Had a roadtrip in Europe 15 years ago or so with my wife. We planned to stop in Luxembourg for a lunch, but because we failed to find a parking we had to leave the country
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I walked across Luxembourg
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Re: I walked across Luxembourg
#32Sounds more impressive if you don't know Luxembourg is at max 50 miles long...
Wow. As someone who has driven from LA to Seattle without breaks quite a few times (which is around 1,000 miles), that really puts in perspective how small Europe can be at times. I guess that shouldn't be surprising as that's similar to the distance between Berlin and Moscow.
Re: I walked across Luxembourg
#33I've been in Luxembourg many times on our way from Belgium to France or Germany, but only last year I visited it for the first time. We did one of the Mullertal trails in 3 days and it's an absolutely beautiful little country.
Re: I walked across Luxembourg
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Parking is a problem in a lot of European cities. Trains are probably a better choice for such trips in Europe.
Trains are probably a better choice for such trips in Europe. 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.
We did a carless vacation this year, and picked Switzerland, which is absolutely perfect for it. Trains are actually better to reach some places than cars are.
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.
Re: I walked across Luxembourg
#35Love it! I use organic maps on a daily basis and it is an awesome tool even if you're just commuting.
I have it too, but often forget to use it in favour of Google Maps, but Google Maps is terrible for anything not in a car or train, and OSM always has fantastic detail for hiking trails. Every vacation I find myself switching to Organic Maps.
This vacation it helped us find a trail to a really beautiful waterfall in Switzerland.
Re: I walked across Luxembourg
#36The history of Luxembourg is an interesting microcosm of how the fortunes of states and dynasties have ebbed and flowed in Europe over the past thousand years. 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…
>> 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.
Re: I walked across Luxembourg
#37Sounds more impressive if you don't know Luxembourg is at max 50 miles long...
Wow. As someone who has driven from LA to Seattle without breaks quite a few times (which is around 1,000 miles), that really puts in perspective how small Europe can be at times. I guess that shouldn't be surprising as that's similar to the distance between Berlin and Moscow.
Well yeah, Luxembourg is smaller than basically entire US Pacific Coast for sure. Most places are.
Re: I walked across Luxembourg
#38Sounds more impressive if you don't know Luxembourg is at max 50 miles long...
Wow. As someone who has driven from LA to Seattle without breaks quite a few times (which is around 1,000 miles), that really puts in perspective how small Europe can be at times. I guess that shouldn't be surprising as that's similar to the distance between Berlin and Moscow.
>that really puts in perspective how small Europe can be at times
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.
Re: I walked across Luxembourg
#39A few months back I dragged myself away from Tears of the Kingdom and went on a four day hike across the entirety of Luxembourg. I planned my route using open source GIS tools, and did the cross country walk over a long weekend back in June.
I see you used QGis. Last time I tried it there was no easy way of plugging a router. I switched to QMapShack. It's a bit more complicated to use the IGN service for the maps (whereas it works out of the box with QGis) but there are several options for routers. The offline one (Routino) requires downloading data but it works well. I use it all the time to plan 2-5 days treks in the French Alps. Having the actual elevation profile for a given segment is really useful.
Just thought you might want to try this setup for your next trek!
Re: I walked across Luxembourg
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trains are probably a better choice for such trips in Europe. 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.
Which is fitting, as parking is not a big problem in rural areas.
Tell that to these people: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53984239 (Romanian tourists swamp village loved by Prince Charles).