Vianden Views

Raise your hand if you like castles.

Raise your other hand if you like pictures of castles.

(If I could reach through the screen and tickle your armpits right now, then this is the blog post for you.)

The village of Vianden, along with its castle, is probably one of the best known sites in Luxembourg.   I've now been to Vianden four times, I think, but this time I did more of the full-Vianden-castle-experience with Rachel and Wes.  I played hooky from French class, and we took a train and a bus there while the kids were at school and Pete was at work (my first time on the train in Luxembourg, which, considering we've been without a car for a year now, is fairly pathetic.)

Besides admiring the architecture itself, one of the interesting things to appreciate about a castle is how it is situated within the landscape.  Vianden Castle sits atop a little mound-like hill poking up out of a valley. But there is also a larger hillside behind this mound-like hill, and a chair lift that leads to a cafe at the top of the big hill, which affords views of the castle below.

In other words, I don't think it's humanly possible to restrain yourself from taking 3 million photos of the darn castle from every vantage-point and then posting them on the inter-webs.  So what follows is lots of that sort of thing.  

at the cafe at the top

from the chair lift on the way down

Wes and I riding back down, with Rachel one chair behind us and snapping the photo

We did the English audio-guided tour of the inside this time as well.

oh so color-coordinated

color-coordinated in the courtyard

And finally, because it's Europe and all, you have to stop at another cafe at the bottom, too.

Wes and Rachel.  Also pretty color-coordinated.

Okay, I know I said "finally," but here's just one more photo angle, from a year ago when we visited on our last day with our rental car!

the tiny building above Pete's head is the cafe

Like I said, not humanly possible.