I walked across Luxembourg
blog.ioces.com
blog.ioces.com
There was a time when the House of Luxembourg was the main rival to the Habsburgs for control of central Europe, contributing four Holy Roman Emperors:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Luxemburg
The dukes of this area used to be so important to European politics that Henry VIII of England married a Dutch duke's daughter for political reasons (and immediately regretted it of course, as he was wont to do).
The area of the Duchy used to be several times larger, but over centuries it was nibbled away by France, Prussia, and finally the creation of Belgium.
It has been under Spanish rule (those Habsburgs again), then invaded by the French revolutionary republic and annexed into France as a department simply called Forêts (Forests) because the revolutionaries didn't want to keep any names that honored the old nobility. After Napoleon's defeat the Congress of Vienna aimed to restore old borders and reinstate monarchies, but with multiple claims on Luxembourg, it was split and became a grand duchy whose head of state was the King of Netherlands.
It became an independent country in 1890 when the Dutch king died without a male heir. Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a claimant rather than the new Dutch queen. (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.)
Game of Thrones, with its campy portrayal of regal titles and announcements, kind of drives this point home. European aristocracy, especially those derived from germanic and other barbarian cultures, held titles like collectibles. Lordships accrued rather than expanded. The could be dispersed and often were.
If you watch Queen Elizebeth coronation, the list of titles would shame Daenerys Targaryen. It's quite surreal. Queen of Jamaica, Empress of India, Defender of the faith...
Even the 20th century version was not unrelated to real politics, but as you go back, this reflected real political power and machinations. Every title had different rules, different arbiters, and disputes led to actual wars.
(On accession.) "Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith."
(At death.) "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, and Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_titles_and_honours_of_...
that is no joke, remember back in 80 or 70, when she recalled the election results in Australia. Then they had the election again, and of course this time the other guy won.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional...
We have the same system here in Canada but if such a thing happened here there would be riots in the streets. Especially Quebec and First Nations. But really anyone would be very mad and we would probably drop the monarchy that day tradition or not.
Of course monarchy is nonsense but I have a thing for pedantry like this.
TBH the nonsensical nature of monarchy works out for Australia, as it costs essentially nothing and sort of acts as a ground strap to make the idea of “head of state” rather irrelevant. Just compare to countries like France or USA where the Head of State gets capital letters and is a person with actual power.
Next best would be a president like in Germany who is basically a nonentity with less power than a GG.
> Next best would be a president like in Germany who is basically a nonentity with less power than a GG.
Meh, you're just moving the position 1 rank down. The German Chancellor (in other countries, the Prime Minister) wields all the power instead.
Plus, you know, they're only presidents. After 4-5-6-7 (x2 in some cases) years they go away.
I generally favor the American-style presidential system over the British-style parliamentary system, but I think one flaw of the American one is that it combines the roles of the dignified and the efficient, often conflicting with each other, into one office.
The French semi-presidential system is a little weird, with technically the prime minister being the head of government, but the president still wields most of the executive power.
Indeed, that is the point. But the PM can be replaced more easily than, and doesn't have the same focus of attention of, the head of state. Best is when the two are muddled, as in the German case.
I've lived in Australia, USA, France and Germany so have some idea of the spectrum of options.
I’m not so sure. If that were the case, why not drop it now? There is nothing virtuous about the tradition.
What does this even mean? It's not like G-Gs the world over consult with Buckingham Palace before every action. Kerr acted as he believed was the correct course. You may or may not agree, but the 1975 dismissal was not a case of that Governor-General somehow cheating to get away with a flagrant violation of the rules G-Gs follow.
More to the point, Australians did not agree with your interpretation. The Coalition won the biggest majority in history in the federal election called one month after the dismissal. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_federal_electi...>
>We have the same system here in Canada but if such a thing happened here there would be riots in the streets.
The same thing did happen in Canada. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%E2%80%93Byng_affair> No riots.
Yet again, a Canadian (thinks he) knows more about other countries' affairs than his own. I can guarantee that Canadians as a whole were more aware of Trump winning the 2016 US presidential election by earning more electoral votes than Hillary despite receiving fewer popular votes, than the fact that the same thing (of one party forming a federal government by winning the most seats, despite winning fewer popular votes than another) had happened several times in Canadian history, such as in 1979. I doubt that this has changed even though this happened again in the two most recent federal elections to Trudeau's benefit.
On behalf of Canadians I'm sorry about whatever it is that we did to make you feel this way.
Yeah there's a story there.
Plus their apparent belief in having mind reading abilities is disturbing.
[1] Or The Dismissal, depending on who you ask
You'd think the queen interfering in an election would earn her more than one brief mention in the Wikipedia article. But Wiki remembers it differently than you do:
"The leader of the Opposition, Billy Snedden, was enthusiastic about the appointment and also agreed to reappoint Kerr in five years, were he prime minister at the time. Kerr then agreed to take the post, was duly appointed by Queen Elizabeth II, and was sworn in on 11 July 1974."
Of course, life turned out differently, but aristocratic claims are quite crazy. Who's the current King of Jerusalem, again? :-D
The thing to remember is that nations and nationalism are the centrepiece concept of politics today, but this is new.
Medieval politics was all about kings, lords and lordships. Not nations. National sentiments may have played roles, but secondary. Like the role race, class, ideology or whatnot today. Important, but nowhere near as central as nations.
The King of England wasn't very English much of the time.
The competing claims on england & france originate with Normans. They were if scandi origin, became powerful in France. They conquered England, Jerusalem, Cyprus, parts of Italy, etc. England became the house's important, long term procession... but they weren't English. They spoke french and claimed Viking ancestry.
Circa 1800 was a transitional period. Republican nationalism was exploding. Being a German house (Hanover) ruling England was becoming an issue. Royals started to adopt (previously derided) English folkishness. They raised their children in English, started speaking in a native accent, eating English foods and publicly participating in English activities.
You can still see this today, with British royals engaged in symbolic national "customs" like Scottish tartanry, Welsh language or whatever.
England wasn't claiming lordship over France. The king of England was. Up to 1800-ish, the king himself wasn't English. Not culturally and not by self-definition.
You know a title is too long if you have to resort to "etc." in official documents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_claims_to_the_French_t...
The BCP includes both references to the current monarch, and to Queen Elizabeth I who ordered it to be compiled. Unfortunately someone at the publisher didn't realize this, and did a find and replace of (among other things) "King" for "Queen" and "Charles" for "Elizabeth", resulting in a page that referred to "Our Sovereign Lord CHARLES, by the grace of God, of England, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith.”
0. https://blog.codinghorror.com/parsing-html-the-cthulhu-way/
And yet somehow there's supposed to be only one real king in the Empire (Bohemia).
Funnily he was also King of two different Galicias (the one in Spain and the other one in Ukraine)
I could bet on what his name would be.
I imagine a future where China badly loses an expansionist war but continues to identify itself as Protector of Tibet for 10 more generations.
Then again I can also imagine a future US Gov rejecting the Confederation of Desantia after it's Bugs Bunny style secession from the US - and continue to use it's archaic name of Florida.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_India
So her father, George VI, was the last Emperor of India.
It was a vital part of the Spanish Road that the Spanish Habsburgs needed to move troops from their lands in Italy to the north during the 80 Years War.
Friend of mine back-tested the simple "the next king is the first son of the previous king" against the past 1,000 years of English kings and found it to be true only half the time.
Son is by far the most common (21 from 50), followed by brother (6 from 50).
The next two are especially interesting - 5 new monarchs were usurpers (i.e. not closely related to the previous monach) and 3 times the new monarch was also an old monarch (i.e. a previous King was returned to the throne!).
There were 4 or 5 female successions (twice a daughter, twice a sister and once a daughter-but-disputed-succession [i.e. Matilda]).
Only once does it looks like the succession totally jumped a generation, and a grandson succeeded. In every other situation it looks like people were in the same generation (i.e. brother, sisters, cousins) or one lower (sons, daughters, nephews).
And only once did the succession 'jump back' a generation, with Richard III succeeding his nephew.
If you are confused by this, try Crusader Kings game by Paradox (I prefer ck2 to ck3) for a good taste of multiple types of inheritance and problems arising from ruling medieval realm and passing all accumulated titles to your heirs.
The entire country of the Netherlands is also available here: http://ahn2.pointclouds.nl/ There is no rgb information, only elevation. But you can make out individual power powerlines, the scan resolution is really high.
Better resolution, more up to date -- but I don't know of such a nice point cloud viewer for it.
Manhattan can be enjoyed without ever bringing your gaze to the ground level. The diversity of architecture means that every block feels fresh. World renowned classics, the sheer scale of central park and the greatest hits of art-deco. Pair that with new spots like the Highline, Hudson yards, Little island.... and it keeps on giving.
And then you come back down to earth and Manhattan also happens to be the best city for people watching. What a delight !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgfd-uWTVwg (Kyoto under the rain)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgYPErtoljI (A stroll in a small town near Tokyo)
The fascinating thing was watching pre-pandemic videos and your own response to groups of people and hearing coughs inside buildings.
I still put that on on days where city and modern living is too much and I need to remember what being in nature feels like.
I strongly recommend it to anyone.
Have you considered... being in nature instead?
An audiovisual experience, no matter how great, will always miss the smell, touch, and taste of actual nature.
For about ten years, I walked every New Year’s Day from my home near Yokohama Station to somewhere in Tokyo—Ikebukuro or Ueno or Asakusa, about 35 kilometers one way. Very memorable, as you say.
I don’t think I would do it in the summer, though.
Enjoy your walk! I did that route only once, and it might be the nicest one. My usual route was parallel to the Keihin Tohoku Line—Tsurumi, Kawasaki, Kamata, Omori, Shinagawa, etc. A bit industrial, but not bad on New Year’s Day.
There aren’t many possible routes because there are very few bridges over the Tama River.
Seconding building a mental map of the city, although I did so by biking for many many years. Only took a few weeks to feel confident about getting pretty much anywhere in Tokyo on a bike.
On the day when I could have actually put my newly acquired geographical sense to good use—March 11, 2011—I happened to leave for Osaka a few hours before the quake struck. All of my colleagues either walked home or slept in the office that night, while I had a comfortable hotel room in Namba.
Why a disposable camera? I would think any user preferred camera would be fine, even a cell phone (just put it in airplane mode to avoid distractions).
One, that you cannot see the photo you just took; it makes you more careful with your framing (similarly to your point about only having so many shots), and further helps you stay connected to the scene, instead of "chimping" the shot you just took.
Two, that because there is a period of time elapsed between when you take the shots and when you get back the results after the film has been processed, there is an additional delight factor when you get your photos back, and it can help you see your shots in a different light.
It's an interesting phenomenon that a technically superior implementation don't always mean the artistically superior implementation. Of course, a working photographer (working in news or sports) will sensibly choose the technically superior implementation; but the dilettante has more options, and I encourage all of them to explore those options.
I'd recommend Kyoto too. I cycled around it a lot but never got tired of the little side streets, temples and older houses.
I once had a long train 'connection' from Gare du Nord to Gare d'Austerlitz, early in the morning, which I decided to walk. Magical.
I took a photo of the Arc de Triomphe in the sunrise without any cars on the Place d'Etiole. Literally zero. I walked across to the Arc.
I have treasured photo, blown up to a poster, which hung on my wall for many years as a student.
The last part can be a bit stressful, as airport terminals are not always made for pedestrian access. But it's very satisfying to feel like you have 'escaped' a city under your own steam as it kind of falls apart and back together.
I planned my route using open source GIS tools, and did the cross country walk over a long weekend back in June.
Just thought you might want to try this setup for your next trek!
I live in Luxembourg now and it's not that small. There are actually various little cities and going, say, from Luxembourg city to Esch-sur-Alzette, driving on the highway (even if it's only for a short while), feels like going to another city.
It sure feels funny to go to, say, IKEA, which takes 15 minutes or so knowing that the IKEA store is in... Another country! (I go to the one in Belgium)
It's a complete change for me: last year I was in a rural area (in France) and the closest highway was a 50 minutes drive or so.
Having 'done' Europe both by train and by car, the trips end up being very different. Trains are great if you want to hit the major cities. With a car you can visit all kinds of small villages, rural areas and interesting nature that you cannot really reach by public transport.
Unfortunately to get there, we had to travel through Germany, and their ICE network is a complete mess of confusion and delay. They do seem to be good at keeping the total delay just within an hour (it was 55 minutes both times), so they don't have to pay back any tickets.
Funny story on the side: German ICEs are only allowed up to Basel, so they will not cause any delays in the Swiss train network. The Swiss fear that we would destroy their fine-tuned system otherwise. :-D
Which is a funny thing: Interlaken is officially a town of 5700 people, and yet they're got two train stations receiving international high-speed trains. I guess it's really a town of 5700 Swiss and 100,000 tourists.
And the ICEs that started in Interlaken left on time. But once our train to Switzerland got delayed, I think we had to switch in Basel and take a bunch of local trains. So maybe you're right; maybe they're only allowed as long as they're not delayed.
Still, I don't understand how German trains manage to become such utter chaos every single time. I feel a lot better about the Dutch railways now.
If you haven't seen it, there's the great talk from David Kriesel on the 36C3 [1] about how Deutsche Bahn is... "doing statistics" to hide their delays. It's well worth the hour!
[0]: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/reise/deutsche-bahn-verspaetunge...
I'd rather have an extra hour of delay than ruining a relaxing trip like that.
okay, WLAN was down, reserved seat displays were down, bistro was down, but the train was rolling!
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics." The older I get, the more true this becomes!
When I have stayed again for some time in Germany about ten years ago, in the same cities, everything was changed. A train that was not delayed was a miracle instead of being normal. Also everything was much dirtier, instead of being spotless, as before.
It was a quite shocking change after only ten years.
In the past, my trips to Germany rarely went further than Oberhausen or Essen, so that was never a big challenge to my belief in the German railway system. After this trip, my brother and dad (who have a lot more international train experience) were not surprised at all by our delays in Germany. Apparently confusion and delay are the normal state of things there.
As the DB (Deutsche Bahn) is a private company now (although they are 100% owned by the state), they have to make a profit.
How do you make a profit? Either raise prices or lower costs. Doing both is the best and that's what they do. Raising prices is easy, it just gets more and more expensive, even the "cheap" Deutschlandticket is too expensive, experts say it should probably be around 29 Euro/month to make a real change.
How do you save costs? You do only the bare minimum of maintenance, don't invest in building more tracks and instead reduce tracks and track switches. That's what they've done the last 20 years or so. [0]
This leads to ICEs being stuck behind slower trains as there are simply no more tracks to switch to and pass cargo trains etc. So, if some train gets stuck somewhere or has a defect, every other train is stuck behind that for some time.
Now, as the state subsidizes some parts of Deutsche Bahn, building something new is also cheaper than maintaining what is there. So they let some things rot down so far that they have to rebuild it completely. As the subsidization is then higher, that's better for the turnaround numbers.
There have been thoughts about splitting off building and maintenance of the tracks completely of the rest but that didn't work so far. In that scenario the state would take care of the infrastructure and DB would just "rent" it to drive on it.
To add something else to it:
I think David Kriesel has it in his talk [1]: DB also "found out", that you can reduce delays in your overall network when you start skipping stops or canceling them completely. If you know that you're too late at your last two stops, just cancel those stops completely.
Cancelled stops are not part of the delay statistics of DB, so not driving somewhere at all is, statistically seen, better than arriving there late. Only a little bit problematic for the people that want to get there or board there.
Turning around early also has the "advantage" that your new train will be back on time again easier.
It's a mess for long distance travel.
[0]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB_Netz#Netzentwicklung [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rb9CfOvojk
We only caught trains in Austria, and they were extremely punctual!
Source: I live in another small but not that small of a European country.
On the flipside, the inner cities are much nicer. You have fewer of those seas of concrete just for parking. I wish it was even more so and street parking as well as open lots would just not be a thing. If you really need to come by car, put it in some underground parkade (for $$$). Cities are too dominated by cars. They should be there for people, not the other way around.
But yeah... In some cities, your best plan is probably to park at the hotel (perhaps on the outskirts) and use trains.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoWizard#Cross-country_missio...
In general, as a luxembourger, i am intrigued by doing it, though there are several hurdles: - lots of villages, with gardens you cant walk through - various highways that are illegal to cross probably, and dangerous, though feasible. - some big cliffs that are very dangerous. I refer to some of the images in the original post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGqTzcQjD2c
This was across Luxembourg as well.
I dont live that far from luxembourg i'm planning to hike your trail.
i'm planning on doing it with a tent in my backpack. Did you came across some official campgrounds? Or is it legal to camp wild in luxembourg?
Thanks
Happy trails!
I don’t know if he made it, but he made a lasting impression on me.
In the 70s, though, I was with my parents on the Delhi-Tehran portion of the old Kathmandu-London route. I'm only seeing recollections of the old trips, though, no indication that groups are doing it now.
I think in the 70s people went through Afghanistan, the Khyber pass and then Pakistan/Peshawar, which is a very bad idea these days.
Maybe I’ll see Khyber pass one day, I don’t know. The Hunza valley in northern Pakistan was incredible enough. Stay safe first !
Edit : this assumes you’re an obvious tourist. If you’re a local I guess things are very different
The recent ones seem to be broken, but old ones still have a working preview.
This vacation it helped us find a trail to a really beautiful waterfall in Switzerland.
If they actually wanted to make it easy to find the right restaurant for you in the area, there's dozens of things they could do to make it easier for people.
They enable using the entire body when walking and act as additional points of balance which means you don't have to focus as much on just staying upright, it's like having two extra legs attached at your elbows.
The poles might help as well. Nordic walking, is a thing that a lot of cross country skiers do in Scandinavia to stay in shape during the summer. Also nice for people with balance issues or weak backs of course. Done properly, it makes for an intensive workout.
Fortunately I never had problems like that but I am sure using barefoot shoes (Fivefinger in my case) improved how I walk. When I am not using those I use zero drop Trailrunners (Altra Lone Peak) which kind of force you to use your front foot more.
I can walk all day on reasonably level terrain with no knee issues. I prefer poles when there is appreciable climb and I absolutely must have poles and compression sleeves on my knees for any substantial descents.
I always hike with poles but if the terrain is level enough they'll be simply in one hand or possibly stowed on my pack. If I'm on a mountain I'll be using them frequently.
The historic center, which is called San Marino Città, is a gorgeous medieval town and it's also part of UNESCO heritage. I definitely recommend a trip there, if you happen to be somewhere near.
When I went to school there, I regularly missed the bus so I had the chance of doing a few walks down to my home. It's a bit steep, since the town is located at the top of mount Titano at 700m of height, but it's truly charming.
On a much lighter category, someone "hiked" Monaco in a straight line: https://magamig.github.io/posts/crossing-an-entire-country-i...
Well, Europe is not exactly small. Luxemburg is just a small country.
Europe is 3.93 million sq mi. The contiguous US is 3.1 million square miles (3.6 if we include Alaska) [1]. So Europe is quite bigger. The European Union countries alone are over 50% of the contiguous US.
So that would be like judging the US as small by considering how small Rhode Island is (which is roughly the size of Luxemburg).
>I guess that shouldn't be surprising as that's similar to the distance between Berlin and Moscow.
Well, Berlin is almost centered in Europe, and Moscow is in the very east of Russia, so that's not very surprising. On the other hand, "the European route E45 (...) with a length of about 3,225 mi is the longest north–south European route (some east–west routes are longer)".
For comparison NY to LA is 2,790 miles (so shorter than that), and even Portland, Maine to San Diego is 3,090 miles (again shorter).
[1] With an area of 10.2 million km² (3,938,000 sq mi), Europe is 20% larger than the contiguous United States. The European Union has an area (without the UK) of over 4.23 million km² (1.6 million sq mi). How many countries are there in Europe? Europe is shared by 50 countries.
I'm confused, did you mean to say that Moscow is in the very West of Russia?
(Well, technically not the very very west, but pretty close given the scale of that country).
I also looked and Rhode Island is 70km north to south. I don't know if it has as many pubs and hotels as Matt encountered, though.
Look up the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. All make his 4 day trip look like a stroll in the park--to do any of them in 4 *months* would be a very good performance. All require a certain amount of permitting, I know the PCT permits are by lottery (capacity restrictions), I'm pretty sure the CDT ones are not except for problems getting campsites in the national parks it passes through. No idea on the AT. To accomplish any of these in a single trip requires maintaining a good pace. There are people who have hopped around (doing hot parts in cool times and cool parts in hot times) and completed all three within a single calendar year--last I knew the number of such people exactly matched the number of moonwalkers.
If that's too big for you there are things like the Arizona trail (IIRC 800 miles) and the Colorado trail (I think it's under 500--but note that an awful lot of it is in the 10,000'+ range.) There is the Vermont Long Trail, no idea of the details. I know there are many others but they do not come to mind.
i just can walk 8 kms every day :(
Our 4yo daughter did day hikes in the 15-20km range a few times last year, in mountainous terrain. I think attitude and resilience are key.
In this case, one advantage was the author having a 7kg pack and using accommodation/food along the way rather than carrying a tent, sleeping gear, food, 2-3L of water, etc. Starting with day hikes or walking part of your commute is an easy way to build up to trying longer adventures.
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/montana/grinnell-glacier-... (from where we started, this was 19km return plus climbing around at the top; I carried her on my shoulders for less than 1km)
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/idaho/sawtooth-lake-via-i... (15+ km and rained for part of it)
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/utah/chesler-park?u=m (16km)
In 2021 when my other two children were 6yo and 9yo, they did 40+ km in 24 hours. Hiked midday until 10pm and then 7am until midday the day after. They are just normal kids; I am not fit but enjoy hiking.
Here's that story: https://sarogaining.com.au/news/almertas-bluff/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CUUTaCcJfN8/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2...
And how about this family:
https://thetrek.co/pacific-crest-trail/big-trail-big-family/
Their 4yo is to date the only 4yo to complete the AT. Now they have done the CDT at 6yo. These are both >3000km treks.
25 km/day, flat terrain, light pack--I have dietary issues that could prove problematic for a four-day trip (expending 4,000 calories in a day, not an issue. Consuming 4,000 calories in a day would be hard--I would worry about bonking) but I fairly routinely hike 25km in a day and with nearly twice his load (I'm typically in the middle of nowhere, if I have to push the button help would likely be hours away--my safety standard is I should be able to survive the night) and rarely less than 500m of climb over the day.
25km (~15mi) per day on level terrain on a path in good condition is a good walk but not anything exceptional. If there are ups and downs and the trail is rock and rough that's a whole different story.
If you want a 'cheap' option that uses trekking poles.