Let's talk about Luxembourg

After less than ideal visits to Amsterdam and Brussels, I was at a bit of a loss about what to do. I had no intention of going anywhere else in Belgium and France seemed like a bad idea. I figured I may as well spend a couple of nights in Luxembourg, at least so I could say I’d been.

I knew nothing about it other than the country is pretty small — looking on Wikipedia to get a fact for you (don’t say I never do anything for you) you’ll doubtless be interested to note that it is the only remaining grand duchy in the world. I can almost see your eyes glazing over from here.

All this meant I had no real expectations of Luxembourg. I arrived via bus late in the afternoon, and the area around the station was very typical of modern city centres, the usual concrete buildings with shops selling their wares. Nothing special but not especially offensive, I didn’t feel I was about to be mugged or murdered.

As my hostel was, according to the map, about 2 kilometers I decided to walk it. It’s quite a good way to acclimatise yourself to a new place rather than just get a bus or something (and frankly I need all the help I can get in that department). As I’ve already mentioned I didn’t know anything about Luxembourg, and another very important fact is that it’s really quite hilly.

I finished the first half of the walk along flat terrain, but then it began to get pretty hard going, especially with a bag of stuff weighing you down. I didn’t really care though, because my goodness this was one pretty part of town. I had to keep stopping to take photos, and as the streetlights were coming on it looked magical.

I say I didn’t care — I was a bit perturbed when Google Maps directed me to take some fairly rocky and numerous sets of steps. I’m not great at heights at the best of times, let alone without a heavy bag on my back. Had I a travelling companion I would have insisted we look for a different route, but as it was just me I told myself to get on with it. It was really hard going, and I fell out with Google Maps the day after when I discovered that I could have just taken a parallel road with a gentle slope instead.

Slightly out of breath I made it to my hostel (only just behind, I noted with a sense of satisfaction, a couple from the bus who took a taxi). I threw my bag on my bunk with a certain vehemence, and met my room mates.

Well, one of them. I never actually met the other four, I’d be up before them and asleep when they got back but I do know they were Spanish ladies from their very loud whispering. The guy I met was friendly, here to work as a gardener and had a trial period to determine if he’d get the job so he’d go to sleep really early. He was a good guy but if the gardening doesn’t work out he can always be a Professional Snorer. I’ve never heard anything like it, it was a bit like when you’re a child and pretending to be asleep.

I was looking forward to this hostel for one simple reason — free breakfast! I’m finding the “keeping myself fed” task the more annoying part of travelling. The breakfast itself wasn’t anything particularly special, but free bread, meat, cheese, coffee and orange juice was very much appreciated. I do wish more hostels would do this. It can’t cost a lot, is a really good selling point and brings people together.

It turned out to be a nice hostel too, situated within walking distance of the old part of the town and the new which was essentially a choice of “OK, so which really steep hill do you want to walk up today?”.

Most of the good things seemed to be up the Old Town Hill, so that’s where I spent most of my time. I took a really pleasant though confusing walk up through some woodland (“this is a footpath in the woods — is it definitely Rue des Trois Glands?”) up to Park Dräi Eechelen, which has the MUDAM art museum and a fortress museum. The fortress is called Fort Thungen which I like to pretend translates from Luxembourgish as “Fort Thingy”, with a whimsical hand gesture thrown in.

I’m not much one for art galleries — I can certainly appreciate the talent and creativity required to create works of art, but my enthusiasm tends to wane after a short while. Nevertheless, MUDAM was well presented and it took me longer than usual to suffer art gallery fatigue. If you’re in Luxembourg and an art fan it’s definitely worth checking out.

I much preferred the fort bits though. If you’re a regular reader you’ll know I’m a bit of a history nerd. My two favourite periods of history are the Second World War and medieval history, but the difference is with the Second World War I can make (hopefully) intelligent comments about it, whereas with medieval history I just regress to an eight year old running around with a sword. It was fantastic. I had the place to myself apart from a small group of Japanese tourists, who I soon dispatched by hacking at them with a fake sword and yelling “HYAH!” a lot.

You can only pretend to be a child for so long before it becomes unseemly, especially when you’re in your mid thirties so I decided to go check out the rest of town. It really is the most spectacular place. Even the houses just look so quintessentially European, so much more characterful than English houses. They’re also more colourful. Not ostentatiously so, more muted pastel shades than anything else. I loved it all. There was even a house that had a slogan painted on it “This is not a cafe”, unless my French fails me which it did many a time.

I went for coffee at a real coffee place, not someone’s house, on the Place d’Armes which again felt so cool, so chic, so European. This was what I’d wanted in Amsterdam and Brussels but hadn’t managed to find. There were people around but it wasn’t busy, it felt perfect. Everywhere was a great photo opportunity and I had to restrict myself to a modest number of photos in case I run out of phone battery (when you get lost in a foreign city and have little confidence you’ll be able to understand spoken instructions in French you need to make sure you can get around).

After that I just wandered around, looking at how pretty everything becomes when the streetlights come on and it’s ever so slightly misty. I restricted myself to the old town because really once you’ve seen one shopping arcade you’ve pretty much seen them all.

My outward connection was really early in the morning and I wanted to give myself good time to get there as it was mostly uphill from the hostel to the station and I wasn’t going to be running with my bag, so I filled up on free breakfast, and said goodbye to my room mate. He seemed surprisingly sad considering I’d had about three conversations with the guy and I was only in Luxembourg for a day and 2 nights — “well, we may not see each other again, goodbye my friend!”. It’s never the pretty Spanish ladies sad to see me leave, mind you.

I can wholeheartedly recommend Luxembourg. I’m not sure why I’ve heard nothing about it before, but it’s definitely worth a stop. I will say though, if you’re going to explore it can be hard work on the hills all day so go light on the day packs and I can’t see it being pleasant in the middle of a hot summers day. Written on November 20th, 2017 by David Seddon