After spending the night in the fanciest hotel of our trip (of which I completely failed to take any pictures) we checked out the next morning and headed into Luxembourg City for the morning. The weather was gray and drizzly but that didn’t stop us from exploring!
As Wikiepedia so elegantly put it, “Although Luxembourg City is not particularly large, its layout is complex, as the city is set on several levels, straddling hills and dropping into the two gorges.” This leads to some gorgeous views and some strenuous walking/hiking.
As we drove into the city we enjoyed some amazing views, though I couldn’t capture any from a moving vehicle. We kept driving down and down, and managed to score the very last parking spot in a free car park that felt like it was at the bottom of the city. From here the only way to go was up!
We started walking and then almost immediately stopped when we came across an open bakery/cafe. I think we must have been hungry because we went a bit overboard ordering about half of the menu. I think in this picture we have two different kinds of quiche, french bread pizzas, an eclair, a chocolate croissant, and a grilled ham and cheese sandwich on a croissant. It was all delicious and I figured we needed the carbs to fuel our walk straight up hill!
After stuffing ourselves I was just bracing myself for the long walk up when someone stopped to tell us there was an elevator just around the corner. An elevator you say? Yes, please! Now, Joel would normally be one to eschew an elevator, preferring the challenge (and view) of walking, but even he couldn’t resist an elevator that seemed to be carved into the rock of the city.
We walked down an extremely well-lit, extremely clean, underground hallway. The walls were lined with art by local artists. It was so cool! It eventually opened up into a bigger area where there was a public toilet available that was also free! (Trust me, this is a very exciting thing to find in Europe.) We then hopped on the elevator and rode it up to the highest level.
The elevator opened onto the plaza for the Cite Judiciare - a complex of buildings that house a number of courts and legal offices.
A quick few steps to our left took us to a viewing platform with the most incredible views of the city. You can see here how there is a real mix of old and new in the city with the more traditional buildings in the foreground and the metal and window-filled skyscrapers in the back.
And, of course, we can never resist a selfie!
From there we had a nice flat path to wander into the city center. We just kind of meandered for a while, going wherever looked the most interesting. Luckily this led us to end up outside the Grand Ducal Palace, located in the heart of the city center. While the building started as the city hall in 1418, it is now the official residence of the Grand Ducal family.
We weren’t there when it was open for tours, but we did get to see the changing of the guard!
From there we kept wandering and found an area with lots of shops and cafes, but strangely for mid-morning on a weekday, not much was open. We did find a butcher shop that was grilling housemade sausages outside their store front, so even though we were pretty full from earlier, we had to give one of those a try! It was delicious.
More wandering let us to a square with some pretty cool dancing statues.
There were incredible views around every corner.
The weather started to turn and a very light rain was falling, so we started to make our way down via whatever paths we could find. Some of them were fairly steep!
This beautiful arched bridge was built in 1735.
And this gorgeous church along the water caught my eye.
We couldn’t stay too long as we had plans to meet up with some of Steve’s friends in Brussels later that day, so it was time to head off to yet another country! We made our way back to the car pretty easily (thank goodness it was all down hill) and settled in for more driving.
XOXO, Bethany