The history of Luxembourg is an interesting microcosm of how the fortunes of states and dynasties have ebbed and flowed in Europe over the past thousand years.
There was a time when the House of Luxembourg was the main rival to the Habsburgs for control of central Europe, contributing four Holy Roman Emperors:
The dukes of this area used to be so important to European politics that Henry VIII of England married a Dutch duke's daughter for political reasons (and immediately regretted it of course, as he was wont to do).
The area of the Duchy used to be several times larger, but over centuries it was nibbled away by France, Prussia, and finally the creation of Belgium.
It has been under Spanish rule (those Habsburgs again), then invaded by the French revolutionary republic and annexed into France as a department simply called Forêts (Forests) because the revolutionaries didn't want to keep any names that honored the old nobility. After Napoleon's defeat the Congress of Vienna aimed to restore old borders and reinstate monarchies, but with multiple claims on Luxembourg, it was split and became a grand duchy whose head of state was the King of Netherlands.
It became an independent country in 1890 when the Dutch king died without a male heir. Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a claimant rather than the new Dutch queen. (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.)
>> Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a claimant rather than the new Dutch queen. (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.)
Game of Thrones, with its campy portrayal of regal titles and announcements, kind of drives this point home. European aristocracy, especially those derived from germanic and other barbarian cultures, held titles like collectibles. Lordships accrued rather than expanded. The could be dispersed and often were.
If you watch Queen Elizebeth coronation, the list of titles would shame Daenerys Targaryen. It's quite surreal. Queen of Jamaica, Empress of India, Defender of the faith...
Even the 20th century version was not unrelated to real politics, but as you go back, this reflected real political power and machinations. Every title had different rules, different arbiters, and disputes led to actual wars.
Queen Elizabeth II had so many titles they abbreviated them:
(On accession.) "Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith."
(At death.) "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, and Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter."
They did love collecting titles. The kings of England also claimed the title of King of France until 1802, even though they lost the very last enclave on French soil in 1558:
The reason it was such a strategic position, is because the town was a natural fortress. It's located on top of a high, flat rock, which is riddled with tunnels for gun casemates, making the town of Luxembourg very hard to take.
It was a vital part of the Spanish Road that the Spanish Habsburgs needed to move troops from their lands in Italy to the north during the 80 Years War.
In 1867 by treaty the anything military and the fortress was required to be torn down. Kind of a shame, because just a few decades later fortresses became almost useless in war. It's a bit weird to see the ruins of a fortress and then go to the local museum and realize that it was torn down recently enough that there are tons of photographs of it. On the other hand it allowed the rest of the city centre to be built up.
Friend of mine back-tested the simple "the next king is the first son of the previous king" against the past 1,000 years of English kings and found it to be true only half the time.
I did the same - taking only the kings/queens of England (i.e. starting with Alfred and ending with Queen Anne, ignoring those after the unification of the United Kingdom).
Son is by far the most common (21 from 50), followed by brother (6 from 50).
The next two are especially interesting - 5 new monarchs were usurpers (i.e. not closely related to the previous monach) and 3 times the new monarch was also an old monarch (i.e. a previous King was returned to the throne!).
There were 4 or 5 female successions (twice a daughter, twice a sister and once a daughter-but-disputed-succession [i.e. Matilda]).
Only once does it looks like the succession totally jumped a generation, and a grandson succeeded. In every other situation it looks like people were in the same generation (i.e. brother, sisters, cousins) or one lower (sons, daughters, nephews).
And only once did the succession 'jump back' a generation, with Richard III succeeding his nephew.
> Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a claimant rather than the new Dutch queen
If you are confused by this, try Crusader Kings game by Paradox (I prefer ck2 to ck3) for a good taste of multiple types of inheritance and problems arising from ruling medieval realm and passing all accumulated titles to your heirs.
He links to a very nice government site which seems to have an interactive (and somehow coloured) Lidar map of the whole country [1]. Navigation is a bit awkward (you need to double-click to move around), but you can almost make out car models!
Indeed https://github.com/potree/potree has a bit awkward navigation, but there are quite a few nice lidar datasets available to explore with it, like the scan of the Matterhorn. I once used it to explore a dataset made by a photogrammetry drone, was quite nice.
The entire country of the Netherlands is also available here: http://ahn2.pointclouds.nl/ There is no rgb information, only elevation. But you can make out individual power powerlines, the scan resolution is really high.
I walked across Tokyo last weekend. Took me 20 hours. I suck at writing so all I'll say is that everyone should walk across a city. It's a magical experience. Turn off your your phone, bring a disposable camera and a compass and just walk. You'll discover so many personal insights.
For my 30th birthday a group of friends and I walked the perimeter of Manhattan island. Except for a section along the Harlem river, there are paths along the water the entire way so it required almost no navigation. We picked up and dropped off friends along way that only wanted to do parts of the walk. And we stopped at several bars too, meeting other friends that just wanted to have a drink. We started at 8am and finished just after 4am. I would definitely do it again, even without the friends or bars - but they definitely made it a memorable adventure.
Manhattan can be enjoyed without ever bringing your gaze to the ground level. The diversity of architecture means that every block feels fresh. World renowned classics, the sheer scale of central park and the greatest hits of art-deco. Pair that with new spots like the Highline, Hudson yards, Little island.... and it keeps on giving.
And then you come back down to earth and Manhattan also happens to be the best city for people watching. What a delight !
This was my early pandemic habit. Watch a long, walking only, YouTube video of some far off place. The best ones had no talking, just the ambient sounds and sometimes a on-screen note about something you were looking at.
The fascinating thing was watching pre-pandemic videos and your own response to groups of people and hearing coughs inside buildings.
For about ten years, I walked every New Year’s Day from my home near Yokohama Station to somewhere in Tokyo—Ikebukuro or Ueno or Asakusa, about 35 kilometers one way. Very memorable, as you say.
I don’t think I would do it in the summer, though.
Started in Hachiōji and ended at the start of Chiba prefecture. The heat made it tough. I was thinking about doing a walk from Tamagawa station to Yokohama this weekend. I love seeing what's between all the stations and building up a new mental map of the area.
Not to invalidate your experience in any way but I think it is a special case of walking in any big city you have never been before. As long as it is sufficiently dense/walkable and you don't need to fear being robbed, it's magical. Taipei, Seoul, Bangkok, you name it...
I agree. I hated walking in the city I lived in Canada before moving to Tokyo. It wasnt very walkable and you really needed to plan for any type of long walk as you might end up in a place with no food or drink shops anywhere. The way Tokyo is zoned allows for every possible convenience I need within a mile of everywhere I walked. I felt extremely safe at all times too which made things way less stressful and allowed me to be completely in the moment.
FWIW, I’ve walked across San Francisco many times and the longer I live there the more I enjoy traversing it. The city is beautiful, walkable, filled with nice spots to stop for snack/beverage and nearly half the expanse can be covered by walking through Golden Gate Park down to the ocean. I can’t vouch for most cities, but I suspect that a lot of them are much less pleasant underfoot.
Sadly true. I’ve walked miles across parts of Indianapolis where I’ve been at significant risk of being hit. No sidewalk, and bridges are hair-raising.
While a compass helps with orientation, it doesn't help you find where you are or where you're going, so a map might be a good addition (or a replacement, as I find it pretty trivial to orient myself in a city when given a map).
Why a disposable camera? I would think any user preferred camera would be fine, even a cell phone (just put it in airplane mode to avoid distractions).
With a disposable you'll need to be more intentional about how you want to capture moments. You only have 20 shots and no extra features to create the "best" shot. You begin to really value moments when you know that it'll make the cut for one of the 20. And you don't over think it. Just a quick snap is all you can do. Every shot matters but at the same time doesn't.
I’ve often done that in Paris, absolutely enjoyable. Through the city proper you only walk a little over two hours north-south or east-west. With a few detours to points if interest and breaks for coffee it’s one of my favorite ways to spend a half day.
I walked across most of Barcelona a few years ago, fantastic experience. On the few solo journeys I've made I get a ton of walking in like this, but yeah, you definitely need a rest day or two.
That's a far far bigger endevour than my efforts.. but I do love walking from a city to the airport, dragging my carry-on if necessary.
The last part can be a bit stressful, as airport terminals are not always made for pedestrian access. But it's very satisfying to feel like you have 'escaped' a city under your own steam as it kind of falls apart and back together.
Total was 90km. It was a mostly straight shot from west edge of tokyo to the east edge passing through central tokyo. It's one of many routes and I only saw a small slice of it. It's a bit of a labyrinth at times if you don't stick to the main roads. I hit a lot of roadblocks and winding paths through residential areas. I didn't want to overplan though. Getting lost was part of the goal. All I knew was that I had to head east.
I see you used QGis. Last time I tried it there was no easy way of plugging a router. I switched to QMapShack. It's a bit more complicated to use the IGN service for the maps (whereas it works out of the box with QGis) but there are several options for routers. The offline one (Routino) requires downloading data but it works well. I use it all the time to plan 2-5 days treks in the French Alps. Having the actual elevation profile for a given segment is really useful.
Just thought you might want to try this setup for your next trek!
I was a bit surprised that Luxembourg is actually quite a bit bigger than I had thought, especially as I wasn't too far off with the population. In my mind it wasn't SO much bigger than the other small European countries it's often lumped together with. Time to visit, I guess :P
> I was a bit surprised that Luxembourg is actually quite a bit bigger than I had thought
I live in Luxembourg now and it's not that small. There are actually various little cities and going, say, from Luxembourg city to Esch-sur-Alzette, driving on the highway (even if it's only for a short while), feels like going to another city.
It sure feels funny to go to, say, IKEA, which takes 15 minutes or so knowing that the IKEA store is in... Another country! (I go to the one in Belgium)
It's a complete change for me: last year I was in a rural area (in France) and the closest highway was a 50 minutes drive or so.
I think Luxembourg gets combined with European micro-states, Andorra, San Marino, Vatican City, etc. But it is quite a bit bigger than them. Luxembourg is 5x bigger than Andorra and 3.5x smaller than Cyprus.
Had a roadtrip in Europe 15 years ago or so with my wife. We planned to stop in Luxembourg for a lunch, but because we failed to find a parking we had to leave the country
I'm kind of surprised, it was and still is a very car-centric city. The very centre can be busy but these days, with a smart phone you could easily find parking within 500m or so.
Trains are probably a better choice for such trips in Europe.
Having 'done' Europe both by train and by car, the trips end up being very different. Trains are great if you want to hit the major cities. With a car you can visit all kinds of small villages, rural areas and interesting nature that you cannot really reach by public transport.
> Parking is a problem in a lot of European cities.
On the flipside, the inner cities are much nicer. You have fewer of those seas of concrete just for parking. I wish it was even more so and street parking as well as open lots would just not be a thing. If you really need to come by car, put it in some underground parkade (for $$$). Cities are too dominated by cars. They should be there for people, not the other way around.
Parking where you want can be a problem. You won't have issues if you use a parking garage or park in the outskirts and then use public transportation.
trains better only if you want to follow train path. we had a bit of "freestyle" roadtrip (with multiple stops over couple of weeks, not point to point) Dusseldorf to Paris with help of state of the art iGo on asus pda. In Paris we did ditch a car and took train to the city.
That's kind of like suggesting wilderness hiking instead of urban sightseeing. I've traveled/toured NL by train and by car. Different countries entirely.
But yeah... In some cities, your best plan is probably to park at the hotel (perhaps on the outskirts) and use trains.
Fans of this sort of thing may enjoy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Time_of_Gifts : "it is a memoir of the first part of Fermor's journey on foot across Europe from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in 1933/34". Extremely lyrical style full of historical context.
I've been in Luxembourg many times on our way from Belgium to France or Germany, but only last year I visited it for the first time. We did one of the Mullertal trails in 3 days and it's an absolutely beautiful little country.
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There was a time when the House of Luxembourg was the main rival to the Habsburgs for control of central Europe, contributing four Holy Roman Emperors:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Luxemburg
The dukes of this area used to be so important to European politics that Henry VIII of England married a Dutch duke's daughter for political reasons (and immediately regretted it of course, as he was wont to do).
The area of the Duchy used to be several times larger, but over centuries it was nibbled away by France, Prussia, and finally the creation of Belgium.
It has been under Spanish rule (those Habsburgs again), then invaded by the French revolutionary republic and annexed into France as a department simply called Forêts (Forests) because the revolutionaries didn't want to keep any names that honored the old nobility. After Napoleon's defeat the Congress of Vienna aimed to restore old borders and reinstate monarchies, but with multiple claims on Luxembourg, it was split and became a grand duchy whose head of state was the King of Netherlands.
It became an independent country in 1890 when the Dutch king died without a male heir. Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a claimant rather than the new Dutch queen. (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.)
Game of Thrones, with its campy portrayal of regal titles and announcements, kind of drives this point home. European aristocracy, especially those derived from germanic and other barbarian cultures, held titles like collectibles. Lordships accrued rather than expanded. The could be dispersed and often were.
If you watch Queen Elizebeth coronation, the list of titles would shame Daenerys Targaryen. It's quite surreal. Queen of Jamaica, Empress of India, Defender of the faith...
Even the 20th century version was not unrelated to real politics, but as you go back, this reflected real political power and machinations. Every title had different rules, different arbiters, and disputes led to actual wars.
(On accession.) "Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith."
(At death.) "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, and Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_titles_and_honours_of_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_claims_to_the_French_t...
It was a vital part of the Spanish Road that the Spanish Habsburgs needed to move troops from their lands in Italy to the north during the 80 Years War.
Friend of mine back-tested the simple "the next king is the first son of the previous king" against the past 1,000 years of English kings and found it to be true only half the time.
Son is by far the most common (21 from 50), followed by brother (6 from 50).
The next two are especially interesting - 5 new monarchs were usurpers (i.e. not closely related to the previous monach) and 3 times the new monarch was also an old monarch (i.e. a previous King was returned to the throne!).
There were 4 or 5 female successions (twice a daughter, twice a sister and once a daughter-but-disputed-succession [i.e. Matilda]).
Only once does it looks like the succession totally jumped a generation, and a grandson succeeded. In every other situation it looks like people were in the same generation (i.e. brother, sisters, cousins) or one lower (sons, daughters, nephews).
And only once did the succession 'jump back' a generation, with Richard III succeeding his nephew.
If you are confused by this, try Crusader Kings game by Paradox (I prefer ck2 to ck3) for a good taste of multiple types of inheritance and problems arising from ruling medieval realm and passing all accumulated titles to your heirs.
[1] https://lidar.geoportail.lu/
The entire country of the Netherlands is also available here: http://ahn2.pointclouds.nl/ There is no rgb information, only elevation. But you can make out individual power powerlines, the scan resolution is really high.
Better resolution, more up to date -- but I don't know of such a nice point cloud viewer for it.
Manhattan can be enjoyed without ever bringing your gaze to the ground level. The diversity of architecture means that every block feels fresh. World renowned classics, the sheer scale of central park and the greatest hits of art-deco. Pair that with new spots like the Highline, Hudson yards, Little island.... and it keeps on giving.
And then you come back down to earth and Manhattan also happens to be the best city for people watching. What a delight !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgfd-uWTVwg (Kyoto under the rain)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgYPErtoljI (A stroll in a small town near Tokyo)
The fascinating thing was watching pre-pandemic videos and your own response to groups of people and hearing coughs inside buildings.
For about ten years, I walked every New Year’s Day from my home near Yokohama Station to somewhere in Tokyo—Ikebukuro or Ueno or Asakusa, about 35 kilometers one way. Very memorable, as you say.
I don’t think I would do it in the summer, though.
Why a disposable camera? I would think any user preferred camera would be fine, even a cell phone (just put it in airplane mode to avoid distractions).
I'd recommend Kyoto too. I cycled around it a lot but never got tired of the little side streets, temples and older houses.
I once had a long train 'connection' from Gare du Nord to Gare d'Austerlitz, early in the morning, which I decided to walk. Magical.
I took a photo of the Arc de Triomphe in the sunrise without any cars on the Place d'Etiole. Literally zero. I walked across to the Arc.
I have treasured photo, blown up to a poster, which hung on my wall for many years as a student.
https://www.randonautica.com/
The last part can be a bit stressful, as airport terminals are not always made for pedestrian access. But it's very satisfying to feel like you have 'escaped' a city under your own steam as it kind of falls apart and back together.
[0]: https://craigmod.com/
I planned my route using open source GIS tools, and did the cross country walk over a long weekend back in June.
Just thought you might want to try this setup for your next trek!
I live in Luxembourg now and it's not that small. There are actually various little cities and going, say, from Luxembourg city to Esch-sur-Alzette, driving on the highway (even if it's only for a short while), feels like going to another city.
It sure feels funny to go to, say, IKEA, which takes 15 minutes or so knowing that the IKEA store is in... Another country! (I go to the one in Belgium)
It's a complete change for me: last year I was in a rural area (in France) and the closest highway was a 50 minutes drive or so.
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Having 'done' Europe both by train and by car, the trips end up being very different. Trains are great if you want to hit the major cities. With a car you can visit all kinds of small villages, rural areas and interesting nature that you cannot really reach by public transport.
On the flipside, the inner cities are much nicer. You have fewer of those seas of concrete just for parking. I wish it was even more so and street parking as well as open lots would just not be a thing. If you really need to come by car, put it in some underground parkade (for $$$). Cities are too dominated by cars. They should be there for people, not the other way around.
But yeah... In some cities, your best plan is probably to park at the hotel (perhaps on the outskirts) and use trains.