Weekend #3 in Luxembourg. The bad thing about living in a dorm room is that I don’t want to spend time there. The good thing about living in a dorm room is that I don’t want to spend time there…so I appreciate my weekend trips more. This weekend I visited my third capital city, Luxembourg, which I think was a good choice for a weekend trip. It’s small enough that I saw everything the city had to offer in my 1.5 days there, which were very relaxing.

I arrived on Saturday morning and checked into the hotel. I then made my way to the city center. Since the stores aren’t open on Sunday, I decided to just get lost in the old streets wandering in and out of shops and stopping to have a drink or a snack when I got tired. In fact, Luxembourg is the perfect city to wander in because it’s so small you can walk the whole thing in about 2 hours. Additionally, it’s built along a valley (the Petrusse valley) which is lush green and picturesque – not to mention the old buildings and monuments characteristic of European cities. I spent Saturday evening with a magazine and a bubble bath. A perk of staying in a nice hotel is the big, comfy soaking tub in my room.

On Sunday before leaving in the afternoon, I walked along the old ramparts the surround the city. I started with the casemates, which are an extensive series of tunnels build into the rocky hillside in the 1600’s to defend the city (although the ramparts were started in 963). Many pieces of the defensive city wall still remain and the crisp, sunny fall day made my walk extremely enjoyable. There was a free jazz concert in the courtyard of the Neumunster Abbey, so I stopped to have a cappuccino and enjoy the music. The only thing I didn’t get to do was go to a flea market to find my vintage postcards (I came on the wrong weekend). On the whole, however, it was an extremely pleasant trip.

A view of the Petrusse valley. The casemates are inside the rocky wall on the left. You can see part of the ramparts above the stream. The church on the right in the Neumunster Abbey.

A view up to the city center from the valley below.

A bridge over the Petrusse valley connecting the station district (around the train station, of course) with the city center.