Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Luxembourg - Luxembourg City

From Paris we jumped on a train and headed for Luxembourg. No real reason... we hadn't really read much about it, only heard a little bit about it, but why not go visit it on our way to Belgium.

We arrived at the capital, Luxembourg City, and found a hostel for a few days.
Lux City is an old medieval city that was founded as far back as the 10th century. It is situated on and around a hill which is surrounded by a valley (used to be rivers around it i think) and has great views all the way around.

View over valley towards one of the huge bridges



One of the roads leading into the city travels up over a narrow ridge, in which a number of casemates were built hundreds of years ago. These are tunnels built into the rock, and there are over 20km of tunnels going right up to the city apparently. They were used at various times as cellars, storage, cannon placements and shelter. You can take a tour through the main bits, quite interesting.

Walking through part of the casemates


The nicest part of the city however is just walking around. As I said, there is a valley around most of the city, which these days has a number of villages along it. Great scenery, great walks, just a nice place to spend a couple of days.


View towards the city from the Grund village




A lazy lunch in the main square in the middle of the city. Busy restaurants



Another view towards the valley from over another part of the casemates



Another view over the Grund, you can see some of the casemates in the rock on the left

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