Travel: Luxembourg
William Cook
Each time I’m in Luxembourg, I ask myself the same question: am I the only Briton who travels here for fun? Lots of Brits come on business but most of them fly in for a few meetings and then fly straight out again. They don’t know what they’re missing, for as I’ve discovered in the course of several visits, Luxembourg City and its verdant hinterland are a splendid place to spend a long weekend.
I first came here in 2006, to write about Luxembourg’s year as European Cultural Capital. The cultural programme didn’t really grab me but Luxembourg City bowled me over. I’d expected to find a boring tax haven full of bankers and bureaucrats. I had no idea this was one of Europe’s most dramatic cities – perched upon steep clifftops, surrounded by deep ravines. The bankers and bureaucrats were hidden away in high-rise offices on the outskirts. With hardly any sightseers to spoil the view, I had this historic citadel more or less to myself.
Luxembourg’s spectacular setting is central to its history. Its location at the heart of Europe made it strategically crucial, and its hilltop setting made it an awesome stronghold. Whoever controlled Luxembourg controlled the crossroads between France and Germany, and so the French and Germans squabbled over it for centuries, until Britain decreed that it should remain neutral for evermore. Hence, while most of the principalities of central Europe were gobbled up by Bismarck, little Luxembourg survived.
The culture of the country reflects its chequered past. Virtually everyone speaks French and German, plus their own language, Luxembourgish. The food is a similar blend of Gallic élan and Teutonic Gemütlichkeit. Despite its membership of the Schengen Area and the Eurozone, it remains proudly patriotic and its Luxembourgish motto, ‘Mir Welle Bleiwe Wat Mir Sin’ (we want to remain as we are), is everywhere.
Confusingly, there are actually three Luxembourgs: the capital, the country and the neighbouring Belgian province of the same name. All three are well worth seeing, but the capital is where most travellers begin and it’s the best base for a short stay. Virtually everywhere in the country, known as the Grand Duchy, is less than an hour from the capital by train. A Luxembourg Card (from the tourist office) buys you unlimited public transport throughout the Duchy, as well as free admission to most museums. A three-day pass costs €28.
It’s easy to fly to Luxembourg, but it’s far more fun to take the train. Buy an Any Belgian Station ticket from Eurostar (from £69 return). This gets you all the way to Arlon, a few kilometres from the
Luxembourg border. When you change trains in Brussels, buy a return from Arlon to Luxembourg City, which costs just €12. The journey is a pleasure: just two hours from London to Brussels Midi, then about three hours from Brussels Midi to Luxembourg City, through the thick dark forests of the Ardennes.
The train from Brussels to Luxembourg City is direct, so there’s no need to break your journey in Arlon. But if you do have a few hours to spare, this sleepy Belgian border town is well worth a brief visit. It’s a bit run-down nowadays, but it was an important city in Roman times, and again in the Middle Ages. It still boasts an impressive fortress and a fine archaeological museum. The old man who showed me round could remember the German invasion of 1940 and the American liberation of 1944. A US tank stands in the Grand Place as a memorial.
Once you arrive in Luxembourg City, the National Museum of History and Art is a good starting point. Look out for Turner’s dynamic watercolours of the town. The Museum of Modern Art is an artwork in its own right, built by Sino-American starchitect I M Pei within the ruins of the old fortifications, but the best way to get a sense of the city’s warlike past is to walk along its craggy walls. The vertiginous views are stunning and the sense of history is intense. Stroll down into the surrounding valleys and you could be in the countryside. The mediaeval villages below have become suburbs but they still feel remarkably bucolic, even though the city centre is only a few minutes’ walk away.
I can recommend two contrasting places to stay. The Parc Beaux Arts is one of the best ‘boutique’ hotels I’ve ever slept in – chic but understated, with a stylish little restaurant, in the heart of the Old Town. If you book ahead, you should be able to get a double for under €200. If you fancy somewhere more basic, the city is home to one of Europe’s finest youth hostels – a smart modern building in the river valley, close to some of the city’s nicest bars and cafés. A bed in a bright and pleasant four-berth dorm costs a mere €25 a night, with breakfast. Dinner in the canteen costs €10 and the sunlit terrace is a great spot for a coffee or a beer. There’s no upper age limit and you’ll find people of all ages here.
Compared with its neighbours France and Germany, Luxembourg is tiny, but beside true midgets like Lichtenstein, it’s huge. It’s 35 miles from east to west and 50 miles from north to south, and most of it is woods and meadows, all gloriously green. Only half a million people live in the Grand Duchy, scattered around a thousand square miles of unspoilt countryside. With a quarter of its population crowded into the capital, the rest of the country feels wonderfully empty.
The tourist office promotes all sorts of hiking and mountain-biking trails, but I prefer to potter about by rail and drink in the view from the top deck of one of Luxembourg’s double-decker trains. At the main train station, on my way back to Arlon, I spotted one of these bound in the opposite direction. On a whim I jumped on it, and sped across this compact country in half an hour. I got off at Wasserbillig, a little town on the Moselle. The river marks the border. Men were fishing on its leafy banks and there was a small car ferry chugging back and forth, between Luxembourg and Germany. I caught a ride across the river, drank a beer in Germany, looked back across the Moselle towards the gentle hills of Luxembourg and wondered what it would be like to live in such a quaint and prosperous country. The sun was setting over the vineyards. It was one of those moments which make travelling worthwhile. I caught the last ferry back across the river and an hour later I was back in Belgium, homeward bound.