Now that I’ve started writing posts in a chaotic non-sequential manner, I thought I may as well continue with that regarding our new country Luxembourg, as well as trying to catch up with the posts about our year travelling. I had planned the first post about Luxembourg to be about the move itself and our initial time here, but this week has included a couple of fun activities, which made me think about some of the yearly events occurring here that I’ve managed to take part in so far…
Nëssmoort in Vianden
9th October 2022
The first real event that I attended since moving to Luxembourg was the Nëssmoort. This event occurs on the second Sunday of October every year and is basically a celebration of the local nut industry. The fair has history going back the best part of a century and has been held every year since 1970, growing in size and popularity so that it now attracts up to 20,000 people (according to the official website).
Whilst I like a good nut product as much as the next person, the main attraction in going was to combine the festival with visiting Vianden. The destination is one of, if not the, biggest tourist attraction in Luxembourg, with its imposing castle brooding over the pretty town below. With autumn also starting to paint the trees, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to go and have a look.
It took about an hour and a half on a train and then a bus to get there from my residence on the outskirts of Luxembourg City. It was a picturesque journey given that a perfectly blue sky gave the backdrop to misty fields and trees – it was a perfect autumnal morning. Despite arriving reasonably early, there was already a steady stream of people heading from the bus station on the edge of the town towards the historical centre (only a 5 – 10 minute walk).
The main thoroughfare through the town had dozens of stalls lined up on either side as it crossed the river and made its way up towards the castle. I wasn’t really too sure what exactly to expect from a ‘nut fair’ but the variety of products on display was impressive. Obviously most of the items were nut based, from piles of loose walnuts at 3 euro per kilogram, to delicious cakes, to various nut liquors. However, there were also other wares that are traditionally found at country festivals, such as honey and cheeses. I even stopped to try a boar-burger, which was very tasty. A nut cake followed and also a beer by the river, whilst my bag got filled with some local praline chocolates (with walnuts) and a bottle of nut whiskey. I was pretty sceptical when I first spotted it but, like most of the stalls selling alcohol, they gave you free samples to try and I was very pleasantly surprised. Not a bad haul given that I hadn’t planned on getting anything. One word of caution, most of the stalls require you to pay in cash rather than card, so there was a constant long queue to access the only ATM in the old town.
Along with the festival, I also wanted to explore the town. So after having passed the last stall I continued up the path and headed up to the fortification up on the hills looking across to the castle. This area was very quiet, probably given that most people were at the festival, and it gave lovely views of the town. There was also one of the huge walnut trees that dotted the area, with its fallen nuts scattered all over the path, so I loaded up for future baking activities. The intention had been to also visit the castle, but given the amount of people that had descended on Vianden I decided to leave it for another day. A pleasant walk along the river sufficed before making my way back home.
It ended up being a very nice day and I’d definitely recommend visiting both Vianden and the Nëssmoort, although if you plan on visiting the latter you should get there early to avoid the hordes as much as possible.
Run in the Dark
9th November 2022
Exactly a month later I was taking part in the ‘Run in the Dark‘ event through the city of Luxembourg with about a thousand other runners. This event raises money for research into paralysis and consists of either a 5km loop up into the city from Clausen or two lots of the loop if you want to extend the run to 10km. Given that I hadn’t gone for a run since before I went travelling, it took some peer pressure during post 5-a-side football drinks to make the commitment…
But in the end I’m very glad to have done it. There was a very nice atmosphere throughout the whole run and with everyone being given a flashing armband it looked really cool as we ran through the streets. The route itself starts down by the river in Clausen, meaning you need to run up a couple of slopes to get up into the city (the second one in particular is a bit of a killer!). There you run through the streets a bit before you end up with nice views back into the valley. The last part is all down, which seems great until you remembered you’d signed up for the 10km and therefore have to face the hill again. Despite suffering on the second loop (I’ll train next time…) it was fun and about 58 minutes after starting, it was nice to run through the finish with the music blaring. It’s definitely an event I’ll look to do again next year.
The International Bazar
12th November 2022
Last but not least on the events for this post is the International Bazar. This is a huge charity event that is hosted over a weekend at the LuxExpo. It consists of dozens of stalls representing countries from all over the world. The volunteers running the stalls are generally from the countries they are representing and each stall is selling traditional food and souvenirs.
If you plan on going then either get there early or later in the day as around lunch time it gets absolutely rammed. It’s a very nice event though, as along with the stalls there was traditional music and dancing, and after travelling the year before it was nice to relive that with seeing the posters and pictures of places we’d been.
Our food and drink choices consisted of Chica Morada from Peru, an Appenzeller Barli-Biber from Switzerland, a filled Arepa from Venezuela, a beer from The Czech Republic before finishing off with homemade sweet mince pies from the British stall. There was also a large second-hand book stall with the majority of the books in English, so we picked up a couple of those as well.
A very nice way to spend a few hours.
If anyone is interested in using the Relive app that I used to track my route for the run, I’d appreciate if you went through the following link. Just so you are aware I do potentially get money off my subscription if I get other people to subscribe and you would get a free month of the pro version of the app. So it would be a win-win!
Brit and Czech Abroad 
Looks a very pretty place with plenty to do x
LikeLike