Week 15: The Tunnels Under Luxemburg

We spent some more time in Luxemburg this weekend, but in the capital city instead of one of the outlying towns. It was quite wet in our region of Europe, so we decided to visit more of an indoor attraction than we normally do for weekends, and visited the casements under the city.

There are two separate sites to visit. We weren't clear on that and visited the least popular first, which turned out in many ways to be the cooler of the two sites. First, there were fewer people around, so we could explore a bit easier without having lots of people in our way and second, they were darker and danker, as you can see in the photo of Jason below. It was very cool and only a little creepy. What kept the creepy factor a bit lower was that the casements are located in one of the city walls and intended for defensive purposes. If you want something to be defensive, at least in the 1600s when these were first built, you need a place to fire your cannons. As a result, as you work your way deeper into the tunnels, you find places with sunlight, which seems odd when you've spent 10 minutes walking in tunnels.

Jason in the Casements

The casements were also used during WWII as bomb shelters. Looking at them now, I think Londoners made out much better sitting the Tube than Luxemburgers did in these dank, narrow tunnels. One evidence of this is the sign shown on the wall in the photo below: "Don't forget the sand". It was how you "flushed" after doing your business--those cubicles would be the privy.

That is how you flush ("Don't forget the sand")

The second site wasn't nearly as grim, and is known as the Bock, and is located in between the two high points in the city. The Bock was also mined to prevent invading armies of the last century from making it into the city. The mines have been removed and you can go deep within the structure to the "mine gallery" and see where they used to be. There were quite a few.

The sun decided to come out as we finished up with the Bock, so we walked around the city a bit, coming across our first mime. The act had two mimes, but the portion of the video below only has the male lead. I think the performance was something about the relationship between the two mimes. There was definitely a mimed baby for a bit. And possibly the baby died. The bit below was the male trying to cheer the female up. I think. Other interpretations are welcome in the comments.

We did some more work on our projector screen this weekend, actually buying the required cloth, stretching it over the frame and painting it. In the process of stretching the cloth, the shape of the frame was altered, so it no longer fits between the two shelves. For that reason and to remove a bit of slack that emerged when I was painting, I'll need to remove some staples and restretch at least a portion. It will also need a second coat of paint. But, we did try it out with that latest episode of Torchwood and it is much better as a screen than that sheet I stole from pre-frosh weekend all those years ago...