One Great Day in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

One Great Day in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg: A Walking Tour

Luxembourg is one of Europe’s smallest countries but it is big on charm. With beautiful architecture that is a blend of French and German, best viewed from high on stone medieval walls, Luxembourg is a great city to just walk around and savor its surroundings. Follow along on our walking tour of Luxembourg City, where we had a great day exploring this beautiful city.

Some Fun Facts About Luxembourg

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a small country in western Europe, bordered by Germany, France, and Belgium. It is smaller than any U.S. state!

Both Skype and Amazon are headquartered in Luxembourg City.

Luxembourg City is one of the capitals of the European Union.

Luxembourg has a high standard of living with the highest GDP in all of Europe.

There are three official languages in Luxembourg: French, German, and Luxembourgish. And almost everyone we came across spoke excellent English as well.

How to Get to Luxembourg

You can arrive into Luxembourg via car, train, or flight. Because Luxembourg is a small country and the capital is compact, it makes for a great day trip from another city or as a stop on a road trip through Europe.

Drive: You can drive a vehicle here, which works well if you are road-tripping from nearby countries. Luxembourg has a great website that shares parking spaces available in real time: Parking in Luxembourg City.

Train: This is what we did. Luxembourg City is pretty well connected via rail from cities around Europe. Brussels, Paris, Cologne, and Frankfort all offer direct train service to Luxembourg City. We took Belgian Rail from Brussels Central station direct to Luxembourg City.

Fly: Luxembourg City’s airport code is LUX and connects many cities around the world to the capital city.

On Today’s Agenda:

Train from Brussels to Luxembourg City (3.5 hours)
Picnic lunch near Rue de Prague
Plt du Esprit for great views
Palais de Justice Luxembourg (Court of Justice of the European Union)
Saint-Michel Church
Chambre des Deputes, where we saw the changing of the guard
Chemin de la Corniche
Casemates du Boc
Pfaffenthal Lift
Dipso Wine Republic
Luxembourg-American Cemetery
Train back to Brussels

This is a “what we did” itinerary, which makes it easy for you to follow along or tweak and adjust based on the amount of time you have or your specific interests.

Arrival

We arrived into Luxembourg City’s Central Railway Station at around 10:50 am, on a train from Brussels. The train ride was nice, winding through the Belgian countryside along the way.

Luxembourg Train Station

Upon arrival into the Luxembourg train station, we grabbed some items from the shop in the main hall for a quick picnic lunch.

Our Experience in Luxembourg City

We completed a loop throughout Luxembourg City, beginning and ending at the train station. Below is a map of our stops:

The purple markers are all of our sightseeing stops, the blue marker is the train station, and the yellow marker the wine bar. We walked everywhere except for the Uber ride to and from the Luxembourg-American Cemetery about 3 miles east of the city center.

We exited the train station and headed to the right, walking along Place de la Gare, past many modern shops such as Foot Locker and Mango. Right before the La Passerelle Bridge, we took a left and found a park bench along Rue de Prague, a nice area to have a picnic. From here, we walked across the Passerelle Bridge, checking out the wonderful park below.

Continuing along the bridge, we crossed over to Plt du Esprit.

It was here we got our first views of the historic Ville Basse (low city) and the Alzette River.

After taking in the views, we walked passed the Palais de Justice Luxembourg (Court of Justice of the European Union).

We walked through more of the town, of which just taking in the architecture is magnificent! Here are a few of our favorite pics.

Church of Saint-Michel is worthy of a visit, recognizable with its onion dome.

It was originally erected in the year 987 and rebuilt in the 14th century. Head inside to take in the beauty of the church interior.

We came across a changing of the guards procession outside the Chambres des Deputes, which was a fun surprise!

From here, we headed to Chemin de la Cornice for even more amazing views of the medieval wall, bridges, and low city below.

Take the stairs to left up to get the postcard views of Luxembourg City.

The Casmates du Boc are a Unesco World Heritage site and one of the best things to see in Luxembourg City. This underground defense system was carved out in the 1600s to protect Luxembourg City. Today, you can explore this subterranian historical site or take in the views from on top of the Casemates. It draws the tourists so expect crowds here!

Walking along the Casemates, the views just keep getting better and better!

Sitting along the road the Casemates are on, Montee de Clausen, is the historical landmark that is part of the city’s ancient fortifications and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

From here, looking out over the Pfaffenthal area of Luxembourg City you can see the Pfaffenthal Lift in the distance. This glass lift takes you down to the valley along the Alzette River and back up, offering great views on the ride.

The tall white structure in the distance is the Pfaffenthal Lift

It was time for a little relaxation after our busy time sightseeing around Luxembourg City, so we found a fantastic wine bar to enjoy some vino and relax.

This was such a beautiful area of town, people kept stopping to take photos of the unique architectural features while we were sipping our wine.

The service here was fantastic, the wine wonderful, and the interior of the building was so neat, so old!

Dispo Wine Bar

We had one last stop on our whirlwind tour of Luxembourg City, the Luxembourg-American Cemetery, located just three miles from town. We took an Uber and were among just a few visitors this day.

Seeing the American flag waving while so far from home was moving, as the cemetery honored those soliders who lost their lives in WWII.

General Patton is also buried here, as he expressed his desire to be buried with his troops.

On site is a small visitor’s center and a chapel.

The ceiling of the chapel

It was time to head back to the train station for our three hour journey back to Brussels. I wish I could say it was an easy ride home, just as it was on the way there, but sometimes hearing travel stories helps keeps things real!

OUR JOURNEY HOME

We planned to catch the 4:11 pm direct train back to Brussels so we had time to grab dinner back home and wind down after a busy day. However, things did not go as planned!

When we arrived at the train station we saw that our train was cancelled. Our route had a bright orange line through it with the dreaded word, “bus” next to it. To verify, we checked with the tourist information office located right in the train station. They informed us that there was an “incident” on the track and that police and ambulance were on the scene…and no trains could pass between Luxembourg City to Arlon, Belgium, a city that our train needed to pass through.

We were informed that we would have to take a bus to Arlon and then reconnect with Belgian Rail there. They told us busses were set up outside to take people to their destinations to then connect with the proper train.

There were busses lined up alright, many busses, in fact, and none with signs telling you where they were going. Lots of people were milling about, probably also just as confused as we were, so we double checked with an employee outside as to what bus to take. She informed us either the front bus or second bus next to it were going to Arlon. We got on the first bus although something didn’t seem quite right. Why were all these people still standing outside when there were a lot of open seats on this bus? Right when the bus was about to take off, we asked to stop and jumped off….thankfully we did! The worker was incorrect as this bus was going to some small town…somewhere else and nowhere we needed to be. We then joined the hoards of people hopping on the bus to Arlon. People pushed onto the bus and it was a bit of a scramble but thankfully Mike is good at managing crowds and helped me get on the bus or I would have been left in Luxembourg City!

The bus ride to (thankfully, Arlon!) took about 45 minutes. We weaved our way through Luxembourg City and then the countryside, finally reaching Arlon station. From there we had a short wait before hopping on the train to Brussels, which took us about 2.5 hours. Phew!

It was a bit of an unexpected adventure, one that is tricky if you don’t fully understand the language. Announcements were in French and Dutch. I know a bit of German so could pull some things out of the Dutch announcements or signs as it is similar to German. However, we very easily could have ended up on the wrong bus heading to a town in the middle of nowhere…and we almost did!

My take away from this is this: Do not plan to take the last train of the day. We attempted to take the 4:11 pm train, with an expected arrival time of around 7:30 pm into Brussels Central station. Had we waited until later, we would have arrived even later into Brussels. And of course there is the chance that the last train will be cancelled and there will be no more opportunities to connect to your final destination. During our time in Belgium, we heard from others that there were also “incidences” on their rail routes in other parts of the country. I’m sure this happens periodically, although maybe more frequently than expected?

We finally made it back to our Airbnb several hours later, happy to have just made it back! And we did have a wonderful day in Luxembourg, another great country we can check off our list, albeit with a bit of unexpected adventure!