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I walked across Luxembourg

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Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#61

Post by CastFX »

euroderf wrote: post #10

Eager to read similar about Lichtenstein, Andorra, San Marino.

I live in San Marino, let me chime in!

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.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#63

Post by The_Colonel »

famahar wrote: post #19

I walked across Tokyo last weekend. Took me 20 hours. I suck at writing so all I'll say is that everyone should walk across a city. It's a magical experience. Turn off your your phone, bring a disposable camera and a compass and just walk. You'll discover so many personal insights.

What was the distance? Tokyo seems immense and seems difficult to cross efficiently (you have to make a lot of small detours).

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#64

Post by jillesvangurp »

codr7 wrote: post #53

I'd definitely recommend poles. 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.

That and memory foam / gel pads in your shoes. I walk a lot since the lock down and I've had knee issues in the past. Good gel pads help and using your knees with light exercise actually improves things. I Mostly wear sneakers. Hiking shoes tend to be a bit more rigid and have less shock absorption.

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.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#65

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

pavlov wrote: post #9

The 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

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.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#66

Post by Symbiote »

dalbasal wrote: post #36
pavlov wrote: post #9

The 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…

Queen Elizabeth II had so many titles they abbreviated them:

(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_...

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#67

Post by AlecSchueler »

tguvot wrote: post #5
janosdebugs wrote: post #4

Earlier 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 better only if you want to follow train path. we had a bit of "freestyle" roadtrip (with multiple stops over couple of weeks, not point to point) Dusseldorf to Paris with help of state of the art iGo on asus pda. In Paris we did ditch a car and took train to the city.

You can train between major spots then use the bus to get to smaller towns and villages.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#68

Post by martin_a »

mcv wrote: post #34
dagw wrote: post #17

Earlier 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.

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…

Nah, don't worry, they (Deutsche Bahn) hit the hour mark quite often without any problems.

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

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#69

Post by Cockbrand »

coldtea wrote: post #38
not_alexb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 I…

> Moscow is in the very east of Russia

I'm confused, did you mean to say that Moscow is in the very West of Russia?

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#70

Post by Scarblac »

tda wrote: post #15
jvdvegt wrote: post #11

He links to a very nice government site which seems to have an interactive (and somehow coloured) Lidar map of the whole country [1]. Navigation is a bit awkward (you need to double-click to move around), but you can almost make out car models! [1] https://lidar.geoportail.lu/

Indeed https://github.com/potree/potree has a bit awkward navigation, but there are quite a few nice lidar datasets available to explore with it, like the scan of the Matterhorn. I once used it to explore a dataset made by a photogrammetry drone, was quite nice. 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 i…

AHN2 was measured between 2007 and 2012. AHN3 from 2014 to 2019 and I believe AHN4 is actually complete now (measured from 2021 to 2022?).

Better resolution, more up to date -- but I don't know of such a nice point cloud viewer for it.

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