Posted by Seth on January 18, 2009 under Trip Reports | 
The vast majority of people going to Luxembourg arrive via train. And that means no passport stamp. The stamp isn’t really anything special – a typical EU entry stamp with the “L” for the country code – but it was certainly fun to get it.
The flight from London’s City airport to Luxembourg on VLM was quite pleasant and rather unremarkable. The small sandwich (turkey or cheese) and beverage service on the hour-long flight was nice and otherwise the flight was uneventful. The Luxembourg airport is modern and beautiful, but eerily empty as there isn’t much flight activity through it.
And then there was the border agent. The conversation was somewhat typical right up until he asked me how long I was going to be staying. Apparently a 16 hour holiday in Luxembourg is somewhat unorthodox. The good news is I appear crazy enough to do such a thing, as he eventually rolled his eyes at me, stamped my passport and sent me on my way, though he did make me repeat my itinerary a couple times to make sure he understood that I really wasn’t going to be staying in town very long.
As I noted in my post yesterday, Luxembourg is quite impressive. Walking around this morning on my way to the train station I had a chance to admire the architecture in daylight and it did not disappoint. Some pictures from around town below.
Posted by Seth on January 17, 2009 under Uncategorized |
I knew going in to my stays at hostels in Europe this weekend that it wouldn’t be “normal” nights of sleep, but I never expected quite the level of entertainment that I got on my first night in Luxembourg.
First, a quick review of the hostel in Luxembourg: It is awesome. Clean, modern and really quite nice. The views up the hills toward the ruins of the old battlements were impressive, though a reminder of the hill to be hiked to get up to the city center.
The view from room B101 at the youth hostel in Luxembourg.
They had a shuttle van parked out front but I never saw it in action so I’m not sure what the deal is with that. The doors closed a bit louder than I would have liked, but I was tired enough that I slept through most of that. I skipped breakfast there this morning so I cannot rate that, but the guys I talked to said it was pretty decent the previous day, and it is included in the rate, so nothing to complain about there. They also didn’t charge me extra for not having a hostel card even though they were supposed to so that was nice. Sheets are included in the rates but not towels. They make you buy one if you need it and they aren’t cheap. Or if you are only staying one night you can do as I did and just use the sheets to dry off in the morning as you’re leaving. That worked out pretty well for me.
Now, on to the entertainment. When I got home from dinner I was a bit surprised to see someone laying in the bed I had made up before going out. Apparently one of the guys I was sharing a room with decided that he should use that bed since I had made it up. In his defense, I get the feeling that he had used it the previous night, but it was unmade and appeared unclaimed when I got there, so I’m not totally sure.
And then there was the Finnish guy. He was the last of the six to arrive in the room and he seemed a bit apprehensive about claiming the last bed available since it was a top bunk. Still, it was the only one and he went ahead and made up the bed. I thought nothing more of it as I made my way out to dinner. His somewhat noisy return to the room rather late was annoying, especially when he felt it appropriate to turn on the overhead lights, but I got over it.
At about five in the morning when he fell out of the bed, however, it took the fact that I was still pretty tired to avoid cracking up laughing. He seemed to survive the fall OK, and I know it is not nice to laugh at others’ misfortune, but it really was entertaining to watch him stumble – presumably still drunk – to the bathroom at that point and then try to get back in to bed. He managed to sleep through my departure this morning so I never got a chance to ask him how he was feeling. Hopefully he’s OK.
I certainly got my money’s worth in both the bed and the extra entertainment offered. I hope my hostel in Brussels is a bit more subdued, but I’ll take it either way.
Posted by Seth on January 16, 2009 under Uncategorized |
I certainly took a roundabout way to get here, but it was worth the trip. Luxembourg is rather beautiful, if not a bit expensive.
Arrival was easy at the beautifully modern, though rather underutilized airport. The immigration officer couldn’t understand why I had transited London to get to Luxembourg only to be leaving tomorrow. He rolled his eyes and stamped my passport, as apparently being crazy is not sufficient grounds to deny entry. The bus to the city center was a piece of cake and pretty cheap at only 1.50 Euro.
I walked around town to find my way to the hostel, snapping a few photos (to be uploaded when bandwidth isn’t quite so expensive) and meeting a few other folks on their way to the hostel. I must say that I’m incredibly impressed by the hostel. Immaculately clean and a very nice place. The only problem it has is being at the bottom of a hill, but that gives it a great backdrop against the fortifications above. I had dinner with a guy I met here and now off to bed after a very, very long but entertaining day.
Posted by Seth on January 3, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Several months ago a friend had a reasonably good idea: a Belgian beer drinking excursion in the middle of the winter. In Belgium. Piece of cake. Just buy a plane ticket to Brussels and go drinking. Or not. Sure, that would get me there and I’d get to have my beers with friends, but it just isn’t that great of an adventure.
Looking at various fares to get there I discovered that there were a lot of creative routings that I could pursue and it wouldn’t really require any extra costs on my part. And give the option for greater adventure at the same price, why not?
I’ve got a friend in London that I haven’t seen since her wedding in Turkey back in September. Since I’m going to be so close anyways, planning a stop in London to see her seemed like a good idea. A quick check of the fares showed that adding the London stop was basically the same price as the non-stop flight, so I added that to the itinerary. I’m also in seed of additional pages for my passport as it is filling quite quickly. I’ll be stopping off at the US embassy in London, assuming I have time and can find it, to address that problem, too.
Getting from London to Brussels has many options available, from frequent jet service on a number of airlines to Eurostar service to prop plane service. So many choices. How to pick just one? By random aircraft and airports served, of course!
It seems that the flights between London and Brussels were about the same price as flights from London to a number of other cities near Brussels, including Antwerp, Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Luxembourg. Hmm…Luxembourg. I passed through a few years back, but never stopped off to actually see the Grand Duchy. Now I’ve got the perfect opportunity to do so. And, again, no real extra cost for the extra stop. Awesome. Even better is that the flight is operated from London’s City airport, which is supposed to be quite fun to fly out of. Book me a window seat for that flight!
Add on a quick train trip from Luxembourg to Brussels and now I’m ready to meet up as expected for good Belgian beer. We even are throwing a side trip to Bruges into the mix, again on the train. Why? Because it is there.
So my easy NYC-Brussels-NYC trip became somewhat more complicated Newark-Heathrow, London City-Luxembourg, Brussels-Newark routing, with trains added in between to connect the dots. A bit more complicated, to be certain, but way more fun, too.
