Luxembourg 2018

Let me state upfront that my first impression of Luxembourg was disappointment. Maybe it was because the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg sounded so grand and romantic and it did not look that way; or maybe because I only saw Luxembourg City and no other parts of this tiny country.

I left the train from Reims and found myself in a noisy area with lots of expensive German cars and homeless people. The presence of Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs was easy to explain. Luxembourg is the second richest country in the world. Then why did they have beggars on the streets?

There were several good and affordable hotels near the train station. My choice was the hotel Bristol. The receptionist asked me if I was going to stay in Luxembourg or was just passing through it. I replied that I was en route from France to Germany. She nodded phlegmatically hearing a familiar answer. To her, I was another faceless person who came to Luxembourg to cross this country off their travel bucket list.

The air temperature was +30°C (86°F), unusually hot for May, 9^th. After one hour outside while looking for a room, I could only think about a good shower. I worked on the laptop at the hotel for a while and then left to see the city.

The main attraction of Luxembourg City is its fortress. Since the city was founded in the 10^th century, these fortifications were built almost non-stop for nine centuries. The fortress occupied a strategically important, central location in Europe and it changed hands many times. Among its owners were French, Austrians, Spaniards, and Prussians. New masters expanded the fortress and made it stronger and more impregnable.

In its final form, the fortress of Luxembourg consisted of three fortress walls, taking up about 180 ha (440 acres) at a time when the city covered only 120 ha (300 acres). Inside, there were a large number of bastions, with 15 forts in the center, and another nine on the outside. A web of 23 km (14 mi) of underground passages (casemates) connected over 40,000 m² (430,000 sq ft) of bomb-proof space.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_of_Luxembourg

In 1867 according to the Treaty of London, Luxembourg became perpetually neutral and that required the fortress to be demolished. It took 16 years to destroy most of the fortifications. Some parts were declared unfit for military use and thus they survived. Nowadays they were carefully restored and open to the public. The country’s neutrality ended during the World War II.

I went to every remaining fortress wall and tower that I could reach on foot, climbed all stairs, walked past the Palace of Grand Dukes. A few people were having coffee near the Palace. Apart from that, no action was happening there.

One place that I especially wanted to visit was the underground casemates. Their location was marked on my map, but I could not find the entrance. I went in circles around them, I saw people standing at the casemate loopholes hewn in the rock, but where was the door to the museum?  When I could not think of how else to approach the casemates I gave up and walked towards the hotel along Rue Montée de Clausen. Accidentally, I glanced sideways and spotted the museum sign on a plain wall and an arrow pointing downwards. The entrance to the underground casemates was found purely by luck. I later read online that other tourists had difficulties to find it too.

For centuries, the casemates provided accommodation for the troops garrisoned in the city. Also underground were stables, workshops, kitchens, bakeries, slaughterhouses, storage areas and a well. Up to 1200 soldiers lived there. At times, the barracks were so crowded that two soldiers shared one bed. When the fortress was demolished parts of the casemates could not be destroyed without ruining the city above them. That is why about 17 km (10.5 mi) of the underground network remained. The temperature in the tunnels was comfortable on the hot day when I was there, but imagine living in such conditions in winter.

At midnight, a call woke me up. I forgot to turn off the Wi-Fi Calling feature on my Samsung phone before going to bed. It was daytime in my home state of Colorado and telemarketers were working. The air in the room was stuffy. I’d probably have woken up anyway because it was hard to breathe. I threw open the window and let the fresh night air in. In the morning, I had a funny feeling that I slept well and badly at the same time.

Next, I planned to go to Coburg, Germany which is far from Luxembourg. I chose Koblenz as my midway stopover for no other reason than a convenient train connection between these 2 cities. After breakfast at the hotel, I went to the station and bought a ticket for a 9.33 am train.

Although I did not like the Grand Duchy at first there was enough to see in Luxembourg City to spend there a day. Now I, too, could move Luxembourg from my bucket list to the list of visited countries.