Today was a grey day with gentle rain falling at times. After yesterday’s all-day tour, I took the opportunity to spend the morning catching up on things, making a 1pm reservation for a restaurant that was right next door to the Lëtzebuerg City Museum on the Rue du Saint Esprit.
I walked from the hotel to the Avenue de la Gare, and then to the Place Wallis expecting a tram to pick me up. But when it didn’t arrive I looked up to see the street blocked by two huge trucks and a crane. There was some electronic announcement flying by on the message board, but as it was all in French, I didn’t really understand it. And so I decided to walk.
Fortunately, Luxembourg is a small city and it was only going to take 15 minutes. I continued along Avenue de la Gare, crossing another bridge over the gorge, and then turned right onto Rue du Saint Esprit. This street is in the old part of town, and so it changes direction every so often. However, Google maps did a good job of keeping up. I left at 12:36 and arrived at 12:50, ten minutes early, so I took some photos, then went into the restaurant.
Brasserie L’Hetre Beim Musee was a bit fancier than I expected. But they offered me a seat at the window. It took me a long time to decide what to order, because the restaurant was pricey and I didn’t want to pay too much. Also, I didn’t know what the portion size was. On the other hand, I was pretty hungry having had nothing to eat since 7pm the night before. So I compromised on a small portion of Caesar Salad, and some grilled fish. I also ordered a small glass of wine, and a small bottle of water.
The Caesar Salad was very good, but also very rich. I tried to eat as little of the creamy sauce that I could possibly manage, and realized (too late) I could have gotten by just on this dish. The grilled cod was beautifully cooked, but everything was bathed in butter, which is far too rich for me. Again, I tried to eat in such a way that I wasn’t imbibing too much of that buttery sauce.
After that, I paid the bill and left. It was then about 2pm, and I decided that since I hadn’t had dessert, that I would get a pastry from a shop nearby. I had to walk all the way to the Grand Rue before turning right onto Rue des Capuchins. I found it in the first block on the left-hand side. I bought one chocolatey thingy to have later, and walked back to the restaurant so that I could visit the museum next door.
The Lëtzebuerg City Museum is described as a place that illustrates the thousand-year-old history of Luxembourg. (Lëtzebuerg is Luxembougish for Luxembourg City.) However, I did not find that to be true. Getting into the huge glass cage of a lift, you descend to the bottom (Floor 0) and are met by a copy of the original document of 963 in which Siegfried of the Ardennes acquired the feudal lands of Luxembourg. The first thing he did was to build a castle, named Lucilinburhuc (“small castle”), on the Bock Fiels (“rock”). There is a lovely legend that Siegfried married a mermaid called (of course) Melusina. One stipulation of their marriage vows was that Melusina would have every Saturday to herself, in which to enjoy her privacy, and that her husband Siegfried could not be with her that day. Naturally, Siegfried grew curious ~ and jealous. He found his wife in a bath, with a tail, and realized he had married a mermaid! But it was too late to apologize, for Melusina vanished. (Some versions of this legend say she jumped off the highest rock in Luxembourg to her death in the Alzette river below.)
After that wonderful document, things went rapidly downhill. There was no continuity in the narrative whatsoever. Floor 0 didn’t have much to see, so I went up to Floor 1, where I was yanked into 1684, a very bad year for Luxembourg, because that is when the Marquis de Vauban (1633-1707), Louis XIV’s chief military engineer, lay siege to Luxembourg and took the fortress. Moving up to Floor 2, we were yanked into the early 20th century, with the resignation of Grand-Duchess Marie-Adelaide and the ascension of Grand Duchess Charlotte. The rest of the exhibition was about the horrible time Luxembourg had during the Second World War when it was occupied by Germany from 1940 to 1944. Floor 3 (the street entrance) didn’t have anything of note in it. The space was taken up by the information desk and the cloakroom where there were lockers for your backpacks.
So, all in all, the museum was quite a disappointment. The only good thing about it was that it was free. And so I decided (after that heavy lunch) to walk all the way back to the hotel. When I got there, Monsieur, who runs the hotel was insisting that the man standing at the counter hadn’t paid his bill. The man got on his iPhone to his wife, who confirmed this, so he drew a card out of a shabby wallet and paid. Then walked quickly off, together with two other young men surrounded by luggage.
“Ciao,” called out Monsieur, smiling benignly at their backs.
They replied in kind. This was somewhat surprising since the whole of the previous conversation had been going on in French. But this is Luxembourg, the Land of Many Languages.
Then I went up to the counter and asked him about doing my laundry, and he showed me where to go. But it seemed from what he said that they do it for you. He said there were two places and that they both open at 7 am. But Google could only find one for me called Bubble N Lock Laundromat at 12 Rue du Fort Wallis.
I will find out tomorrow.
