I had set my alarm for 8:30, allowing for 11 hours of sleep. As it was, I awoke at almost 7:00 with a raging headache. It had started before bed, and at the time, I thought it was from exhaustion and dehydration. I now recognized it as the very specific caffeine withdrawal headache. Mon/6 and Tue/7 had been one long day for me, and I never got coffee on the “second” day. I had considered it when I finally reached my gate at FRA, but I was deliriously tired and the cafe menu and crowd had overwhelmed me.

I tried unsuccessfully to go back to sleep, getting up around 7:30 and rolling up the blackout blinds to find that it was raining.

Despite my 9 hours of sleep, I did not feel refreshed and I was starting to feel nauseated as well. The headache and nausea simultaneously meant I needed to get dressed and go out to manage my needs and made it very difficult to do so, as did the thought of walking through rain.

I powered through and researched nearby cafes, finding Glow. Hello, godsend. It was a 3-minute walk away, with a cozy vibe and a menu with offerings like avocado toast and acaí bowls. I was really not feeling well and not much sounded good, but I knew I needed something.

I ordered a coffee with milk, forgetting that Europe doesn’t make brewed coffee, only espresso drinks. I thoroughly enjoyed my steamed espresso, ignoring the milk on the side, and ordered the soy-coconut yogurt with fruit and housemade granola. I thought I was going to end up back in bed, but the coffee and food settled the headache and nausea and left me merely tired, which I could deal with.

Back at the listing, I chatted with Kasia’s partner, Jerome, whom I’d only met briefly last night. He said I was rather unlucky with the weather as this time of year is usually 7 or 8 degrees warmer and clear. The weather notwithstanding, he suggested I visit the Luxembourg City Tourist Office and do their UNESCO walking tour. Perfect! I searched online and found a KML file that could be loaded into Google Earth and a PDF file of the route that I downloaded and added to the Files app on my phone.

I checked email, logged money transactions, and began this post .. my usual laptop business. The rainy weather and my general state of being helped me relax into taking my time and not feel like I needed to go go go explore (though that feeling didn’t go away entirely).

I got dressed and went out around noon, purchasing a €4 day pass for the city bus and walking just a few minutes away to the stop that would bring me to Ville Haute (old town). As I boarded, I held my digital pass to the reader but nothing seemed to happen and the woman before me had just gotten on and sat down, so I did the same. I observed many passengers get on and off seemingly without paying.

It was a short walk from the bus stop where I disembarked to the beginning of the walking tour. I looked for somewhere to grab a quick bite along the way, finding a spot called appropriately Lunch Break. I sat at the counter with my tomato and mozzarella panini, and the gentleman next to me asked if I was from the U.S. What gave me away? I had asked whether I need to sign the credit card receipt; the machine said I did but the shop employee didn’t need me to. My lunch companion said it’s hit or miss.

He’s from the U.S. and has been living in Luxembourg since February for work. I asked him about paying for the bus, and he said many people have monthly passes that are validated once and then don’t need to be shown/tapped. Also, he’s never seen a ticket checker and he guesses that many people simply don’t pay.

After eating, I walked back out into the rain and around the block to begin my walking tour at Place de la Constitution, a landscaped city square with a view of the Adolphe Bridge and Musée de la Banque. A few steps away was the Monument du Souvenir, a “golden lady” commemorating Luxembourgers (this is a real term) who fought with the French military during World War I.

Old stone stairs led me down to Petrusse Park for a brief stroll through a bit of nature. On the way out, I encountered an elaborate skate park. Luxembourg City is a fascinating mix of the very old and very modern.

Old town is divided into upper and lower, with an elevator and escalator providing access between them and the valley being the Grund district where 1,000 years of history are preserved. I walked through Grund a bit, losing the tour route as both the Google Earth and PDF maps were difficult to follow, especially with data service being somewhat slow-loading. I had first encountered outdoor escalators in Barcelona and would have liked to take the one here, it being somewhat of a novelty (at least for this American), but only found the elevator.

The next stop would be my favorite of the day, Le Chemin de la Corniche, a viewpoint described as “the most beautiful balcony of Europe” by a Luxembourg writer. It overlooks the valley, with picturesque views of Grund, the Alzette River, and beautiful old architecture. It was raining hard while I was there, a bit of a bummer given how gorgeous this view must be in clear weather (and how wet I was), but it was still lovely.

Despite being one of the main attractions of old town, I skipped the Casemates du Bock, a series of fortified tunnels built in the 17th and 18th centuries and used as bomb shelters during WWII. I was ready for an indoor break from the rain.

The tour continued to a section of upper old town with hilly, narrow, winding streets that feel like a trip back to the Middle Ages. I snapped a photo of the turreted window that reads “Mir wëlle bleiwe wat mir sin!”, the national motto which translates as “We will stay what we are” and expresses Luxembourgers’ desire to maintain their sovereignty; at various points, Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Germany have all claimed territorial domain over this small country.

Across from the Palais Grand-Ducal, the palace residence of the Grand Duke of Luxembourg is the Chocolate House, where you select the type of milk you like (or alcohol.. too early in the day for me, besides not feeling up to par yet) and your flavor of “hotchocospoon”, a wooden spoon with a block of chocolate on the end that you stir and melt into the milk. Genius. I considered matcha, lavender, and rose, but opted for a local flavor. I googled “Schwarzwälder” — Black Forest cake, or cherry-chocolate — and “speculoos” — a spiced shortcrust biscuit made around the holidays and originating in Belgium/Netherlands. I chose speculoos and enjoyed the warm spices in oat milk.

The final stops of the tour were Place Clairefontaine, home to a sculpture of Grand Duchess Charlotte, who reigned from 1919 to 1964 and symbolizes resistance to Nazi occupation, and a Cathédrale Notre-Dame (“a”, not “the”).

Nearby was the tourist information center and I made a visit to inquire about visiting wineries along the Moselle River tomorrow. I had found during research at home that there are no organized tours but a city bus goes out there and another runs north to south along the river, and I wondered whether there might be a brochure or flyer summarizing the pertinent details or if the staff could give me some tips I hadn’t found. One of them printed out bus schedules for me and gave me some maps. I didn’t much want to carry papers around when I could find these things online (and I wondered about the long-term viability of tourist information centers), but it was a helpful gesture and they may come in handy.

It was 17:30 and I had plans at 19:00. I figured I would be too tired to eat later and so I opted for an early dinner. The American gentleman in the lunch cafe earlier had recommended Mamacita, a Mexican restaurant. Said they have the best burrito he’s had in a long time. I found that it was a 5-minute walk away.

I couldn’t quite tell if they were open yet and it seemed they might require reservations. The staff first spoke to me in French and then to each other in Spanish, presumably about whether and where to seat me.

This led me to do the thing I always do in Spanish-speaking countries, which is to say a few words in my excellent accent, because I began studying it when I was 10, which makes me sound like I’m fluent, and then I don’t have any idea what the person to whom I’m speaking says in reply because it’s so fast and I only practice when I travel, and I feel like an idiot for having to ask to switch to English. I couldn’t believe I’d recreated this dynamic in Luxembourg.

In English, I was offered to be seated now or come back at 19:30, in two hours. I asked to be seated now and was shown to a small corner table in the back. I ordered a petite sirah from Baja Calfornia, Mexico (who knew) and looked over the food menu. Burritos were €18 to €20. Must be a really good burrito, but I wasn’t going to find out. I got the nachos (€12,50).

As I ate, a wave of jet lag washed over me. I’d hit the proverbial wall. I hoped for a surge of energy to last at least until 20:00.

A couple days before I left home, I’d looked up geocaches in Luxembourg City. I don’t geocache much at home these days, but I always do when I travel, both to acquire new countries on my caching map and especially because it’s a great way to explore a new city as cache hides are often in places of interest and not necessarily the obvious ones.

I could not believe my good fortune when I found an Event cache happening on the second of my three nights in Luxembourg. “GeoCoinFest” events happen in the U.S. and Europe every year; cachers get together to trade stories and geocoins, both trackable (they move from cache to cache) and commemorative. This year’s Europe events are taking place in 8 cities during the first two weeks of May, and I just happened to be able to attend one!

It was originally going to be held at Place d’Armes, an outdoor square. I checked the app to make sure I knew exactly where I was going and to see if there were any updates. Indeed, the meetup was moved to a nearby bar due to the weather, which suited me fine.

I walked about 5 minutes to a bar called Banana’s, arriving at exactly 19:00 and finding a large group already gathered in the back room. I had posted a “Will Attend” comment and so several cachers greeted me with, “Ah, you’re the American!” I got a half-pint at the bar (Bofferding, made in Luxembourg) and took a seat. I purchased a silver geocoin commemorating the event for €8 and was given some wooden coins (“woodies”) as well. The rest of the hour I spent chatting with many friendly folks and “discovering” trackables, also known as travel bugs.

Each small item has a tag with a code that is tracked on the Geocaching site as geocachers optionally retrieve it from one cache and drop it at another, or it can be discovered, which is to log it without moving it. The two organizers were wearing hoodies with trackable codes on the sleeves; I’ve seen travel bug stickers on cars, but wearable trackables is a first for me. Fun!

Most attendees finished nerding out around 20:00. I stayed a little longer as a local described to me in detail the multi-cache he developed but hasn’t submitted for publishing yet because he’s still fine-tuning the 16 waypoints. As with any hobby, there are degrees of interest and investment, and I’m on the more casual end of the spectrum than this guy.

It was after 21:00 by the time I got home on the bus. I chatted with my hosts about my day for a bit and got ready for bed. I’d intended to do some blog writing but was knackered and slept at 22:15.