Luxembourg: Vianden Castle, Pirate Playground and Casemate du Bock

Welcome to the Grand Duchy, also known as Luxembourg. We left our hotel in Belgium early in the morning so we could spend a day in Luxembourg, since it was on the way home and we pass right through Luxembourg to get to Germany.

Our first stop in Luxembourg was at the Vianden Castle, or the Chateau de Vianden in Vianden.  This fortress underwent many different stages and is now just a huge museum and exhibit.  The castle was built between the 11th and 14th century and was built on top of a Roman castle.

We decided to do an audio tour to get more information and to understand more of the history of the castle.  It wasn't as entertaining as our audio tour in the castle in Belgium, but it was still filled with good historical information.  The main part of the castle was pretty much kept the same though history, but as it changed hands and ownership courts were added and additional rooms.  

The main owner of the castle was Henry I of Vianden and he had royal connections to French and Germany.  The castle was at it's height of influence and beauty during his ownership.  It was during his rein that so many modifications happened to the castle.  

We enjoyed the inside of the castle and seeing the huge fireplaces and the rooms with a few antique furniture which came from the period of Vianden.  There was even a wardrobe that once belonged to the family that was passed down and donated back to the castle.  

We enjoyed the beautiful views from the rooftop of the castle.  The castle is high on a hill and overlooks the village of Vianden, and it was a beautiful day.  We finished our tour then made our way out of the main court and out of the welcoming arches.  

As we drove away leaving Vianden we enjoyed looking back and seeing the castle up on the hill.  We continued to see it all the way until we left the city below.  The castle was pretty neat, but after visiting true authentic ruins, it was a little disappointing to see a castle that was not renovated to its original glory, it was more modern then I felt it should be.  

The city Luxembourg is a very busy city with not a lot of parking.  It took us a few tries, but we finally found a parking deck and parked the car.  I didn't even want to know how much it was going to cost us to park for a few hours, but it took a while to find the parking deck, so we didn't much care at this point.  We parked right by a park that the kids nicknamed "The Pirate Park". 

After spending the morning walking around a castle, they loved the time we gave them to play, run, pretend, swing and slide.  The kids saw the playground, started screaming and ran for the fun.  It was cute seeing them run around.  The playground was pretty epic.  It had a huge slide that Monster was scared to go down until I put him on my lap and slid down with him.  It was super thrilling.  It took a bit of climbing to reach the top, but once he had a taste of the slide, all he wanted was for me or Kevin to help him climb up so he could take the thrill ride down. 

Not only was there a huge pirate ship to play on and a slide, but there was a gigantic playground.  Monster loved climbing and running and jumping.  Even Big Sis was caught laughing and running on it.  

After playing for a little over an hour, we convinced the kids to leave the park and come explore the city with us.  We did have to bribe them with the promise of returning to the park and playing before we got in the car to leave.  We didn't have any plans for Luxembourg, so we just walked around.  The first place we stopped at was the Cathedral Notre-Dame.  This beautiful church was built in the 1600s. 

The inside of the church was pretty impressive.  There was gothic, baroque and even renaissance styles represented in the church.  The organ and stained glass behind the organ was super pretty.  I couldn't stay in the church very long because Monster decided it was super neat to hear his screams echoed throughout the stone church, which honestly echoed pretty impressively.  And nope, he wasn't mad, he just thought it was funny to yell and hear it echo.  So, I quickly exited with him. Kevin and the girls stayed longer to look around more.  

We left the church and made our way to the Casemates du Bock.  The Casemates were the only thing I knew I wanted to see before coming to Luxembourg, so this is how we ended our day.  I am so glad we were able to explore the Casemates, because it was my favorite part of Luxembourg.

The Casemates du Bock is a vast complex of underground tunnels which were built in the 1600s.  This area started as a fortress in 963, then it expanded and turned the city into one of the most powerful places in the world due to engineers that helped make the fortress pretty much impenetrable. The fortification had 24 forts, 16 strong defensive works and 23 KM networks of casemates.  These tunnels were used to shelter soldiers and horses and used as kitchen, bakeries, you name it.  It was super cool to see.

Some sections were tiny spiral staircases that just went on and on and on, going deeper and deeper.  I'm not gonna lie, I felt myself get a little clostraphoboic in these areas.  I found myself thinking of men and women who had to shelter in theses areas and just shivered.  We learned that during WWII  there casemates were used as bomb shelters and I couldn't help but imagine the sounds of planes and bombs as we walked in the narrow and dark tunnels that were super deep in the earth.

There were plenty of areas in the casemates that were not underground and were just in the side of a mountain.  These areas are now open with guardrails so you can enjoy the view of the city.  I wish we could have spent more time exploring, but it was getting late, we had a park we had promised to return to and we still needed to drive home, so we said "until we meet again" to the Casemates and made the long walk back to the park and parking garage.  I hope to return to Luxembourg and explore the casemates to their fullest.  It really was one of my favorite things we did for this trip.