This is the terminus of Rue Des Deux Luxembourg in Athus. It goes on, obviously, into Rodange, but Google Street View hasn’t published its Luxembourg data. The two Luxembourgs are Luxembourg, the grand duchy, and Luxembourg, the province in Wallonia. The two were once one, but were separated in 1839 with the Third Partition of Luxembourg, Luxembourg’s largest loss of land in a long history of losses of land.
This region of Belgium has been particularly fond of Luxembourgish, or as we normal people call it “weird ass German” but since world war two, the fondness for the German dialect has dropped sharply. I wonder why. Regardless, in Pays d’Arlon, basically the area around the Arlon arrondissement, though I would also put Virton and Bastogne in here, Luxembourgish is still used commonly, and some street signs are even bilingual! This in itself is another challenge since Luxembourgish has no standard written form, and tends to just be spelled phonetically.
The official flag of the province is also based in the neighbouring country, with the same colours in the same position, though this is rarely used. I wonder if it’s not used for the same reason that Luxembourgish is falling out of favour. National pride, perhaps? Here’s the one I’ve seen.
Interesting, no? I do wonder where this comes from, as it’s also on Esch sur Alzette’s coat of arms.
The one on the Luxembourg coat of arms is actually pretty different. I’ll look more into this. And by the way, look at that coat of arms of Esch sur Alzette. How literal can you get? There is this tower that Esch sur Alzette represents itself with, which, by the way, I’ve never seen, and I’ve looked, and it’s on top of water, presumably the Alzette. If you didn’t know, you could assume as much from the big Luxembourg things to either side of the tower. There wouldn’t be a tower like that on the Moselle or the Petrusse…though, admittedly, it could be on the Sure, which, coincidentally has a massive castle in a city called Esch sur Sure. The coat of arms of that city includes a pig hiding underneath a dildo tree. Not a joke.
I don’t even know what I wanted to point out here anymore.
You know, one day I’ll tell the exceptionally boring story of how I came to be such a big fan of Luxembourg. Here’s me and my dad in the capital like a billion years ago. I’m really attractive.
