Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

On Saturday, we left Germany and headed into neighboring Luxembourg. Although it's not too far away (about 1 1/2 hours), we had never ventured that way before. The natives speak French and Luxembourgish. I've found if people don't speak English, they will usually speak German, thank goodness!
Our first stop in Luxembourg was to the Bock Casemates.
After we found a place to park, we realized that we didn't have any cash. I have no idea why we always start a trip with no cash. We even say how we need to stop at the ATM, but then forget. Most places only accept cash and this place was no different. So, we walked into the city center to look for a bank. This turned out to be a great detour. From the Casemates, we couldn't tell the city center was as bustling as it was. There were so many cute, quaint shops, and we got a couple of pictures from this walk. We passed the Mexican restaurant with its silly put-your-face-here poster.
We found a souvenir shop and bought something with "Luxembourg" written on it. I like to get little steins or miniature mugs of the places we travel to.
We returned to Bock Casemates and started our winding underground maze adventure. The first casemates were built in 1644. It was expanded over time to 23 km of underground galleries. Luxembourg City was called the "Gibraltar of the North." We didn't walk all 23 km, but we did walk up and down many stairs. There were places to look out. At one hole we could see the bridge. I took a picture of the bridge, then when we went over the bridge, I took a picture of the lookout hole.
There was also a tunnel that went under the road, parallel with the bridge. We had so much fun exploring the area and laughing at the old carved-out rock stairs that were sometimes so narrow and slanted that we had to hold on to both sides of the wall so we wouldn't fall.
We had a fun time in the casemates.

On our way back to the car, we saw a large group of motorcycles that were turning around. We stopped to watch them.
Our next stop was to Cathedrale Notre-Dame. This church is nearly 400 years old. It was a nice church, but not one of the coolest we've seen in Europe. Still, it was near the city center from the opposite side of the casemates, so we took in some of that.
There is another casemates called the Petrusse Casemates. These two casemates served as protection to soldiers during WWII. Together they can hold 35,000 people.
We didn't tour the Petrusse Casemates because there was something I really wanted to do instead, before it got too late.
It took us about 10-15 minutes to drive to the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial. This is a beautiful cemetery. The site was liberated on Sep 10, 1944. It was established as a temporary military burial ground in December of that year, and was since granted permanent burial ground use by the Grand Ducal government. The US did not have to pay for the land or taxes. I find it very honorable that they donated the land for our fallen soldiers.
The gate is beautiful. The laurel wreaths are an ancient award for valor. Eagles stand guard on each of the pillars.
The most famous soldier buried here is General George S. Patton, Jr. He was the commander of Third U.S. Army that served triumphantly in the European theater. His grave stands at the head of the cemetery, between two flagpoles.
The cemetery was very nice. There were enormous placard maps that showed the occupied territories and military movements during WWII. There were also two memorial pylons with the names of those whose bodies were never recovered or are in unknown graves.

There were a few fountains that all looked the same. It is said that the bronze dolphins and turtles symbolize, respectively, Resurrection and Everlasting Life.
There was also a very little church that could fit 8 people uncomfortably. It was nice though.
After we left the cemetery, we got back on the freeway and headed north into Belgium. Our directions were wrong, so we took a detour to SHAPE, which is a 16-nation NATO military base. The hotel there was a dive and we were happy we were in the wrong place. It took about and extra hour to get to where we were supposed to be--the smallest US Army post I and Jer have ever seen--Cheivres Air Base. This is a little confusing to those of us in the military because it is an Air Base, but mostly Army works there.
It has the nicest, brand-spanking-new military hotel I've ever stayed in. It was a nice place to stay.
And keeping up with the cursing on my blog, this (last picture on the right) is a bus we saw while driving in Belgium. Jer says there's a reason they say, "Pardon my French."
So ends day 1 of our little driving vacation.