Day 4; The Grand Duchy of Luxemborg

Hari ke-4, kami ke Luxemborg City. Bandarnya kecik je, berada di tepi lembah. Apa yang special di Luxemborg? Emmmmm... pasti orang-orangnya sebab...; orang-orang Luxemborg ni tak suka orang asing, diorang tak peramah sebagaimana orang-orang di UK. Jadi, ada di kalangan rombongan kami yang kena halau keluar kedai, dan bila masuk tandas, macam-macam yang dikata. Tapi, kami pulak ok je... masuk kedai buah, dilayan dengan baik cuma dikedai souvenier, penjual tak keluar suara sepatah, muka macam lepas makan mempelam.. masam semacam hik hik.

What is Grand Duchy?

A grand duchy is a territory whose head of state is a Grand Duke or Grand Duchess. The only grand duchy in existence today is Luxembourg. It has been a grand duchy since 1815 when the Netherlands became an independent kingdom and Luxembourg was handed over to the King of the Netherlands, William I. Luxembourg remained a Dutch dominion until 1890 when William III, King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg, died without leaving a male heir, so that in the Netherlands he was succeeded by a female and, in the Luxembourgish Grand Duchy, by a distant male cousin, Duke Adolf of Nassau who became HRH Grand Duke Adolphe—an arrangement necessitated by Salic law being applicable to Luxembourg but not to the Netherlands. The present Grand Duke of Luxembourg is Henri.

The title Grand Duke (Latin: Magnus Dux) ranks in honour below King but higher than a sovereign Duke or Prince. Grand Duchy is the appellation of the territory of a sovereign Grand Duke's territory.

Here, we went to visit the Grand Ducal Palace, the official residence of the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, who is the head of the Grand Duchy; not as grand as the Buckingham Palace. But, we got to take photos with the guide here.

After that we went to see the Casemates. Casemates, is an underground passage used to accomodate more than 30,000 people during World War II. It is also part of the UNESCO World Heritage site. It was very interesting but due to short of time, we did not explore the tunnel as it was very large area, afraid that we would be left behind and was not advisable with the kids stroller.

We went to explore the city instead, bought some fruits, kebab from Turkish stall and some souveniers. Then, the journey continued to Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. Again, the scenary is changing... We saw a lot of grapes, corn and sunflowers farms along the way and from the distance, the Swiss Alps started to appears......Really-really amazing!!!!