800's. They were built for protection purposes, and one can only imagine the manual labor that went into digging out the maze of rooms. 

 This structure is considered to be one of the world's Unesco heritage site.

Above you can see the canon holes.

And the views over the city were quite impressive.

After visiting the casements, we decided to stop for lunch since we had time prior to our scheduled tour of the Ducal Palace.

Lunch was at a well known local restaurant called Bacchus. Ernest went to see if they could accommodate us with a table, and we were told that it would be a few minutes. Well, time went by, and the owner spotted us waiting patiently by the door, and the next thing we knew, we were being ushered to the back of the restaurant, to wait a few minutes more, but we were each given a glass of cold sparkling prosecco by this man, compliments of the house, as a thank you for waiting.

   

I found it to be quite refreshing myself, but noticed that Marty downed his before we even got a picture!  We handed him Amy's glass so that it wouldn't look like he had an empty glass.  But, now you know that he did!

We enjoyed a delightful lunch, although Amy's pest gnocchi was way too heavy on the basil, and she ended up eating a only piece of tiramisu for lunch. Not the most desirable lunch, but certainly better than nothing!

After lunch we walked to the spot of the Golden Lady statue which stands over the Old Town.

She was originally erected in honor of World War I victims, but the Germans decided that shse must be taken down in the late 1930's when the established German rule over the country. The statue was then hidden by some local townsment, and discovered nearly 60 years later. It was referbished and mounted again, at the insistence of the locals.

At last, it was time for our tour through the Ducal Palace. It was NOT disappointing. In fact, quite the opposite. There were so many beautiful things to see in the recently restored palace. No photos were permiltted, so you'll just have to take m yword for it. The guide was great and the tour was fantastic.

We drove back to Echternach, and met up with Mike, who met us at the crossing site where Marty's Uncle Fred was last known to be in Feb. 1945. It was interesting walking through the woods once again, only this time seeing the remarkable discovery by Mike.

If you know the story, you remember that I located a man who hand drew me a map, 60 years after the battle, pinpointing the spot where a "new recruit" suddenly disappeared by stepping onto a landmine. We realized several years ago that this map was extremely accurate in details.  You can find it on the website that I mentioned yesterday.

In analyzing this map, Mike has been able to substantiate nearly the right spot where Fred would have last been seen. He located the large tree  which was drawn on the map,(it is the only really old tree in the forest in the area around the bunker)  and suddenly, he noticed that a trench runs along the woods from pillbox #2 to pillbox #3. After a lot of time putting all of the pieces together, Mike strongly feels that Fred fell into a trench between this tree and the bunker, after he had stepped on a landmine.

In walking through the woods tonight, it is easy to agree with his opinion. Since the trench is 6 feet deep and is filled with barbed wire, it doesn't seem feasible to start digging and looking for Fred.

All of the information leads to the conclusion that Fred is buired in the woods in the location between the tree and the bunker and we can pinpoint an approximate area where he probably lays.  

We all agreed that we can say with strong certainly that we know where Fred's final resting place is. We cannot say for sure exactly where he is buried, but we feel at peace that we can say that his body is located in a certain section of woods in Germany, just across the Sauer River from Luxembourg.

The full moon over the horizon seemed to shine upon us as we said one last good-bye to Fred. He was one of the many who died way too young, defending the freedom of Luxembourg, and the family can e proud to know that the citizens here are grateful to Americans for his efforts. Never have we received more gracious welcomes than from the citizens of Luxembourg.

Lovin' Luxembourg

Many of you who are new to my blog might question, “Why Luxembourg?” And who are Mike and Ernest?  

Well, just to give you a quick synopsis: twelve years ago, I began searching for information on Marty's uncle who went Missing in Action in February of 1945. My persistence in attempting to find some closure for his family led me to Ernest Kirpach in Luxembourg. Ernest was willing to devote time and energy to help me with the numerous questions that I would send to him. I don't want to go into too many details here, but I welcome you to take a peek at my website which describes the years of effort that I put into this search.  

http://home.comcast.net/~geisler27bam/The_Search_for_Private_Frederick_W._Goempel/Welcome.html

Mike used to work for the Museum of Military History and he is the “hands on” man who has actually unearthed several German soldiers while searching for military artifacts for the museum. I contacted the museum curator about four years ago, asking if he could put me in contact with Mike. I'll never forget the e-mail: “It's me. How can I help you?”

Well, that was the beginning of an interesting relationship, and Mike and Ernest have been working together since, in the hope of locating Marty's uncle's remains. My years of research, in combination with the help from these guys, led to JPAC sending a search team back in September to analyze the situation. Believe me, that never would have happened without these guys actively working on my “dream”.

Marty and I visited with these guys in May 2010, but we only stayed 2 days in Echternach. So, we decided to come back and visit this beautiful country for a week this time. Both Mike and Ernest were excited to hear of our plans, and we have been having a blast since arriving. I have to admit that it has been interesting watching the two of them come up with ideas of things that we need to see here in Luxembourg. We've had some great laughs at some of the suggestions.

On a serious note, we do plan on going back out and visiting the crossing site, since Mike seems to have come up with some new information. I'll keep you posted on that.

In the meantime, today found us back at the Museum of Military History in Diekirch. 

 I forgot how huge this place was, and Ernest told us today that it holds an original of every single piece of World War II military equipment from American and German forces. It is primarily devoted to the Battle of the Bulge and believe me when I tell you that it bursting at the seams with military items.

There are numerous dioramas set up in the museum, and what is really interesting about each of them is that they are accurate interpretations of particular events that occurred. Every one of these dioramas features a scene that was either taken from an original photograph, or it was put together under the direction of one of the soldiers who would have been in the scene. Every piece of clothing that is worn, and every item in the diorama is original to World War II. There are no copied uniforms. 

 Ok, so the turkey in the Thanksgiving scene isn't original, but you get my point.

Here you can see this famous photo looking out over Echternach:

And here is the diorama that features the photo:

And, let me share just one more thing with you.  The museum has a photo of St. Willibrord's Church in Echternach taken in 1945:

Amazingly, here is how the church looks today:

I still get chills when I think of what the civilians must have endured during this difficult time.

After several hours of walking through the museum, we lunched at the Grille in Diekirch. The meal was fabulous, and we were all very full when we left the restaurant.

After a quick walk through the main plaza in town, Ernest drove us off to Vianden to see the restored castle there.

Upon approaching the town of Vianden, one comes around the bend and suddenly this beauitufl structrure comes into view.

Amazing, don't you think?

Ernest parked the car and we walked down into the town only to realize that the entrance to the castle was in the opposite direction. But, I was glad for the detour because the town is enchanting, and except for the high traffic along the road, I enjoyed the sheer beauty of this town.

Once at the top of the castle, we realized that there was a lot more going on than what we had anticipated. Apparently there is a Medieval festival going on, and believe me when I tell you that there was just way too much commotion going on.

The castle opens its doors to vendors selling their wares, and although they attempt to maintain an aura of the medieval atmosphere, I didn't enjoy the crush of people or, as Ernest put it, the “made in China” items available for sale.

So, the castle in itself, was a bit disappointing, but the day as a whole was, indeed, remarkable.

This evening, Marty, Amy and I took a walk around this lovely village of Echternach.

Yep! We sure had a great time!

A Day of Exploration

Sunday was yet another gorgeous day here in Luxembourg. After breakfast we attended Mass in the huge Gothic Cathedral of St. Willibrord. It was in Latin, as it had been last week's in Vienna, so we felt that we could at least participate a little. One thing of particular interest is the number of altar servers. Picture this: 6 on either side of the priest, wearing long white robes, the tallest nearest the priest and the shortest on the end., standing with their hands folded and tucked into the opposite sleeve. They face the congregation and, as a result, the huge sanctuary is spanned from side to side,

short to tall, priest, tall to short.

I don't know the significance, but I thought it was pretty impressive to see so many young people serving during Mass.

St. Willibrord offers 3 masses on Sunday morning, with the last one being said in Portuguese. Apparently nearly 50% of the population here in Luxembourg is Portuguese. This old church has beautiful bells in a tower that are rung not only while welcoming the people to church, but also during the consecration. That, in combination with the pipe organ and a choir chanting the Latin responses echoing through this huge Gothic Church really added to the unique experience .

After lunch, Ernest greeted us in town and we headed to Irrel, which is only a few kilometers from Echternach, on the German side of the Sauer River. 

 There is a huge museum devoted to the Westwall bunker strategically dug into a hill above the town. We arrived to find Mike already on site, ready to go through and explain the strategy of this amazing museum.

In 1937, Hitler apparently ordered the building of these type of bunkers along the German border. It took two years to complete Westwall, and consisted of 3 floors, including living quarters, a kitchen, bath, etc. It seemed like no detail was missed regarding the strategic function of this bunker. I could not believe all of the rooms and details that were incorporated in this bunker. And it was HUGE!

What is of real interest is that this particular bunker was never actually used to hold German soldiers during the war. Hitler moved his forces to the Ardennes and this bunker was too far south to be of any strategic value when the Allied forces began their offensive move through Germany in February, 1945.

 That is Marty only about 1/3 of the way through this tunnel leading to another wing of this bunker.

The French were responsible for going through Germany and blowing up these bunkers, and although this particular bunker did have damage done, the two floors below the surface were never touched by the explosion, so it was decided to restore the top floor and turn the bunker into a museum so that people could see exactly what some of these bunkers looked like. Amazing, to say the least.

After leaving the bunker, we stopped at a local “Wasserfalle” where we found the parking lot loaded with cars. Quite to our surprise, we found ourselves being “lifted up” in Ernest's car after he pushed some sort of button to lift the chassis higher so as to not scrape the bottom as he drove through some rough road to park in a field. Amy and I, who were in the back seat, just looked at each other in amazement, having no idea that such a feature existed on a car.

Before taking off, Ernest pushed a button again, and the car lowered itself down to the standard driving height. By now it's probably obvious that it doesn't take too much to entertain me.

The “waterfall” reminded me more of “potholers” that we had seen in the Adirondacks,. No drop in height, but certainly a lot of strong whirling water. The area there is quite beautiful.

Mike decided that we needed to see one more natural phenomenon prior to relaxing for the evening. So we headed to Berdorf and soon found ourself parked and looking at a stairway that led up between two giant rocks. We climbed up steps about two thirds of the way, and literally climbed a metal ladder to actually get to the top. I'll admit that this was certainly a first for me. I can't quite figure out why anyone felt the need to put a staircase in between these two rocks, as we walked down around the rock to get back to the car.

But it certainly was pretty cool!

We stopped for a drink in Berdorf.

Then, headed to Echternacht for a lovely dinner in an Italian Restaurant, owned by a Portuguese. Let me just say that they make fabulous Cannelloni!

Luxury in Luxembourg

No, we are NOT in Scotland!  Marty and I are standing in front of Beaufort Castle in Luxembourg.  

Amy and I arrived shortly after Marty flew in from Scotland, and we walked out of the baggage claim to find Marty, Ernest, & Mike ready to greet us!  What a welcome sight!

We packed our luggage into Ernest's care, and found ourselves being chauffeured once again by this delightful man.  We checked into our hotel, where we have a room that looks like it should be in the Taj Mahal.....or perhaps I only think it looks that good in comparison to what we left.

After a lovely lunch at the Petite Poet

We went for a drive with Ernest behind the wheel to Beaufort Castle.

Or course, Marty couldn't resist a quick pick on his i-phone and Amy was ready to capture the moment.

And, here you can see Ernest & Mike enjoying the castle above, and Amy below, with a cute little kid mugging for the camera as well.

We had a fabulous day and were lucky that the grey clouds and rain decided to move out and let the bright blue sky and sun join us for the rest of the day.

And I have the idea that we will be having a LOT of fantastic moments with our Luxembourg tour guides showing us this beautiful country.

Quick question:  I have had several people tell me that they cannot post a comment on my blog.  If you have any advice for them, could you post on this one?  If I hear from no one, then I'll know that something must be wrong.  I did receive 3 comments during my trip, but I generally have a bit more.  So, if there is a secret, please share!

Dovidenia Modra

Although the closing ceremonies to the Slovak Language Course were last evening, we still had class today until noon.  Today Catarina was the instructor, and we really had a great day.  Here Amy holds her certificate while sporting the hat that she was given this morning from Catarina.  Just why we received green baseball hats is a wonder to us, but we appreciated the thought behind the gift.

We really felt that we needed one last photo with a shot of some of the bird nests in the background, just to save for our memories.  Not that we would ever forget such an experience.

Last night, at the closing ceremonies, the theme that was continually repeated was "We'll see you next year in 2013."  Well, I certainly do appreciate the invitation, but don't foresee that happening.  We did end up meeting some fabulous people, and learning a LOT of the language, which was our intent for attending.

So, I'd say that the end result was a HUGE success for both of us.  Plus we both were able to work on our patience skills.  Last night, as I reviewed the info for today's class, the Compatriots were out and about, right outside our window, hooping it up to about 1:00 in the morning.  They might as well have been in the room with me, but I just kept plugging away at the language book, and Amy seemed to have no problem sleeping through all of the commotion.  I ended up, once again, only getting about 2 hours of sleep, but didn't find myself alone with that complaint. The Thai woman next door said that she was exhausted having lost sleep last night, and that she even went outside and asked the students to please go inside the building rather than sit outside our windows.  Oh well....kids will be kids.....but I'm kind of old for that, I think.  Actually, if I lost my hearing, it might not be so bad.....But then, I'd have really been lost in trying to hear the language spoken!

Class was really a lot of fun today, and I participated much more than in the past.  I just didn't care if I made mistakes, and Catarina was interested in hearing what I had to say.  When we were leaving and saying goodbye, Catarina told me that I was a unique person and that she knew that she would never forget me.

I'm still trying to figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing......

At the moment, we're at Helga's flat being stuffed with every type of food imaginable.  I really can't figure out how she thinks we can eat so much.  I'm hoping my pants still fit tomorrow for the trip.

Well....good-bye to Modra.  We made great friends, explored the countryside and learned the language.
Hovorim po trochu Slovensky.  ( I can speak a little Slovak!)

Celebrating in Slovak Style

Here you see Amy and me holding our certificates of completion of the Slovak Language Course.  Actually, we still have one more morning of classes tomorrow.  And, everyone who attended the Slovak Language Program received a certificate, so that in itself isn't really all that impressive.

The woman from Finland had to leave due to some sort of breathing reaction to something in the building.  It was really quite a serious reaction, and we can't help but think that the bird residue may have been a contributing factor.  A couple of other people never finished the course.  So, our final numbers included Anna, the mother/daughter combo from Thailand, the mother/son from Sweden, Albert, Amy and me.  The small class really did help us learn even quicker.

And, Maia, the teacher who really made me nervous under questioning, really lightened up on me. I had given her several items of written text in Slovak for her review, and I think that my efforts showed that I really was comprehending the information, but am unable to process it quickly.  She asked today if my head was filled with goulash, and I told her that it was like a computer that had to process way too much information and was ready to crash and I risked a physical memory dump. That lightened up things a bit.

When class was finished, Maia was actually teary-eyed at the prospect of the class being finished as far as her part was concerned.  We learned a lot about this amazing woman, I can tell you that her life certain hasn't been easy.  And she really does deserve a LOT of credit for continuing to show her passion for teaching people like me......someone who truly is interested in learning the language.  We managed to get a photo with her at the end of the day:

After class, Amy and I headed into Modra for one last visit.  We had missed the bus due to class running late, so we walked in....in the heat....again.  On the way back from town, we were looking at the bus schedule when I heard a man say in perfect English....."Did someone here call for a taxi?"  Well, I immediately said "NO!"  because I figured it was just someone trying to scam us.  I looked up and saw Josef, Anna's husband, who was laughing at me at my abruptness.  I gave him a big hug and told him that he was definitely the best site that we had seen today.  He and Anna had gone out for lunch, in celebration of her Saint Name Day today, and I knew that he could drive us back to our room.

We stopped for something cold to drink before heading up to the school, and Josef insisted that we stop in the winery down the street and do some wine tasting.  Well, he was driving, so we really couldn't refuse, although he did not partake himself since there is zero tolerance for alcohol and driving in Slovakia.
He did take this nice photo of us:

Our afternoon and evening involved sitting through many presentations, all spoken in Slovak.  But much of it was very entertaining and we really did enjoy the evening dinner and music afterwards.

For a brief moment, I thought that the little birdies had flown away on their own, but no such luck.  It looks like Amy and I will be packing up and leaving tomorrow, and leaving little birdies for someone else's enjoyment.

Wine & Warhol: What a combination

This morning we were introduced to the basic rules of past tense verbs, and this afternoon Amy and I chose to sit in on the conversation class which is designed to get you to have a dialogue with someone in Slovak.  I can say that I really do know a lot more, but I'm in no way proficient enough to carry on much more than a simple conversation.  I can think it in my head, but it takes awhile for me to process before I actually speak.  Katarina, the one instructor, even mentioned that I was speaking "pomaly"  which means slowly, which is probably a first for me!  And I can just see some of my  friends reading this while nodding their heads and chuckling.

The afternoon excursion planned for today was to the Elesco Wine Park and Andy Warhol Museum.  I didn't give the combination much thought as we have taken trips where we board the bus and go to a second destination.  We no sooner got on the bus,  when the skies broke open and we found ourselves sitting inside it with lightening striking around us and the rain coming down in a deluge.

The Wine Park is only a couple of miles away, but it is off of a country road, with no sidewalks, and it really would be quite a hike from this school in Modra-Harmonia.

A young woman from Romania, who is Slovak, offered to translate for us, as she teaches English and Slovak to Slovaks living in Romania (a lesson for another day).  One of the first things that she told us was that they built the building so that it would fit in naturally with the environment.  I need say no more.

We toured the facility where we learned the process of taking grapes from the field and producing wine.  This facility makes several different types of wine, and their hope is to become one of the best wineries in the world. 

We were expecting to actually taste some of the wine made at this facility, but when the tour was complete, the group was led back to the entrance where we followed a  hallway to another wing in the building that featured museum devoted to Andy Warhol.

No  photos were permitted inside the museum.  What you see here is wall art in a children's play area that must be there for kids to play in while the parents taste wine.

The museum was interesting to say the least.  I found it amusing that I was standing in a museum that was dedicated to Andy Warhol just outside of Modra when I knew there was one in Pittsburgh that I could visit if I chose to do so.  What was the connection between Modra, Warhol, and Pittsburgh?

Well, I can tell you that Warhol was born in Pittsburgh to immnigrants from the eastern part of Slovakia.  There was some discussion between the Slovaks and the Ukrainians as to which country he was actually born in.  That's because the town is located right on the border between the two countries, and the border has changed throughout history.  The funny thing was that the Ukranians said that he was born in Slovakia and the Slovaks said that he was born in the Ukraine.  Perhaps that was due to the translation on the board that stated that Warhol was a weirdo and crazy.  Perhaps neither wanted to take credit.....who knows?

But the fact is that Warhol was never in Slovakia, and his family came from the opposite end of this country, so I have as yet to find the connection between the museum and the wine park.

The museum does feature several Campbell soup can displays, as well as a wall devoted to various screened prints of Marilyn Monroe's face in many different colors.  The building is large enough to display the art so that one can really see the interesting facets of Warhol's work.  But, I wouldn't suggest going out of my way to Modra to visit this museum.  And, we never did get to taste the wine....

As our last opportunity to eat dinner in Modra, Amy and I invited Anna and the three of us went back to the Winery of Ludwig that we so liked.  We had an enjoyable meal, and since the rain had stopped, we decided to walk back to our residence.  You can see by the photos the mist above the trees.