What do you see in this stone?
The Stone Slabs of Luxembourg
Echternach, Luxelbourg, November 2021 - by Jeffrey
For a tiny country, Luxembourg boasts an amazing number of banks, business addresses and hiking trails. In my experience, the bankers are stuck up and the business addresses are little more than addresses. Fortunately, the hiking is great! So, as I had to attend to a wee bit of business in the country one Tuesday in November, I decided to make the trip pleasant by revisiting one of my favourite hiking trails in the country. The E1 trail that starts in the picturesque town of Echternach in the "Little Switzerand" region of little Luxembourg. As it was early November in a year that's seen a late autumn, I was treated to colourful leaves hanging from trees and littering the trails.
I arrived in Echternach around noon and got myself a decent, if rather dull pizza and a glass of slightly less dull red wine in town before embarking on the 13.5km (8.4 mile) walk.
What is particularly magical about this walk - and others in the area - are the huge slabs of stone that litter the woods throughout which the hike meanders. Some stones seem almost like castle walls that rise up from the trailside. Others lay like the ruins of fantastic buildings possibly once inhabited by elves, dwarves and other mythical forest dwellers. Yet other stones can seem like heads, animals or bizarre creatures.
Indeed, if you bring children along on the walk - or immature adults like me - a great game is to ask them what this rock or that rock looks like. Or, if you are walking alone, play the game by yourself.
As for me, I find that walking among the stones slabs and the autumnal trees, I soon get lost in my imagination.
As for you, what do you see in the stones?
The ruins of an alien amphitheatre?
A nice place for contemplation before continuing on the walk.
Okay, the stairs may be manmade.
An alley between the stone walls.
What do you see here?
And what do you see here? An alien house?
The walls seem like castle walls. But, they are just stone.
Again, the stones stairs here might, just might, be manmade
Stairway to heaven?
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