Luxembourg City

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An overnight train to Paris, a morning train to Metz, and an afternoon train to Luxembourg had us arriving in Luxembourg City around 1:30pm. We got to our hotel and sat down while waiting to check in when we heard a man yelling outside, next a man Usain Bolt style sprinted past while the older gentleman ran behind him, he had been mugged. Hmmm... Not the best first impression of Luxembourg or the area that we were staying in. We were in desperate need of showers after the extremely sweaty day before in Toulouse followed by a long night and day on trains, so we grabbed a quick kabob and falafel to eat and headed back to the hotel for showers.

We got in on a Sunday meaning that the entire city is shut down for the day so after going for a quick walk we decided to take a nap. I don’t think I slept for more than a half hour squished sideways across 2 chairs on the train to Paris the night before, I felt like an old grandma with hip pain, neck pain, and all sorts of pains.... Does this mean that I am getting to old for this?? Can’t be, and if so, I’m ignoring it. Our nap turned into a full 4 hours sleep at which point we pretty much called it a day, did our research on everything that there was to do in Luxembourg and set the alarm for early in the morning to fit everything in.

The next day, as scheduled, we were up bright and early all nice and recharged. We grabbed a bite at the hotel and our tourist map and hit the road. Luxembourg city is quite small and we weren’t at all concerned about not being able to fit everything in. It was Monday so most of the museums are closed, tough to arrive somewhere new on a Sunday/Monday but in a 4 week trip it’s bound to happen eventually. As we walked to the city center, we began to feel like it was a ghost town... is this how other places we have visited looked in the early morning?! Finally around the Notre Dame, the tour buses started to pull in and large tour groups began to spill out. We made a beeline for the tourist office to book the English guided tour of the Palace as there are only a couple per day with a certain amount available and you cannot enter without being part of the tour. After getting our tickets, we set out on our own walking tour of the city.

We started with a couple of churches, stopping in at the St. Michaels and the Notre Dame then walked down to Bock-Casemates for the underground tunnels. These tunnels housed cannons and armies a long time ago and are an interesting network of tunnels and steep winding staircases. We played around exploring the tunnels for a couple hours to emerge back above ground in sweltering midday heat. Luxembourg has different levels to it with an outdoor elevator to take you to the bottom and top levels. We could not find the elevator and felt trapped up at the top trying to get down to the Grund. Finally after walking down some sloped roads, we arrived at the bottom of the elevator.... at least we knew how to get back to the top now! On the Grund level, we walked down to the old Neumunster Abby turned cultural center and checked out St. John’s as well as a comic exhibition in one of the display rooms. There were some nice trails and scenery around so we attempted to go on a nature walk but turned around not far in to avoid getting lost.

We grabbed the elevator back up to the top level then made way to Plaza d’Armes for a much needed lunch. We were cutting it close for time with our tour of the Palace scheduled at 4, by the time we had paid for the bill it was 3:50, luckily it was super close by. I asked Binnson if he had the tickets ready as we were speed walking over but he could not find them, we tore apart his bag and they were gone... likely part of the Bock-Casemates, he ran back to the tourist office right across from the Palace and the guy remembered him from earlier and gave him new tickets and told us that we better run. So we did, and seriously, after eating whatever we want for 4 weeks and not working out, it was a scary thought to run the 2 blocks! We made it just as the gates opened and were whisked right through. The Palace was nice inside but the tour didn’t take you very far, plus we discovered it is not actually operational to the Duke and Duchess anymore just a place for guests and working staff during the winter months. It is only open to visit for 2 months during the summer when everyone is on summer holidays.

Later we walked in circles up and down the shop streets looking for a post office to get a stamp for my postcard to Grandma and couldn’t find anything. We decided to head back to the tourist office one last time to see if they could point us in the right direction. Sure enough, they sold stamps in the office and asked us (because we were regulars at this point??) to fill out a survey for a voucher for free ice cream. FREE- okay! They handed us the survey and it was basically a novel of questions. Binnson laughed at me like I was a sucker for saying I would do it until they handed him one too. It really didn’t take that long and we got free pens and awesome fro-yo’s with toppings at SmooJo’s out of the deal.

We started our walk back across the Pont Aldophe towards our hotel and made a last minute decision to see if the Museum of Banking was still open (one of the only museums open on Monday), sounds strange but a number of sites and lonely planet recommend it. Apparently banking is a huge industry in Luxembourg and the neighbouring countries joke that the only reason people come here is to take money out. Even the front desk man at our hotel in Toulouse asked us if we were going to Luxembourg to do banking. The museum was closed for the day so we kept walking with plans to stop in at the Sacre Coeur church to take a couple pictures. While we were there a man came in and walked to one of the side candle offerings, I heard some money sounds and turned around as Binnson and I were the only people in there at first and then went back to taking some photos. The man walked quickly around back and forth throughout the church with a money jingle sound at every corner, which is when we started to get the feeling that the man was actually stealing from the candle offering containers and not donating. We left and picked up some food for dinner feeling satisfied that we had seen everything we needed to.

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