Postcard from Luxembourg

I am a little short of time tonight so this won't be a long post. I was also searching for inspiration and thought if I could just select an old photograph from my collection, I might just write a quick story about the photograph. And then my eyes came across an old post card that I picked up 25 years ago. It was a postcard from the small European nation of Luxembourg.

The City of Luxembourg is small but very hilly and wooded and was the very first walled city that I had visited. Its towers, walls and embankments are visible in much of the city which made it very interesting. Here and there, one was filled with the urge to shout " Man the Ramparts!" and rush silly-nilly to the wall and play act at repelling the invaders.


All of which leads me to these closely linked to pictures below. The first one shows my partner in crime. His name is Joseph. He is an American and we met I think on the train and decided to pair up to take in the sights of Luxembourg. What can I say about him? He is pretty much your average American backpacker, full of exuberance and derring-do. Oh, there was one other thing. He was the son of the cartoonist who did the comic strip "Frank and Earnest". My tiny claim to fame!

Okay, back to the story. Since I am telling it, I will say that the innocent Malaysian was led astray by the seasoned American traveler. Yes, that's my story and I will stick by it.

At any rate, we walked around the city the whole day and eventually found our way on a winding road in a heavily wooded area. As we were on a hill, we could make out the city below us in between the top of the trees. The truth was that we were lost and it was getting dark rapidly. We kept on walking. By my reckoning we should have been close to a monument called "Les Trios Glands" or the "Three Acorns" (see last picture below).

Soon we were walking in pitch darkness and not liking it at all. Suddenly through the trees on the slope below us, we saw very bright lights. So Joseph suggested we cut through the woods and go down the slope towards the lights. It seemed like a better option than continuing along the pitch black road.

So off we went, half running, half slithering and half falling (okay, I know my maths ain't great) down that slope. As we were reaching the bottom, we could hardly control our momentum and suddenly we found ourselves launched into the air. Luckily, we did not fall too far but as it turned out, we landed on the top of the roof of the Trios Glands.

We briefly enjoyed the view which few tourists would have enjoyed as the roof of the monument was officially out of bounds and the monument was in fact closed for the night. We stealthily exited by jumping down to the slope on one side of the building. It was very exciting trying not to be caught.

We left the building behind laughing and in good spirits. The adrenaline was high from falling down the slope and then avoiding detection in a prohibited area...........and that is the only reason I have for what happened next..............somehow we accidentally put out the eternal flame that was burning at another monument nearby.

Well, that was my little tale of misbehavior in Luxembourg during my young and foolish days. Nowadays I am still foolish but too old to jump off rooftops. I hope that the Luxembourgian police will not appear outside my door tomorrow morning. If they do, I have only two things to say to them. One "Lighten up" and two "It was all Joseph's idea."