Walking through the ‘Grund’…

I have been mentioning a lot about Grund since I started posting about Luxembourg. The reason being, I was secretly fascinated with the term, the description and the appearance of the place. It kind of created a mystical perspective to the whole imagination. In fact, it instantly reminded me of ‘Moor’ from The Hound of Baskervilles, one of Sherlock Holmes curious detective novels.

When I expressed my imagination of Grund as a mysterious and desolate place like the Moor, Yesh immediately dismissed my idea. He rather said that Grund is actually a nice and calm place where a lot of people go for a regular walk. The next day, when he took me out for a walk in the Grund, we came across joggers, cyclers, women walking with kids/babies, tourists and an elderly couple picking up some berries from the trees. It was really a scene of beauty and I was almost proved wrong!

Until…I walked all alone in the Grund.

After a week of cloudy, rainy and cold weather, that evening the sky was clear and the sun was shining bright. So, I was enthusiastic to go for a walk through the cheerful Grund. I called up Yesh asked him for the direction to the Grund. The route from my house was actually pretty simple; I just had to cross a couple of streets. Hurray! I was there.

With loads of excitement, I was hopping down the stairs with a musical rhythm. In addition to my rhythm, I could hear the sound of the dry leaves crumbling under my feet adding an unwanted creepy effect to the scene. I paused to look around. The tall and dense trees were hardly allowing any light onto the stairs. So it was a bit dark, damp and cold. And the absolute silence swallowed my enthusiasm.  I was panicky. To climb the stairs back is equally frightening.  At once, my thoughts were filled up with those many possibilities from several horror stories.  I stood clueless. But I could see bright light out there. At that moment a joyful little girl passed my sight followed by her parents. This gave me hope and I proceeded further.

After I was on the Grund, I was once again mesmerized by its magnificence. I was slowly recovering from the scary thoughts and started enjoying the place. The biggest relief was that there were a couple of random people a little far but within my sight. The sun rays and light contributed a lot to enhance the beauty of the place. Like always, I was lost clicking pictures on my phone. After a few snaps, I turned back to go ahead. Again I was alone and those people I saw earlier vanished away from my sight. Then, and then came a fierce dog running towards me. I was frozen with terror and my mind went blank. The huge dog was almost near and I didn’t know what to do just in case it jumped at me. ‘Marx’ called out someone and it immediately stopped and turned back and joined its master. I saw that person coming but I didn’t know that the person was its master. Whatever, I was rescued. And that moment I decided not to go for walk alone in the Grund.

The fact is that Grund is extraordinarily beautiful. However, going alone or going in the dark can be horrifying and may turn out to be a memorable adventure, especially for those who are new to the place.