Luxembourg, Luxembourg
No, that’s not a typo–today we went to Luxembourg the city, in the middle of Luxembourg the country, for our adventuring.
Luxembourg is a pretty mix of modern and ancient spread across rolling hills and decorated with bright-autumn changing leaves. It is also bitterly cold at the moment, but don’t let that deter you–grab a parka and come hang out. =)
Even though we arrived by autobahn, our first stop was the train station. High up on one wall is a large, famous stained glass window featuring a castle at sunset. (They even somehow managed a gradient effect to the colored glass–amazing.)
Afterward, we strolled around the center plaza and ended up lunching at an Italian outdoor cafe. We each got a pizza (because in Europe all pizzas are “personal” size.) Mine was fresh mozzerella, artichokes, and a few varieties of mushroom (which is neat, because in the States I’m typically served the standard generic mushroom.) Charlotte ordered a ham and artichoke pizza, and got a surprise when it was served with a (runny!) egg in the middle of it!
Once we finished eating (except for the runny egg) we headed over to the Modern Art Museum. The first time Erin was here, the walls were lined with small tracks spiralling from ceiling to floor. When you arrived, you were given a marble, and when you reached the top floor, you placed your marble on the first leg of the track and let it clatter around the museum over and over until it hit the ground. She was excited to show us the crazy marble exhibit, so imagine her surprise to find it not only gone–but the main center room filled with sand! (Yes, *sand*.)
The first exhibit contained a car and three paintings, and a good six-to-eight inches of sand. In fact, in order to get to any of the other exhibition halls, we had to cross past the car and clomp through the sand!
The museum is neat for several reasons. First, there’s none of the stereotypical “red circle on black background” modern art paintings. In fact, there were little to no paintings at all. Second, the museum is a revolving collection of exhibitions, rather than an unchanging, permanent set of any one thing. Third, the exhibitions rarely stay longer than 3 months at a time. This means you could come to this museum once every season of the year and it would be a wholly different experience every time!
If I could change anything about the museum, however, it would be to arrange things so that we could see the “real” walls rather than the temporary sheetrock. The bits we could glimpse were covered with frescoes and tapestries and ornate mouldings. But I guess the mind set in Europe is more like, “We have so many old, old buildings–who cares if we turn one into a Modern Art Museum?”
Later, we strolled about the town and in and out of the two main cathedrals. Both had pipe organs on the second story, and one had some kind of shrubbery growing in the baptismal basin. (We have no clue what that was about!)
On that note, have you ever come across something similarly inexplicable in your travels? I can’t be the only one running across runny eggs on pizza and bush-filled baptismal basins. Share your stories!
