Sunday, September 15, 2013

Castles of Luxembourg: Bourglinster

My parents are currently in the UK visiting my mom's family, and then they're on their way to Paris for a few days.  From there they'll take the train back to Lux, and we'll have a long weekend with them before they head back to the States.  Quite a trip, eh?

On our last day with our rental car, after our trip to the Alsace, we planned a little driving tour of some Luxembourg castles and the surrounding countryside.  Vianden is Luxembourg's most well-known castle, but there are quite a few more--supposedly around 100 in all!  We chose a handful that looked interesting and would make a small route, easily covered in a day.  Below is the route we took.  Actually, just pretend it's the route we took.  Between wrong turns, closed roads, detours, and outdated GPS maps, the real route was a bit more spaghetti-ish.
A/G) Luxville -> B) Bourglinster -> C) Larochette -> D) Beaufort -> E) Bourscheid -> F) Esch-sur-Sûre

Our first castle was in Bourglinster, just a few kilometers north of the city.  It's part really-old-castle (circa 1100), part quite-not-as-old-castle built on top of those ruins, and part just plain ruins.  There were a couple of restaurants inside, but not available to tour.  Still, we had a grand old time exploring the grounds. 

my folks at the entrance
look closely and you'll spot my dad's pink shirt on a restaurant terrace
Behind and to the left of James is a large stone that looks like a face.  This is  also a good view of the new castle built on top of the old one.
going underground
Aw, aren't I precious?
winding our way around
almost back
eating our picnic lunch in the courtyard
We all loved this little castle.  We were practically the only ones around so it was quite peaceful, as well as small and manageable.  You can read more about it here and here.

Stay tuned for more Luxembourg castles!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How fun! Looks like we need to explore some more castles beyond Vianden :)