Luxembourg City, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
Zagan the motorhome’s shoulders are hunched up against the rain coming in sideways across his car park in central Luxembourg City (N49.61661 E6.12367). Upon enquiring with one of the ticket inspectors if we could stay the night, he replied cordially with a long description (in French, so I’m half guessing what he actually said) of Luxembourg’s law around sleeping overnight. The end result: a blind eye is turned as long as you don’t whip out your BBQ, chairs, table and Champagne cooler, and start having a garden party. In this weather? We’re well and truly holed up inside with the heating on! It’s costing us about €9 to stay here until 9:30am tomorrow, and there’s free WiFi, not bad for the second richest country in the world?
Zagan’s palatial quarters in central Luxembourg.
A few options came up for visiting Luxembourg City, but they basically boiled down to coming here, and seeing if the parking looked secure, or heading to a park and ride spot and getting the bus or train in. We opted to try this first, so we could easily get back to Charlie if we couldn’t get him on the public transport. Luxembourg being roughly the size of a postage stamp, it took about 40 mins to cross half the country on smooth motorway, including an aborted attempt to fit into a packed Carrefour car park on the way out of Belgium. Into the city, the usual rapid-fire array of signs, lights, lanes and crossings tested our nerves, rattling a wee bit but ultimately failing to deter, as we cruised in to the parking, surprised to find 6 meter-long Zagan (almost!) fits into a single space.
Charlie had his usual sniff about the car park before turning his nose up at the inclement weather. Tucked up safe under the watchful eye of a couple of guards in a nearby cabin, we left the mutt to enjoy the warmth of the van, and walked into the city. Having done a tiny bit of reading, it seemed the main attraction for us would be the geography of the place. For us, there are few sights in the city of interest, the city itself is the sight. A much fought-over fortress once sat here, sheltering the city on one side as a river-cut gorge protects it on the other. The fortifications are gone now, rendered pointless over time, but the gentle cliffs and views over the lower town remain.
The endless drizzle put a dampener on our city wanderings, as our clothes gradually grew sodden. Basically, we walked around, checking out the views and got face-plastered with rain. On the plus side, there was no-one else here, the views were all ours.
After an hour or so, we headed for a café and tucked into a Croque Monsieur and a cheese and ham sandwich. Not expensive either, you could have had 750ml of pasta including a choice of four sauces for €5.30, which I’d have had, if I wasn’t in so much off a hurry to choose so I could use the loo! The food in the café seemed very similar to what you’d get in France, which is a whole 20km away.
Wet wet wet in Luxembourg
Beaten by the grimness we headed back to Zagan, chilled for a bit then nipped to a small supermarket nearby to get supplies for today. Finding two of them facing each other across the street, we picked the most Lidl-esque one, which still had cashiers sporting cravats. The food range was a mix of French, German and Italian, and we bypassed the range of European-only wines, too expensive for our tastes (roughly the same as UK). Prices on the whole matched the 1970’s British Airways image, and we withdrew with just a smattering of essentials.
Oi! It IS essential to try the local brew!
Passing an estate agent we nearly coughed our false teeth up at the prices! A 3 bed apartment, €1.5m! Ah, nah, we’ll stick to Zagan and the Cooler. The only purchase we plan to make is to brim off our LPG and diesel tanks, and to stock up on grub and a few cheeky beers on our way outta the city tomorrow. Current thinking is we’ll head to the Luxembourg side of the Moselle Valley for a night, then head back into the welcoming bosom of La France.
The old Luxembourg fortifications – long gone but a very pleasant, accessible and pretty city remains.
Cheers! Jay
P.S. We’ll most likely be offline again until we’re back in France in a couple of days. Bear with us, normal service will soon return. :-)
Hi Jay & Ju, glad Ju’s over the worst of it. I wish I could make a wet Monday in Feb sound as interesting. All the best.
Great blog site, I recently subscribed but alas can only get your updates via the web site, is there any reason for this, ie have I missed a bit off the subscription.
Cheers hope the weather improves
Dave and Jan ( preparing our Hymer for spring)
Thanks Dave, have fun with the preparation! Nah, you’ve not missed anything, our web host is trying to work out why the emails are not being sent. Hopefully it’ll be sorted in the next few days. Bear with us, cheers, Jay
Thank you Jay, Just sorting out Insurance, MOT timing etc. Your check list has been a real help, as have all your travel tips.
Not really sure about going just yet, sitting in a metal box with a wet dog and damp towels may have to wait until the Spring, but France is a dead cert for us. We retired at 54 some 14 years ago so must get a move on!
cheers Dave
Plan to go to Luxembough some time soon, last time I was their I was on route to Munich to watch Forest get the first of there European cups. Happy days 😀
Blimey Eric, that was some time ago!
Hi,
Heading to Europe for a couple of weeks later this week and thinking about a trip to Luxembourg. I assume the parking place you mention is called Glacis? If so do you know if it has spaces suitable for 8 metre length motorhomes?
Cheers
Gary
Hi Gary
I think that is what it was called, it’s a huge car park just to the north of the city (the GPS co-ordinates are in the post). You could probably just take up two spaces, but it might be a bit tight to get around it depending on what time you arrive – it’s a busy car park.
Hope that helps a bit.
Ju x