Luxembourg; Saturday, 24 June, 2006

I caught the bus into the centre of town and after stopping off at the Post Office to buy some stamps and a shop to buy some postcards I walked to the Place de la Constitution to pick up the open-top hop-on-hop-off sightseeing bus.

The bus takes in large parts of the city centre as well as the European area (where several parts of the EU as well as the European Court of Justice are based) and the new banking district. Unfortunately, there are lots of works going on in the centre of the city so it doesn't take in the Royal Palace, the centre of the old town, the main entrance to the Cathedral or the site of the old fortress (the Bock)!

Getting back to place de la Constitution I picked up the Pétrusse Express, a land train that descends the steep lanes down into the floor of the gorge, before taking in many of the sights down there, as well as rising back up to the remains of the Bock.

On getting back to the Place de la Constitution, I wandered down some of the side streets in the old town and found myself at the Musée d'histoire de la Ville Luxembourg (The city history museum). The museum tells the history of the city from Roman times through years of un-inhabitation and then from its formal founding in 963 through to the modern day, though a large part of the museum was closed whilst they re-aligned the displays!

I walked down the hill from the museum, past the Bock and down into the gorge floor once again. After spending quite some time walking around the the Grund area (as the floor of the Gorge in the city centre is called) I caught the bus back to the station (which coincidentally meant I did not have to climb back up!) where I stopped for a very very late lunch. I caught the bus back out to the Bock and had a wander around the remains before descending down into the casemates below.

Luxembourg has often been described as the Gibraltar of the North. Up until the 19th Century, when most of the fortifications were demolished as Luxembourg gained its independence, the whole city was fortified with massive walls lining the sides of the Gorge and Kilometre and kilometre of tunnels dug into the soft rock. Today most of the tunnels have been destroyed, but nearly 17Km still exist and a small proportion of these are open underneath the Bock.

From the openings there are stunning views over the city and the surrounding landscape making it obvious how difficult it would be to attack the city. The tunnels don't just go along at a level they go along on multiple levels and there are lots of times when you think you may have reached the end of a tunnel only to discover a spiral staircase in a corner heading either up or down. The tour ends with you emerging onto a lower level of the bridge that the Bock stands beside.

I caught the bus back to the hotel to drop my bag and empty water bottles off before heading back out to grab some dinner.

After dinner I headed back out to the Bock in time to watch the sun go down over the fortifications.