Travel serendipity

The Café de Paris in Luxembourg (Don Dale 1967 photo)

Serendipity played such a major part in our travels in nearby Luxembourg, Belgium and France, and in Germany, too. On off-duty weekends, we'd pile into my Volkswagen and just go. Luxembourg was a favorite destination. It took about 45 minutes to drive to Luxembourg City.

I took this picture of nine woman and a man sitting in front of the Café de Paris on the Place d'Armes in the center of the city. Across the square was a restaurant, the Café du Commerce, that we wandered into one day looking for lunch. It was a lucky choice. The Café du Commerce turned out to be a true bistro with good food and superior service. I had my first experience with steak tartare there and loved it. Ditto the salmon bisque, which was delicious and unlike anything I'd ever had before. If someone had transported the Café du Commerce back to the States, we'd never have been able to afford it on our military paychecks. Europe, however, was still recovering from the war that had ended just 20 years before, and the dollar was still strong against most Central European currencies.

We returned many times to the Café du Commerce as we sampled the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg's attractions. One of the most spectacular sights in the city was the Adolphe Bridge, which was then only about 5 years old. It's a massive, arched structure that crosses the Pétrusse River valley. Before Luxembourg converted to the Euro, an engraving of the bridge was featured on the back of its paper money.

Another favorite destination, not in the city but closer to the German border, was the castle at Vianden. In those days it was in near ruins. The few tourists who sought it out were free to roam at will. Today it's been glitzed up dramatically, with tickets, tours, a souvenir shop and spectacular nighttime light shows. Back in the day, we'd just point my Volkswagen up the mountain and, at the top, we'd wander through the ruins of the castle, which dates back to the Middle Ages and was home to the counts of Vianden. (You can see before and after pictures of the castle by clicking here.)

Far below, we could see the town of Vianden, the River Our and farmland in all directions.