Maybe you’ve heard of Luxembourg in passing, but I bet you couldn’t point it out on a map. No, really, it’s not a diss – the whole country is smaller than Rhode Island.
Measuring at 998 square miles, Luxembourg may be tiny, but it remains a major world financial center. It’s also probably the setting of every one of your childhood fantasy novels.
Most of the time, even if you’ve never been somewhere before, you usually have some sense of what that place is like – an image passed around through media, or word of mouth, or an ad you saw on the subway. “Italy” recalls warm weather and ancient landmarks, “Vegas” suggests neon lights and desert roads, and “Edinburgh” inspires stone castles and spotless green hills. “Luxembourg” was met with a quiet mind when I first heard about it – but having been there, the first word I think of is “dreamlike,” with its forests, winding canals, and tiered houses.
Although it’s located between Belgium, France, and Germany, Luxembourg is surrounded first by forests, rocky gorges, and river valleys. Here, you can find wonders like the Schiessentümpel and Hohllay Cave. The first is a tri-part waterfall nudged between steep ravine walls and the kind of small, worn wooden bridges that inspire adventure. You aren’t wrong to expect an elf to pop up from beneath the bridge, or to find some fairies lounging by the water. Hohllay Cave, on the other hand, has marking made by years of mining all over it, looking more like the site of medieval alchemy than an old mine.
Getting closer to the capital, you’ll find a necessary part of any fairy tale: castle ruins. The two main ones are Esch-sur-Sûre Castle, abandoned for over 100 years, and Beautfort Castle, which has a literal moat. Listen, my university may have Grey Towers Castle, but it sure as hell does not have a moat. Luxembourg 1 – Arcadia 0.
While these are all gems of Luxembourg, the crown jewel is the capital city. The site of a prominent medieval fortress, Luxembourg City remains tiered on the ancient stone walls of its fort. The scenery is completely unlike the sprawling landscape of cities like London, or the vertical might of New York’s skyscrapers. In Luxembourg, from nearly anywhere you can see whole buildings both above and below you. The stone streets seem to spiral along with the terrain, and ancient walls surround everything. Now preserved as a museum, visitors can walk inside and on top of the fortress walls. Their outside appearance betrays how large they really are, with a wealth of eerie, cave-like spaces, winding corridors, and worn, crumbling staircases that span multiple stories.
The best thing to do in Luxembourg is walk. Whether you’re hiking to find the waterfalls, braving the fortress’ depths, or meandering around a city unlike any you’ve visited – in Luxembourg, you’re bound to wonder, and forced to imagine.
