casemates du bock | MontgomeryFest

Firstly, I have a (large) touch of claustrophobia. I’ve been known to jump out of elevators as the doors are closing because there’s too many people. I about freak out when I can’t get my shirt over my head quick enough….what if I get stuck and my hands are just flailing around in the air and there’s an emergency? And don’t even get me started on tunnels….so pointless. so dangerously pointless. (I know, I know, Minke, they serve a very important role in the Brussels transportation system. But bridges are good too.) I’m tense even thinking about it. And I hope all of my friends survived the Dallas park opening over the indeed pointless new downtown tunnel….I’m completely convinced that they did not account for all of the weight that the park is supposed to hold. Okay….

So secondly, on our trip to Luxembourg, we visited the Casemates du Bock. The Luxembourg fortress. The first tunnels were dug out in 1644 for underground defenses below the old castle..lots of canons and storage area for explosives. The entryway stairs lead down to the huge archaeological crypt. More stairs lead down through dungeons to the casemates themselves, a series of long tunnels down into the rock parallel to the road above. Crazy cool.

the two gold towers in the distance are the European Union Court of Justice

The views looking out from the fortress were incredible..

But then we got to these stairs. Y’all. These stairs weren’t playing around..

what? whoa. no!

J went down them and left me up top. And I tried to go down them, I really did. But there were people coming up and they were going so slow and then I thought I heard more people and then other people were just standing looking at me while I kept calling J’s name and they were getting too close to me so I ran to a window-sorta thing for air and then J came up and said it wasn’t worth it. Phew! But, really. I tried.