Metz isn’t far from Luxembourg — less than an hour due south by car or by train. In Luxembourg, its Christmas Markets are well-known but not as popular as those of Trier. With friends willing to join us this year, it was finally time to see them for ourselves.
We began at the train station, where there were a few chalets and something quite unusual in France…
A Nativity scene! A manger! A crèche — in a public space in France? Surely not?! (more…)
After four long weeks away from Luxembourg, Will arrived home Friday morning. Having missed him tremendously, I believed seeing him come through the doors at the airport would be the most exciting thing to happen for a while.
I was wrong.
As I walked down the steps to the waiting area for arrivals, I heard a small amount of applause. Wondering what was up, I noticed that RTL (our local television station) had a camera set up and there was a group of people gathered in a cluster. (more…)
So “fouer” pretty clearly means “fair” in Luxembourgish. I was under the impression that “Schueber” was related to the word “sheep” for a while, because the opening ceremonies feature sheep. Please don’t tell my Luxembourgish instructor that I was so far off the mark — sheep is “Schof” in Luxembourgish.
After two years of regular attendance of the fair, I was ready to see the opening ceremony for myself. (more…)
This Monday was the Feast of Assumption and we used our time to challenge assumptions about Luxembourg…
Nope. Can’t do it.
The Bugle Style Guide expressly forbids earnest and cheesy opening statements like that one. Let’s start over. To the right, a preview of the most exciting part of last weekend. But first…
A three-day-weekend means three mornings of sleeping in. We planned our time accordingly, although we passed up the opportunity to visit the Cat Club.
Friday evening: The Grand Duke’s Palace. We don’t have pictures from this guided tour, because photos aren’t allowed. (Will is still smarting from getting caught by security while taking sneaky-shots in the Ville’s Museum.) (more…)
Hot air balloons are a familiar sight in Luxembourg. As Will showed you yesterday, four balloons were “inflated” for the Gala, although none of the four lifted off the tarmac. But after seeing the balloons Thursday night, my excitement for the Echternach balloon festival was renewed. I went to bed Friday night with big plans: I would go to the 7:00 a.m. Saturday launch!
I shopped the idea around to Will and a few friends, but no one was interested in my plan: “Let’s get up and be on the road by 6:15 to see hot air balloons!” I will admit that when my alarm went off at 5:45, even I began to question whether this was a good idea. I checked the weather – overcast, but no rain. I had no excuse to crawl back into bed. To the balloon festival for me! (more…)
The Tour de France is reaching its climax, so naturally the Bugle turns its attentions to the Tour of Luxembourg of early June 2011. (Plus, yesterday’s rest day gave me some extra time to catch up.) Part One took you to the opening time-trial in Luxembourg-Ville (the Prologue), and from the beginning of Stage 1 in the west of the country to the end in the south-east. Part Two will tell the story visually, so check your computer’s volume and click along! (more…)
We love living in Luxembourg, but we haven’t always made the most of the various opportunities to enjoy the local culture. As part of the 2011 Bakker Betterment Program, we committed to take advantage of the random local cultural events.
I’m proud to say in January we wandered out not once, but twice, to enjoy some small slices of our adopted homeland. Will is going to tell you about the first. (If he ever gets his post finished, that is. I knew buying the companion guidebook would only lead to analysis paralysis.) I’m going to tell you about our second adventure: The Aqua Tunnel.
Faithful Tumblr followers might remembering seeing a post that the city was opening the tunnel for just a few hours one Sunday. I’ll be honest – it wasn’t the tunnel that I thought we were going to get to see. I thought it would be the tunnel under the Petrusse River that once connected two sets of casemates. Instead, we saw a tunnel that is under the ENTIRE old city. For those who have been lucky enough to come to (or live in) Luxembourg, we can be more specific: we walked directly under the old city plateau. So it wasn’t “ancient rocky fortress” cool but “we’re really walking right under all that” cool. (more…)
Alert readers have noticed, by now, a list of intriguing links and comments in the rightmost column of this blog. This is the Bugle Tumble. There are new items posted to the Bugle Tumble regularly — and much more frequently than the Bakker Bugle Blog.
Most of the items are just links to interesting bits of the InterWebs, with a bit of commentary from us, the Bugle staff. It’s little more than a running compilation of websites where we are doing research for upcoming posts, or just slacking off. But there are also fresh photos from Luxembourg, posted to the Tumble on that day that they were taken. Current-ness!
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The Schueberfouer will end Wednesday, so we visited one more time this Sunday. It was packed! We took lots of photos, of course, to give you a feel for the event.
Objective Number One: Ride the big swings!
(more…)
You 
may remember that, this May, we celebrated our long-term success with a cruise. Now, our short-term delay in posting our photos from that cruise has come to an end!
As usual, we’ll release photosets on Flickr with extensive captions — one or two days at a time. We wouldn’t want to overwhelm you! To begin, you can enjoy our pictures of the first two days, as we travel to Venice, board the ship, and thrill to the sailaway down the Guidecca Canal. You’ll see parts of our Crown Princess cruise ship, the city of Venice from dozens of high angles, and a few other treats.
If that description isn’t enough to tempt you, (more…)
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