| Probably the most strikingly sited of all Luxembourg's provincial towns, VIANDEN is still surrounded by ramparts and dominated by its hilltop castle, a mostly eleventh-century edifice garnished with everything from Romanesque to Renaissance features. Inside, some rooms have been partly furnished in period style - the Banqueting Hall and the huge Counts' Hall decorated with seventeenth-century tapestries - but much has been left empty, notably the long Byzantine Room and the octagonal upper chapel, surrounded by a narrow defensive walkway. For more authentic mustiness, peek down the well just off the old kitchen, and leave through the Gothic dungeon. You can survey the castle from the hill above by taking the chair lift to its 450-metre-high summit from rue du Sanatorium, just off rue Victor Hugo. At the top there's a restaurant with a terrace, and you can walk down to the castle by way of a footpath. |