A plaque describing a little bit about historic old Luxembourg City
I decided, since I was so close, to go visit Luxembourg. Someone, I can’t remember who, I think it might of been a man in Italy, told me not to bother with Luxembourg as it was not that interesting. Well I have to strongly disagree. First off, the train ride from Cologne was lovely and afforded me some amazing views of Germany that I otherwise would not have seen. There were all these quaint little villages nestled in valleys along the river with ancient fortifications looking over them from hilltops. And this must be an important wine area because there were grape vines crawling up the most precarious slopes. It really was magical.
One of the many little villages along the river enroute to Luxembourg. You can see on the hillside some of the grape vines going up the slope.
Then I arrived in Luxembourg City. As we approached we passed this massive wall entering into the most spectacular river valley surrounded by boulder cliffs. It is not a huge city – I think it is only about 400,000 (which really isn’t small either). Not a lot of people think of going to Luxembourg so that might explain why there are not a lot of hostels, however my hostel was located just at the base of the old Bock Promontory castle and fortifications in the ancient neighbourhood of Pfaffenthal. I was only here for two days so I had a lot of walking around to do.
The base of the Bock Casemates - you can see the holes in the top of the picture which would be where canons would have been placed. Below that is part of the old city wall jutting out from it.
The first thing I did was to walk along part of the old city wall. Luxembourg was occupied by the Germans in both world wars although they had wanted and tried to remain neutral. However, even prior to that, they have a long history, being at such a strategic crossroads, of being under the control of many different countries – Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, Austria, Holland and Prussia. The city went through various stages of being more and more fortified and eventually completely surrounded by fortifications, walls and gates. When you see the models of this, it is really very impressive. Unfortunately in 1867, following the neutralisation of Luxembourg, the bulk of the fortifications were dismantled. Luckily thought they did save examples of these structures throughout the city. It is odd though, given how so many cities in Europe that I have visited, have been bombed, to visit one that was voluntarily dismantled. Guess that lays testimant to how effective and impressive the fortification of Luxembourg were.
Remains of the fortress. You can see people peeking out the various openings of the under rock casemates
Luxembourg has the Alzette River running through it and it is around this river that the various fortifications were built. Right in the centre is the Bock Promontory which essentially is a massive “Gibraltor” like rock “mountain” in between a loop of the river. This rock is where the casemates were constructed. Casemate is derived etymologically from the Greek “chasma(ta)” meaning “chasm”. This is a “bomb-proof” vaulted room situated in the actual body of the works leading to one or more embrasures or intended to accomodate troops and equipment. The first casemates were bult in 1644 under the Spanish domination. There are still 17 km of these underground/within rock tunnels that you can walk through and investigate on various different levels. It was pretty cool.
Inside the casemates
What blows me away about these casemates is how in the 1600s they managed to chip through the rock to create these tunnels and rooms. That would have been a feat of its own. Not to mention the rest of the walls and structures that were built around the valley.
A view through the "window" of the casemates of the old abbey de Neumunster in the Grund valley
After spending a couple of hours wandering through all the rock tunnels, it was time to check out more gems of the city.
Stairs that bring you to various levels of the casemates - oh and my love of stairs!
I’m glad that you made your way to Luxembourg, because it looks like beautiful.
Once again, thanks for the history lesson, because I did not know anything about Luxembourg (I’m sure that I’m not the only one?)
As always, I like your pictures, especially the one with the stairs…. 🙂
I know – people just don’t think about Luxembourg because it is such a small country – actually maybe Lichenstein is smaller but I don’t think I will be getting there.