Luxembourg Hiking: Part 2

Day 3: Larochette to Hollenfels

The start of this section was again easy going and very pretty – the trail wandering alongside a mossy, tree-lined stream and coming to a junction at the base of a private castle almost hidden by trees. After lunching in Mersch, we headed up the hill at the back of the town and discovered that this section of the trail probably hadn’t been walked in a while. Parts of the trail felt a bit creepy – big open forests of bare trees carpeted with remnant autumn leaves that turned out to be full of tiny ticks and spiders (the spiders had us constantly on the lookout for some giant creature like Aragog in Harry Potter). After some frustration at having to constantly flick the ticks off our pants and also the lack of anything resembling a marked trail, we did another scramble down the hill and walked along the roadside for a few k’s until we found the home trail.

On entering Hollenfels we were greeted by a huge fairytale castle perched on a hillside, and overlooking a green field that in its day was probably perfect for jousting, archery and all the rest of the medieval sports. Except whoever designed this trail had a sick sense of humour because we had to ascend about 120m elevation in the space of about 500m. Not fun. After exploring the entire town (and there wasn’t much of it), we failed to find anywhere that looked like it would serve food. It was looking like we might have to use some Survivor skills and make a meal out of one of the backyard chickens… but thankfully, it turned out we could buy dinner at the hostel, so the chickens were spared.

Day 4: Hollenfels to Luxembourg City

By this stage, our legs and feet were pretty stuffed, and we’d decided that if it looked like rain in the morning, we were catching a bus. However it was clear and almost sunny by the time we’d scoffed breakfast, so once again we set off on foot. This leg turned out to be the longest of the trip – 25km. One section of the trail was confusing to follow (due to poor markings and other trails crossing and overlapping with ours), but once we got going we had an easy trek along the ridge of the mountains. We even saw some wild deer and rabbits. Annoyingly, a lot of the towns (especially the smaller ones) didn’t seem to have anywhere open where you could get food. This is especially frustrating when you’ve just walked about 15km, and then have to walk another 2km straight uphill to the next town which may or may not have any food either. To add to this, the temperature seemed to drop about 5 degrees, the sun disappeared and the wind picked up. It was a very good feeling hitting the outskirts of Luxembourg City, even with the added disappointment of still having to walk another 2 km to the youth hostel to get our bags, up a heartbreakingly steep hill to catch a bus, and then walking again to the flash hotel we’d booked into for a couple of days. In the end, it was all worth it – it was hard work and tiring, but the countryside was picturesque and pretty spectacular in places, and now we’ve got two days of full buffet breakfast to enjoy before we say goodbye to Luxembourg.