Upon entering the old city portion of Luxembourg, a large memorial towering above the area certainly stands out. It's called the Monument of Remembrance in English. Most of the natives just call it Gelle Fra, or Golden Lady.
On top is Nike, the goddess of victory - although it's hard to find a swoosh. The figures at the bottom represent the soldiers who volunteered to fight for France in World War I. Luxembourg was neutral in WWI, but the Germans occupied it anyway ... because they could. About 2,000 citizens of Luxembourg volunteered to fight for the Allies, and they died in teh process. The monument went up in 1923.
The memorial came down in 1940 when the Germans marched into the country again. The locals took some parts of it and put it into hiding. Some of the structure was restored after the war.
But in 1980, the Golden Lady was discovered to be hiding under the bleachers of a soccer field. She eventually went back on top of it, and notes about WWII and Korea were added to the memorial. It was all unveiled in 1985.
All in all, that's a pretty nice story about a monument.
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