Vianden

While we were driving down the hill heading for Vianden(we visited Clervaux the day before), a fairy-tale castle on a hilltop came into sight. That’s the Vianden Castle, probably the most visited tourist destination in Luxembourg.

My friend and I decided to first check out the town and find a place for breakfast. We parked the car at a car park right beside the River Our. The riverside view was great with the houses by the banks and the hillside, the splendid landscape of Ardennes as well as the castle at the background.

This is a small little quiet town. So it's not easy to find a place that did breakfast on an early Sunday morning but we managed to find a pub where the people were so kind to make us breakfast. Across the road from the restaurant, there's the house next to the birdge where the famous French poet Victor Hugo lived for many years and it’s now Victor Hugo Museum.

After a leisure walk through the narrow quiet streets of the town, we drove up to the castle car park. The foundations of Vianden Castle date back to the 11th century and the main construction part such as the chapel and the palaces were constructed between the 12th and 13th centuries. The castle had been left to decay into a state of ruin since the begining of the 19th century. The current state of the castle you see today is the result of the restoration work since the 1970’s. We spent about two hours to see the entire castle.

After the visit we drove uphill and found a good spot to take a few nice shots of the castle but the weather was too foggy. We then spent the afternoon in the capital - Luxembourg City.