Luxembourg

Introduction

Not even big enough on most maps of Europe to contain the letters of its name, Lilliputian Luxembourg makes up in snazz what it lacks in size. A respected member of the European Union, a role model of international finance and a benchmark in comparisons of quality of life, Luxembourg enjoys a prosperity that nations many times larger aspire toward and envy. Visitors to the country pay for their luxury accordingly, but in exchange they find a wealth of spectacular verdant landscapes crisscrossed by rivers and dotted with the sort of rural hamlets that most people associate solely with fairy tales.

This is not to say that Luxembourg is all swanky suits and medieval villas. Its capital, Luxembourg City, manages to maintain a tranquil air of antiquity despite playing frequent host to fist-pounding, finger-pointing gatherings of financial-world leaders and EU officials. The north of the country lures outdoors enthusiasts with sylvan settings promising fabulous skiing and hiking. The Moselle Valley, just east of Luxembourg City, is one of Europe's most idyllic wine-producing regions. And what's most convenient, the capital is no more than an hour's drive from anywhere else in the country, so you can truly get a sense of the lay of the land without spending eons in doing so.

Luxembourg may not be as big a tourist draw as its superpower neighbours, but its charms are nonetheless unique and its people justifiably proud of their heritage and of their homeland. Just in case you'd doubt it, take a look at the writing on the wall: the nation's motto is inscribed everywhere throughout the capital - Mir wëlle bleiwe wat mir sin - 'We want to remain what we are'. After a visit, you're sure to hope they do.

Facts for the Traveler

When to Go

Springtime, the choicest time of year to visit, brings a riot of wildflowers and ushers in celebrations and folk festivals nationwide. The weather from spring through fall is usually good for outdoors activities - so long as you don't mind rain. Winter is not as extreme in Luxembourg as it can be in nearby countries, so if you find yourself visiting during the colder months, you needn't weigh yourself down with polar gear.

Events

For a small country, Luxembourg is big on festivals. The liveliest national events are Carnival, held six weeks before Easter; Bürgsonndeg (Bonfire Day), the following week; and National Day, on 23 June, which is celebrated with parties and revelry akin to those on New Year's Eve, particularly in Luxembourg City. Also in the capital and definitely worth catching are Octave, a Catholic festival held from late April to early May that climaxes with a street parade headed up by the royal family; and Schueberfouer, a fortnight's worth of fair-type fun held in late August that features a cavalcade of decorated sheep joining in the streetside revelry.

East of the capital, the Müllerthal town of Echternach celebrates Whitsunday (the 7th Sunday after Easter) with a handkerchief pageant in honor of St Willibrord, a local boy made good, whose remains you can visit in the town's basilica. That same weekend, up in Ardennes, the town of Wiltz celebrates its yearly Broom Flower festival with parades and colourful floats. The Moselle Valley's wine festivals begin in August and run through November's 'New Wine' celebration in Wormeldange.

Money & Costs

Relative Costs:
Meals
Budget: US$5-7 Mid-range: US$7-20 Top-end: US$20+

Lodging
Budget: US$25-35 Mid-range: US$35-60 Top-end: US$60+

Though Luxembourg is not Western Europe's cheapest destination, a shoestring traveller should be able to eke by on about US$30 a day. Travelling in comfort, sleeping in mid-range places and letting your belly get the better of your budget, you could easily bump your total to more than twice that. Double it again if you want luxury.

The Luxembourg franc is pegged to Belgium's, and although the latter is commonly exchanged in both countries, the reverse does not hold true. To avoid a walletful of Luxembourgian mementos, exchange your change before you leave. Banks are best for changing money, and all major credit cards are widely accepted.

Note that a 15% value-added tax (abbreviated in French as TVA) is slapped on just about everything except for hotel, restaurant and campground prices, which are taxed at a much gentler 3%. Tipping is not obligatory, and haggling is considered downright rude.

Attractions

Perched high on a promontory overlooking the Pétrusse and Alzette Valleys, the Grand Duchy's capital solemnly sits like a thousand-year-old gargoyle. In 963 AD, on a rocky outcrop known as the Bock, Sigefroid, Count of Ardennes, laid the cornerstone of a fortress that would become Luxembourg City. Although Sigefroid's fortress no longer exists - after nine centuries of attacks and occupations, his castle and most of its fortifications were blown up by the townsfolk in the latter half of the 19th century - the views and what little remains of the original structure continue to inspire.

Of the fortress' remnants, the labyrinthine casemates are the most impressive to modern visitors. Built in 1644 while the fortress was under Spanish domination, the casemates are a honeycomb of damp chambers and connecting tunnels hewn from the belly of the Bock. Originally 23km (14mi) of subterranean defensive passageways, some as much as 40m (131ft) deep, the casemates were soon the envy of Europe's warmongers - so much so that they earned Luxembourg the nickname 'Gibraltar of the North'. The reputation proved persistent when during WWI and WWII the casemates were used as bomb shelters for 35,000 people. Today, the casemates are listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, and 17km (11mi) of them are open to the public.

Winding down from the Bock, the pedestrian promenade known as the Chemin de la Corniche has been called 'Europe's most beautiful balcony'. At its southern base, the Citadelle du St Esprit provides superb panoramas of both the valleys and the Grund, or lower town, a picturesque, cobblestoned quarter that's home to the bulk of the city's meagre nightlife. Just west of the northern end of the Chemin is the Grand Ducal Palace.

The city is easily covered on foot. Most of the sights are along the southern rim of the old town, where strollers will also find scores of scenic lookouts and serene parks. Old town is based around two large pedestrian squares, Place d'Armes and Place Guillaume. The city's modern commercial center is across the Pétrusse Valley to the south, connected by two bridges, Pont Adolphe and Pont Passerelle. The Pétrusse and Alzette Rivers meet in the city centre.

Known as the Eisléck or Oesling, the Luxembourg Ardennes are the Grand Duchy's northernmost - and most spectacular - region. Winding valleys, fast-flowing rivers, verdant plateaus and towering castles combine to make the region hugely popular among visitors and residents alike. Of the three main towns, Clervaux is the most accessible, Vianden is the most touristic, and Wiltz ... well, it's very nearby to the hamlet of Esch-sur-Sûre, which attracts a staggering number of visitors solely because of its location.

Clervaux has two main sights: its feudal castle, in the town centre, and the turreted Benedictine abbey high in the forest above. The castle houses several exhibits, including Edward Steichen's photography collection, Family of Man. Though it's not much more than a village, Vianden's attractions stack up pretty well in a country this small. Besides the pervasive 9th-century charm, its most noted feature is the central chateau, a photographer's dream. Try to take a peek from the chairlift that climbs the nearby hill between Easter and mid-October. The village's other ace is the former home of then-exiled French author Victor Hugo, who lived here in the 1860s.

Built on the side of a small plateau, Wiltz is more spacious but less of a charmer than either of its neighbors. The Ville Haute (High Town) has most of the sights, but the train station is down below in the Ville Basse. South of town, the tiny village of Esch-sur-Sûre perches on a rocky peninsula skirted by the Sûre River and lorded over by steep cliffs and a ruined castle. Don't come here looking for peace and solitude, but come here nonetheless.

The E421 heads north out of the capital toward the Ardennes. There are also trains every few hours to Clervaux from Luxembourg City. To get to Wiltz and Esch-sur-Sûre, take the Clervaux train and transfer at Kautenbach. To reach Vianden, take the Ettelbrück train from the capital and transfer to a connecting bus. Buses also run to and from several of the larger towns in the region. None of these trips takes more than an hour and a half.

This region is where Luxembourgers come to play. Centered around the old Christian town of Echternach, in a pocket of woodland northeast of the capital, the area's hiking, cycling and rock climbing also make it one of the most touristed areas in the country. Head west of town to the walking paths, which wind through rocky chasms and waterfalls to Berdorf, 6km (4mi) away, and on to the crumbling remains of Beaufort castle.

If you're in Echternach on Whitsunday (the 7th Sunday after Easter), wave your hankies with the locals celebrating the pageant of St Willibrord, Luxembourg's only saint, who lived in town in the 8th century. His mortal remains now lie in a white marble sarcophagus in the town's basilica. Behind the basilica, there's also an interesting Benedictine abbey.

To reach Echternach, take the E29 northeast of the capital about 50km (30mi). The town is on the Sûre River, midway along the German border.

Wine tasting is the obvious attraction of the Moselle Valley, and if you like sweet, fruity whites, then the trip is well worthwhile. The valley's Route du Vin, or Wine Road, begins at Waserbillig and follows the Moselle River south through the wine region's capital at Grevenmacher and beyond to the picturesque villages of Wormeldange, Remich and Schengen.

The Cellars of Poll-Fabaire in the hillside village of Wormeldange are worth a visit, as are the larger Caves Bernard-Massard in Grevenmacher and St Martin in Remich. All three are open for tours and tippling from late spring to early fall. Each village celebrates nearly all stages of the wine-making process during the festival season from August through November.

The beautiful Moselle River, which marks southern Luxembourg's border with Germany, is known to locals as the 'Wine River'. April through September, its waters are plied daily by the MV Princesse Marie-Astrid, a tourist boat that hits all the major sipping-spots from Schengen, at the southernmost tip of Luxembourg, to Bernkastel, Germany.

The Moselle Valley begins less than half an hour's drive east of the capital along E44. Trains to Germany stop in Wasserbillig, and buses from the capital run to Grevenmacher with frequent connections to towns in the south.

Off the Beaten Track

There's not much to keep you in central Luxembourg, but the National Military Museum in Diekirch is almost worth the trip in itself. The museum's exhibits detail the events of the 1944-45 Battle of the Bulge and the liberation of Luxembourg from the Nazi scourge by US troops. It's open everyday from Easter through October.

If your taste for machismo is more slings and arrows than tanks and cannons, try the nearby Bourscheid Castle, a thousand-year-old relic sitting on a plateau overlooking farmland and the Sûre River. The castle is open to invaders from April to October, weekends only the rest of the year.

Diekirch is reached by car, bus or train in under 40 minutes from Luxembourg City. The castle is a short but windy drive northwest of Diekirch.

At the confluence of the Our, Ernz Blanche and Sûre Rivers, tiny Reisdorf basks in woodsy tranquility. Nearby hills provide panoramic views of Germany's Eifel region. In terms of distraction, the remains of a Roman villa are about it. Other than that, the only pinpoints of interest are the Hoesdorf steeple in the Our Valley and a US memorial to those who died during the Battle of the Bulge. Reisdorf is best enjoyed for what you don't find in so many other Luxembourgian villages: sweet seclusion. Reisdorf is northeast of the capital and is best reached by car.

Activities

With a nebulous network of marked walking paths and hiking trails, Luxembourg is both a hoofer's paradise and an escapist's hell. National routes are indicated by yellow signposts, while those marked by white triangles connect the hostels. Luckily, you need only to avoid the marked trails and turn your rambling toward the Ardennes region to get away from most of the madding crowd and find (some small amount of) blissful seclusion.

More pastime than passion for most Luxembourgers, bicycling is hardly the feverish lifestyle here that it is elsewhere on the continent. Still, bikes are available for rent in the larger towns and the capital.

History

Luxembourg's history reads a bit like the storybook background its landscape suggests. Though the area's occupation actually extends back further than the Roman era, present-day Luxembourg stems from the loins of Count Sigefroid of Ardennes, who raised a castle here in 963 AD and sowed the seeds of a dynasty that's spawned rulers throughout Europe. By the end of the Middle Ages, Sigefroid's city had the Burgundians, Spanish, French, Austrians and Prussians all waging bloody battles to conquer and secure it. Besieged, destroyed and rebuilt more than 20 times in 400 years, it grew to become the strongest fortress in Europe after Gibraltar.

Listed as a French 'forestry department' during Napoleon's reign, Luxembourg was included in the newly formed United Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with Belgium, in 1814. It fragmented 16 years later, when Belgium broke off from the Netherlands, taking half of Luxembourg along for the ride. This division heated up the Grand Duchy's desire for independence, and in 1830 the Dutch portion became present-day Luxembourg. The 1867 Treaty of London reaffirmed this autonomy. Soon after, the country declared itself neutral in international affairs and - an appropriate symbol of its nascent neutrality - torched its much contested fort.

The discovery of iron ore around 1850 ushered Luxembourg into the 20th century and pushed the country to the frontline of European economic influence. (Steel exports continue to make up roughly a quarter of the country's export trade.) When the industry slumped in the mid-1970s, the Grand Duchy reacted quickly by wooing big spenders from abroad with favorable banking and taxation laws. In 1948, after Nazi occupation during WWII, Luxembourg gave up its position of neutrality to join in various economic, political and military organizations, including NATO and the United Nations. The formation of Benelux - an economic union between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg - was among the more prominent of these groupings. It also served as a model for today's European Union, of which Luxembourg was a founding member.

Culture

After centuries of foreign rule, it should come as no surprise that Luxembourg's population is composed of about 30% foreigners - the highest ratio of any EU country. Today's invading hordes, however, cross the borders quietly, caps in hand, nurturing sweet dreams of employment opportunities rather than pillage and plunder. Luxembourg's per capita GDP was the world's highest in 1997, its standard of living consistently rates among the best, and its workforce boasts a remarkably low unemployment rate. Not bad for a country with a population about 30 times less than that of Los Angeles.

Squashed in between two major historical world powers (and having been conquered at times by both of them), Luxembourg takes a good deal of its identity from its neighbours' contributions. This shows itself both in the generally amicable relationship between the countries and their citizens and in their shared linguistic traits. Multilingualism is universal among Luxembourgers, and both the German and French languages are used in the press, in politics and in daily life. French is most common in government and schools, though Luxembourgish is the language you'll hear most frequently on the street. English is widely understood in tourist areas.

Luxembourg's cuisine is similar to that of Belgium's Wallonia region - plenty of pork, fish and game - but also features some heavy German influence in local specialties like liver dumplings with sauerkraut. Its beer (like that of neighbouring Belgium) is not too shabby; neither are the Moselle Valley's fruity white wines.

Few Luxembourg natives are internationally famous in the arts, which probably explains why Edward Steichen, a pioneer in American photography, is held in such high regard in his homeland. While the capital has a few good museums and galleries, few of the native artists seem to exhibit beyond the country's border. Expressionist painter Joseph Kutter brought modern art to Luxembourg. Roger Mandersheid is a respected contemporary writer who often publishes in Luxembourgish.

Environment

In the northwest reaches of the heart of Europe, just southeast of Belgium and wedged between France and Germany, tiny Luxembourg is almost lost among the local big boys. Only 82km (51mi) long and 58km (36mi) wide, Luxembourg is slightly smaller than the US state of Rhode Island and not much larger than metropolitan London. Still, its borders encompass 2586 sq km (999 sq mi) of varied landscapes, from forested highlands in the north to rolling farmland and world-class vineyards in the south.

The capital, Luxembourg City, is centered in southern Luxembourg, 294km (183mi) east of Paris, 190km (118mi) southeast of Brussels and 176km (110mi) west of Frankfurt. Northeast of the capital, the Müllerthal region is Luxembourg's 'Little Switzerland', an area of predictable charm and renowned (if only nationally) recreational possibilities. Just east of the capital is Luxembourg's portion of the Moselle Valley, known for its vineyards. The northern third of the country - famous as part of the Ardennes plateau, the scene of the 1944-45 Battle of the Bulge - is called the Eisléck or Oesling and is composed mainly of densely forested highlands, peppered with medieval castles like Esch-sur-Sûre and Bourscheid. The southern two thirds of the nation - known collectively as Gutland, or the 'Good Country' - is dedicated mostly to farming and viticulture and is covered in rolling hills and patches of forest. At its southernmost end, a narrow swath of red soil belies the country's once vast iron ore deposits and aging steel industry in what's known as the Minette, or the 'Land of the Red Earth'.

The highest point in the country is in the Eisléck region, but at 555m (1823ft) it's nothing to plan your trip around. Nearer to the capital, the hills average around 270m (900ft). The four most important rivers are the Alzette, the Moselle, the Our and the Sûre, but there are many lesser streams and channels too. The Moselle was canalised in 1964 and links the Grand Duchy to larger European waterways.

In a country this small, it's no wonder the climate doesn't vary much from one end to the other. The surprise is that it doesn't vary much between seasons either. Luxembourg enjoys mild temperatures most of the year, with warm summers and cool winters, slipping down to the low chillies only between November and February and very rarely dipping below freezing. The sunniest period is from May to August, when temperatures average around 20°C (68°F) during the day and 10°C (50°F) at night. April and September tend to be sunny as well. The Ardennes often have snow all winter, when the sun shines only a few hours per day. Rainfall is spread out pretty evenly throughout the year, averaging one good showering every three days.

Getting There & Away

The international airport, Findel, is 6km (4mi) east of the capital and is serviced by frequent buses. The national airline, Luxair, flies to a number of European destinations, including Amsterdam, Athens and London. Other airlines fly to Cuba, Iceland, Morocco, Russia, Tenerife and the USA. The departure tax (f120) is included in the price of tickets.

Eurail, Inter-Rail, Europass and Flexipass are valid on Luxembourg's train system, as is the Benelux Tourrail pass, which is also good on Luxembourg Railways' bus routes. Buses and trains connect the capital to all of Europe's major cities as well as many neighbouring towns and villages.

The major automobile routes into and out of the Grand Duchy include the A4 to Brussels and Paris, the A31 via Dudelange to France and the A48 via Trier to Germany.

The touristy MV Princesse Marie-Astrid plies the Moselle River en route from Schengen, at the southernmost tip of Luxembourg, to Bernkastel and Trier in Germany during the summer.

Getting Around

Unlike its Benelux partners, Luxembourg does not have an extensive railway system, so getting around once you leave the main north-south line can take time. The bus network, on the other hand, is thorough, and the fare system for both networks is simple, with unlimited day tickets and standard charges for set lengths of travel. Almost all railway stations have luggage storage facilities, but many bus terminals do not.

Luxembourg's road network is very good. Drivers must by law wear seatbelts, and all driving is done on the right. The price of fuel is among the cheapest in Western Europe - so much so that German and Belgian drivers are known to swing across the border to fill up. Conversely, car rental is expensive, though it may be your best bet for short stays. Be sure to ask about insurance, taxes (TVA) and unlimited kilometres.

Outside of the capital, public transportation consists mainly of taxis, which hike their fees by 25% on Sundays. Bicycle rental is an option, though it's not as popular here as in the rest of Western Europe.

Further Reading