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Coverage / Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Western Europe

A small Grand Duchy in Western Europe wedged between Belgium, France and Germany, pairing a UNESCO-listed fortress capital with the wooded sandstone gorges of Little Switzerland in the Mullerthal, the Moselle wine terraces along its eastern border, and the castle-topped valleys of the Ardennes.

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What you can do in Luxembourg

Cycling / Bike Touring

Luxembourg MoselleApr May Jun Jul Aug Sep OctThe Luxembourg bank of the Moselle carries one of the most relaxed river rides in Europe, a flat, car-free cycle path that runs the length of the wine country from Schengen in the south to Wasserbillig in the north. On the Luxembourg side the route is part of the national cycle network as piste cyclable PC3, paved and signposted, hugging the water below the vineyard terraces and passing through Remich, Wormeldange and Grevenmacher. Because the valley floor is level, this is riding almost anyone can do, and the wine towns are spaced a few kilometres apart, so a day turns naturally into cellar stops, a riverside lunch and a boat back. Bridges cross to the German bank at several points, letting you loop both sides of the river and the vineyards that climb from each shore. In autumn the terraces turn gold above the path.

Museums & Galleries

Luxembourg Cityyear-roundLuxembourg City is a museum you walk into before you reach the first gallery, because the old town itself is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its quarters and fortifications were inscribed in 1994, and their heart is the Bock, the cliff promontory where Count Sigfried built his castle in 963 and where later engineers tunnelled 17 kilometres of casemates, the underground galleries that once held cannon and garrisons and still burrow through the rock. Walking them, and following the Wenzel circular route through the ramparts and the Corniche called the most beautiful balcony in Europe, is the clearest way to read a thousand years of fortress history in stone. Above ground the city carries that into modern collections, above all Mudam, the national contemporary art museum that I.M. Pei set on the ruins of Fort Thungen on Kirchberg, so old fortress and new architecture literally share a footprint. Together the casemates and the museums make the capital a single layered gallery of Luxembourg.

Sea Kayaking / Canoeing

Upper Sure LakeMay Jun Jul Aug SepThe Upper Sure Lake is Luxembourg's inland sea and the best flat-water paddling in the Grand Duchy. The reservoir, formed by a dam on the Sure in 1960 to supply the country's drinking water, winds for several kilometres between steep wooded slopes in the Ardennes, its arms and inlets making a sheltered, low-traffic paddling ground with no current and, on most of the lake, no motorboats. From the base nautique at Lultzhausen you can push off in a kayak, a canoe or on a stand-up paddleboard and spend a morning exploring quiet bays, forest shoreline and the drowned side valleys, with swimming beaches to stop at along the way. It sits inside the Natur- & Geopark Oewersauer, so the paddling comes with a nature-reserve calm rather than a resort buzz. For a first multi-hour paddle, a family outing or a supervised group session, this is the country's natural home for it, warm and protected all summer.

Trekking / Hiking

MullerthalApr May Jun Jul Aug Sep OctThe Mullerthal Trail is the finest walking in Luxembourg and one of the best short-distance trails in the Low Countries. Its 112 kilometres wind through the Mullerthal, the region long called Little Switzerland, past sandstone cliffs split into narrow passages, ferned gorges, waterfalls such as the Schiessentumpel, and beech woods that close over the path. The trail is built as three connecting routes plus five ExtraTours, so you can walk a single day loop out of Echternach or Berdorf or link the whole network across several days. In early 2014 it earned the Leading Quality Trails - Best of Europe label from the European Ramblers Association, a mark held by only a handful of trails on the continent and awarded for waymarking, natural scenery and the balance of forest, rock and village. The rock is the real draw: Luxembourg sandstone weathered into corridors, overhangs and stairways you climb through rather than merely walk past.

Wine / Spirits Education

Luxembourg MoselleApr May Jun Jul Aug Sep OctLuxembourg's Moselle is one of Europe's quiet wine surprises, a compact 42-kilometre river frontier where steep terraces of Riesling, Pinot Gris, Auxerrois and Rivaner face the water and almost none of the bottles ever leave the country. The signature is Cremant de Luxembourg, a traditional-method sparkling wine with its own protected appellation since 1991, and the place to understand it is the row of cellars from Wormeldange to Grevenmacher. This is wine study at an approachable scale: you can walk into a working cave, follow the whole traditional method from press to riddling to disgorgement, and taste across a producer's range in an afternoon, with none of the appointment-only formality of the bigger regions across the borders. Between tastings the Cremant circular walk zig-zags up through the vineyards, and the terraces give long views over the river into Germany.

Witness / Attend

Echternach Hopping ProcessionEchternachMay JunThe Echternach Hopping Procession, the Sprangpressioun, is one of the last dancing processions in Europe and the single most distinctive thing to witness in Luxembourg. Every Whit Tuesday, the Tuesday after Pentecost, thousands of pilgrims move through the oldest town in the country in linked rows, stepping and swaying from side to side to a simple looping polka melody played by dozens of bands, dancing their way toward the tomb of Saint Willibrord in the basilica. The tradition honours Willibrord, the Northumbrian monk who founded the abbey here in 698 and was revered as a healer, and it has been carried on for centuries as an act of faith and thanksgiving. In 2010 UNESCO inscribed it on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Standing in the medieval streets as row after row of dancers passes to that hypnotic tune, tens of thousands of them over several hours, is a singular experience, solemn and joyful at once, and it is free to watch.

Best months at a glance

	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D
Cycling
Museums
Sea Kayaking
Trekking
Wine & Spirits
Witness / Attend

Upcoming events in Luxembourg