The Green Mile

Our new home is about a mile from my office. It's literally just down the road, albeit in the European sense where names don't stay attached to streets and visa-versa. Most days I amble down this road between 8 and 9, and stumble home between 5 and 6. I thought I should take you on a little journey. (Feel free to follow along, if you'd like.)

100 rue de Neudorf. Home base. Here it is. (Olli-olli-oxen-free!)

78 rue de Neudorf. Le Petit Cafe. Petit, yes. Cafe? Not so much--more of a bar, seldom open, seldom-er busy. For me this marks the "almost home" part of the walk.

59 rue de Neudorf. The first of several construction sites we'll pass. "Neudorf" translates to "new village" and indeed lives up to the name. There are probably more than a dozen on this road as it winds up to the airport--new old buildings, old new buildings, new new buildings--and the road is frequently filled with carpenters, masons, and other assorted construction crews.

40 rue de Neudorf. Chez João & Diana. Luxembourg is home to a substantial Portuguese population, including the proprietors of this fine establishment. Unlike the one above, this one is ALWAYS busy, from when I pass it on the way in to when I get home. And there is always futbal on the TV. And apparently, they make fruit racecars and vegetable turkeys!

19 rue de Neudorf. The second major construction job. Star and I are really hoping that they are planning to renovate this one, rather than tear it down and start over.

Tawioan. This path juts off to the left, back up the hill to a "parcours" nature circuit track. Unfortunately, it has been too cold/snowy to avail myself of that yet (or at least that's what I'm telling myself.) At any rate, I haven't stopped by on my way to work, although a quick Google search says there's a geocache up that way. Hmm... This also marks a change in the name of the road--though not the road itself--as we now venture on to rue de Clausen.

30 rue de Clausen. Cake Box "The Art of Baking." A patisserie and custom cake shop that would make my sister proud. From the looks of things, this will deserve its own entry once Star and I meet up for lunch there some time soon.

21 rue de Clausen. Here things get a little more interesting. This statue and gateway bear a lion's head (very common symbol in Luxembourg) and the date 1659 (!), but the road leading underneath it is named rue Malakoff. The road is named for a tower at the top, which is in turn named for/built in honor of a tower seige during the Crimean War (vive la France!). All of this, of course, happed AFTER 1659, so where do you suppose this went before?

17 rue de Clausen. My favorite stop on the walk to work is this building: crumbling, ivy-covered, behind rusting wrought-iron fencing. It's all so very romantic.

Clausener Breck. This bridge marks the final entry into Clausen, which has been the home to breweries since the Middle Ages, when Benedictine monks went all "Friar Tuck" on the area.

Rives des Clausen. True to history, the Clausen area is still filled with a row of bars, pubs, taprooms, breweries, and nightclubs--although they don't usually get going until I am well on my way home. At the other end of this row is my office. (Amazon's office is immediately next to Microsoft's and Skype's--it's a small world, after all.)