Luxembourg - Corona Times - Biodiversum Remich

 I know I'm probably the only paranoid person in my area, but I still prefer to walk away from large crowds such as the ones in the city centre until we receive a vaccine against Covid-19. I now fear that we will catch covid in the last stretch if we are not careful and with my recent health scare (I'm not going to dwell so much on it, but I had a gallbladder removal surgery in January and another surgery a few weeks back) I am even more cautious than I normally am. BUT let's hope it will pass, we will receive a vaccine soon and be back to normal by Summer. 

That being said, we look for remote places, less known places, and as we enjoy an unusual warm weather we planned on the spot on Saturday to go to the supermarket not for our weekly grocery shopping, but for some sandwiches and water and head to a lake. We chose the Biodiversum Nature Reserve in Haff Réimech, near Remich and we were right. As Remish was more crowded than usual we feared that our plan might go wrong, but the paths around the lake were almost empty. 

We started with a little picnic by the lake and Ilinca took a short nap and then we walked around the lake and it was beautiful. At some point we came across a bird watching hut and from the first floor the view was a pure bliss, we waited for the first bird to appear on the lake and then left the hut for other bird enthusiasts. By the way there were a lot of people with professional cameras and lenses photographing the birds, I presume, so please excuse my phone photos illustrating this article :)

There were also little docks/piers for fisherman, some of them were private, but there were quite a lot left for the public and there were a lot of people enjoying the sun on those piers. We found one for our picnic, but be advised there are birds who come to beg for food. If you are scared of birds, like me, maybe that is not a good idea.

There is also a building sort of a museum sort of an information point about the nature and the birds one could spot on the lake, but we visited it a few years back. If you are interested you can find more informations here. 

That's it folks. I hope you liked my little article and I hope you will take my advise to visit the Biodiversum, the lake. You can find me more on Instagram, but you know that already @mademoiselle.ralu

Luxembourg - Corona Times - Émaischen

 After what it feels like an year of lockdown, Easter is again here and it will be another lonely one as we are not allowed to travel, well not without a PCR test and a lot, but a lot of trouble, and we were not smart enough to make an effort to have our parents over (vaccinated and all, because at this Romania is doing very well and most if not all the people I still know there are vaccinated already). Granted, as we are Orthodox it does not feel like it is Easter, but we have the holiday. Weird, but do move on.

So a tradition very dear to my heart is Émaischen which happens on Easter Monday in a town called Nospelt and in later years on the streets surrounding the Marche-aux-Poissons area in Luxembourg city. It is a market selling clay whistles in the shape of birds called Péckvillcher. It is said that those little whistles were made by the potters in the Nospelt area after a day's work with the remaining clay from making pots or whatever the potters were making. More about this tradition and in well formulated ideas you can read here. 

For us, as I've told you we do not celebrate the Catholic Easter, Émaischen was a reason to move out of the house, meet our friends and enjoy a market. Well, in Corona Times this is not possible anymore, but the potters in Nospelt thought of ingenious ways to still sell their clay whistles. I've read you can order one online and drive in Nospelt to pick it up on Easter Monday, but also there is a Pop-up Store in the centre of Luxembourg, on Grand Rue nr. 40 where for two days, yesterday and today, you can go and pick up your Péckvillcher.

Why would I buy a dust collecting figurine I will never use, you ask? Because it is tradition and because we need to keep sane and because those potters need to make a living and because we need normal human interactions, we need the stories and if you have kids, because they will love to blow your brains out once they figured out how to use them.

Last year, Ilinca's first Easter, we were all over the place with a small child and a pandemic and the Péckvillcher were on our last brain cell, but this year that Ilinca is a bit bigger and we can communicate better it was great that in this pandemic way we still could have our Émaischen. We went to Grand Rue 40 and she picked her own clay whistle and I've picked one and we made it fun and the sellers were delighted to tell us more about the tradition and about the birds and about their craft. 

So if you read this on April 3rd, please go to Grand Rue 40 and buy a clay whistle. I think it brings good luck to hear it sing on Easter Monday.

As usual I am more active on Instagram @mademoiselle.ralu and Happy Easter, friends!