Luxembourg

Hello again guys!

Today I', writing about a tiiiiny but ridiculously charming little city and if you do your Erasmus year in Belgium, Holland or anywhere near that neck of the woods, you have to visit it no matter what. Here I will leave you with many reasons :). As you already know, because of the title of my post, I'm going to talk to you about Luxembourg.

Luxembourg is one of the most affluent cities in Europe where you can find various institutions of the European Union. We hadn't ever thought about visiting this city as it doesn't have as much of a name as Amsterdam or Berlin, etc. If I said give me a European city right now, it would be difficult for the city of Luxembourg to come to mind. However, after looking at various prices and destinations, the Megabus (a very cheap bus company, although it's not particularly reliable) offered trips from Brussels to Luxembourg for €1... How could we even think twice?! We immediately starting looking at dates, and we bought the tickets. The trip took an hour and a half, and the bus left quite early in the morning (I seem to remember it was 8am or something). And as it's a small city, and we wouldn't have to spend more than one night there so it would end up being a very good price.

As well as being pretty enough to simply pass through its streets and have a good time, the city of Luxembourg has various touristic sites, those that you can find in the photos that I'll share throughout this post. But so that you have a little more information and written references, I'm going to start with the station. On the inside of the train station (just in case you travel by bus, I would recommend that you pass through here before you start your journey as it's a 5/10 minute walk and you'll find the tourist information point) I urge you to look up at the ceiling, it's truly stunning!

Once you leave the station, one of the streets will take you to the European Parliament building. It's just a building, but it's spectacularly big. You can also see the Bank of Europe.

Next, to get to the centre of the city, there are two main bridges. I would recommend that you walk the whole way there so that you can pass through the streets and look around so you don't miss a thing. It's a small city, which makes it quick and easy to travel around. The bridges, that you can find on the map are the "Adolfo Bridge" (also called the Old Bridge) and the "Grand Duchess Charlotte Bridge". Both pass over the Petrusse River. The first of them is truly important and is special to the city. It reflects its independence. If you're lucky enough to visit when neither of the bridges are under construction (not like us... ), you'll be able to enjoy some magnificent and marvellous views.

Another point of interest is the Museum of Modern Art or that of the Grand Duke Jean of Modern Art (also known as MUDAM). It's free if you're under a certain again (we went in with some 26 year olds, but I don't know the exact limit). We went there with two architects who really enjoyed the visit. For the rest of us, it wasn't anything special. But, why?

Something else that you have to have highlighted on your map is Plaza D'Armes. A spacious and enormous plaza where they often hold a food, clothes and flower market. Right next to the Plaza D'Armes you'll find the Place Guillaume II. This one is quite a lot smaller but it's just as enchanting. In the middle of the plaza, you'll find a statue dedicated to Grand Duke Guillaume II. The Constitution Square is somewhere you have to visit, even though it's found outside of the historical centre.

In Luxembourg, you can also find the Notre Dame Cathedral which is the most important and renowned building in the country.

And, my two favourite places without a shadow of a doubt are, Casemates du Bock and thePlateau du Saint Esprit. The first, Casemates du Bock, were the old city defenses and you can enjoy truly spectacular views from up there!

And the Plateau du Saint Esprit, could be described as a city within the historical centre of Luxembourg. And it's beautiful. From this "viewpoint", you can see the Grund neighbourhood, that has loads of little houses. They look just like traditional dolls houses. The majority of them are painted in pastel colours. And this is known as a World Heritage Site. If you want to, you can go into this neighbourhood via the many different routes there are. In our case, we were quite tired from the party the night before and we couldn't do everything...

And to finish, on the way to the station, we went and passed through the fairytale forest park, Berdorf. It's enormous and at sunset, it has a special magic charm. Even with exhausted little legs, I'm sure that a stroll through this park will relax you 100%.

And the last thing (I think) is one thing that you can visit in Luxembourg, the American Cemetery and Memorial, where around 5, 000 soldiers and militants that died during the Second World War are buried. We were the minority that wanted to go but it was a bit further out of the centre, so we didn't get very close. But, if you have more energy than we did, you can't miss it!

And that is everything from our visit and knowledge that I can give you about Luxembourg. I hope that this post serves you will, and that you enjoy the photos!

Bye bye, and I'll write more soon!