Au Revoir, Paris

This morning our Parisian taxi driver to Gare de l'Est told us that spring was beginning.  On our ride to Luxembourg I saw the evidence. Fields have been turned, and some are already green with vegetation.  The willows are budding.  Fog hugs the land as the warm air butts against the cool earth. The TGV train could not take us all the way into Luxembourg as there has been an accident on the rails earlier in the week.  We needed a bus to complete our trip.  But all was very efficient with the bus waiting at the train station.

On a quest to visit the smallest countries in the world, we can now include Luxembourg along with Monaco, Vatican City, and Andorra.  It is a lovely city.  We discovered that the stable population is about 100,000. But during the day the occupants swell to 600,000 with workers that live in Belgium and France where housing is more affordable.  The language is mostly French but with some German.  At dinner tonight the waiter asked if we needed a menu in Dutch.

Our hotel is in the old part of the city where there are lovely large city squares surrounded by restaurants and shops.  It overlooks the Grand Ducal Palace and is larger than the Paris apartment.  It is filled with original paintings. Wayne's favorite is the painting with the bend-over naked ladies. A few pictures are at flickr.