Belgian Transit Strike

After a quick early morning train ride from Paris, we arrived in Luxembourg intending to immediately pick up some train tickets to Brussels. The plan was to have a nice relaxed day in Luxembourg and move along to Belgium in the evening for the next few days. When we inquired about purchasing our train tickets, the attendant seemed to take just a bit too much relish in telling us: “There are no trains to Belgium today.” We wasted a bit of time verifying that, yes, in fact, the train workers were on strike (a seemingly common thing in Europe, as they were on strike  when we visited Portugal as well) and that there were in fact no trains from Luxembourg to Belgium. After considering options of a taxi (2.5 hrs for ~$500) or a rental car (mostly manual transmission, and I’m dangerous enough in an automatic), we noticed a blue “mega-bus” pulling away from a nearby parking lot. It turned out they thankfully had another bus leaving for Brussels in the evening. Bus tickets were half the price of the nonexistent train tickets and it seemed to cut 30 minutes from the journey. So with that little minor catastrophe averted, we got some local bus tickets to head off to the Luxembourg city center.

One cool feature in Luxembourg is city-wide free wifi. It was particularly helpful in arranging our transit out of the place. The city has some very high-end shopping and dining on a few streets. We only had time to hit a few high points: the palace, the casemates (a 1000+ yr old fort and long series of tunnels), and notre dame. We also stopped by a really cool shop called the Chocolate House, which served a huge variety of hot chocolate as the primary offering.

We caught a bit of German around town, but French seems to be the primary language in Luxembourg. Prior to this trip, my travel partner started listening to a French-language podcast called “Coffee Break French” and had picked up some basic vocabulary and phrases that she’s been using. The little bit of French she used turned out to be very helpful in France. In hindsight, it may have opened some things up for us and made for more friendly treatment. Reasonable. Since German isn’t an option, she just continued with the French here in Luxembourg. When we were looking to place our order at the Chocolate House, a big sassy lady scanned the crowd (in no particular line or order) and said “Bonjour!” in an almost challenging manner. One or two people tried to mumble and stutter in English to get her attention and she just yelled “Bonjour!” over them, again interrupting anyone who tried to get her attention in English and looking right through them like they didn’t exist. It was then that I leaned over and whispered: “This is your moment.” She stepped up front and (it would seem) conveyed in French which slice of cake we wanted and that we’d be dining in with our hot chocolate. You seriously would not believe the change in the lady’s demeanor. She changed over to English and walked us through the routine there and set aside some stuff for us. All I had to do was just smile and nod.

Luxembourg is a cute city and certainly worth a quick stop. That being said, I’m still glad it was just a day trip and I was feeling pretty satisfied when our big double-decker blue bus pulled away from the packed train station. More than a few other people were still lurking there hoping for a train to Belgium.