Daily Mail

A LITTLE TREASURE

Luxembourg City might be small but it makes a grand weekend break

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SHEETING rain greets me on arrival in Luxembourg City, and it’s mighty chilly. No one I know has ever visited Luxembourg. Indeed, no one I know has ever expressed a desire to do so, and I was beginning to wonder why on earth I’d bothered. I checked into Hotel Simoncini, a boutique hotel- cum-art-gallery in the centre of the city, dumped my bags, grabbed a brolly and headed out.

It so happened that I had arrived, completely unplanned, on the eve of Luxembourg’s National Day — Grand Duke Henri’s Official Birthday — and despite the driving rain, the city was fully en fête with stalls, stages and pop-up bars on every street and square.

I stopped under a dripping parasol and ordered a glass of cremant, the Luxembourg­ish sparkling wine that everyone drinks. And, blow me, it was overwhelmi­ngly delicious. Why had no one told me that Luxembourg cremant was so good?

Creamy, toasty, fruity and zesty, it would give many a champagne a run for its money. And, as I later discovered, Luxembourg’s Alsace-like still wines are equally toothsome.

I grabbed a bowl of warming bouneschlu­pp (the typical green bean and sausage soup) in Am Tiirmschen, a restaurant celebrated for its local grub, and went out to join the crowds of partying Luxembourg­ers.

A group of kindly youngsters adopted me, and we danced, sang and drank until dawn.

We also saw the most astonishin­g firework display, exploding high above the city in honour of the Grand Duke. It was better even than the pornograph­ic pyrotechni­cs and fruity fireworks I once saw in Nice, but that’s another story.

Luxembourg is built around the gorges of the Alzette and Petrusse rivers with an Upper Town and a Lower Town (accessible by lift) and was once such a great medieval fortress it became known as ‘the Gibraltar of the North’.

Many of the fortificat­ions remain and the following morning I spent a merry time getting lost in the 12 miles of labyrinthi­ne tunnels and casemates that run through the ancient walls.

The Corniche — ‘ the most beautiful balcony in Europe’ — is a glorious spot to idle about, as are the welltended city gardens and the Neimënster Abbey/arts centre on the banks of the Alzette.

The Old Town, with its Grand Ducal Palace, Chamber of Deputies, cathedral and excellent, if small, museums and galleries, is a city in miniature and takes barely half-an-hour to wander round, including coffee stops. And it somehow fits Luxembourg’s Ruritanian charm that in the Government District one is able to walk right up to the prime minister’s office and ring the doorbell, without a barrier or policeman in sight.

I hired a bike from Velosophie ( velosophie.lu) and cycled through the peaceful green heart of the city with its immaculate parks full of birdsong. I paid my respects to the old Radio Luxembourg HQ and headed across the Red Bridge into Kirchberg to gawp at the striking Philharmon­ie concert hall and spent an hour in the even more impressive modern art museum (known as MUDAM), designed by Ieoh Ming Pei (he of the glass pyramid at the Louvre).

THERE I ate pigs’ trotters and horse steak in Restaurant Ems, near the station, and had one of the best dinners I’ve ever eaten anywhere (six courses with six wines to match) sitting in a tiny turret in Chiggeri Restaurant overlookin­g the darkening city.

So tiny is Luxembourg (both country and city) that during my long weekend I still had time to hire a car and head north-west for a night at the delightful HotelResta­urant de la Gaichel, famous not only for its Michelin-starred grub but also for its nine-hole golf course, two holes of which are in Belgium.

The following day, I drove due east from the Belgian border to Germany, between lush, green fields, through the romantic Eisch Valley — the Valley of the Seven Castles — and the wooded highlands of Mullerthal, Luxembourg’s ‘Little Switzerlan­d’.

Having arrived in Luxembourg expecting little, I left having enjoyed much. Luxembourg is no Rome or Paris. But it’s a doddle to get to (easyJet from Gatwick in around an hour) and is as charming and as quirky a weekend destinatio­n as I can think of. TRAVEL FACTS EASYJET (03303 655 000, easyjet. com) flies from Gatwick to Luxembourg City from £30 return. Double rooms at Hotel Simoncini (0352 222 844, hotelsimon­cini.lu) start at £114 per night B&B and Hotel-Restaurant de la Gaichel (0352 390 129 lagaichel.lu) from £136. See visitluxem­bourg.co.uk.

 ??  ?? Surprising city: Luxembourg, with its attractive Old Town, has heaps of charm
Surprising city: Luxembourg, with its attractive Old Town, has heaps of charm

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