Now that I have been settled in Barcelona for a while, I decided to take a solo trip to Luxembourg City for a couple days. Luxembourg had honestly never been on my travel bucket list before, but I’m glad I got to explore this tiny country and learn all about it.

Monday, November 7th:

I had a super early flight out of Barcelona at 6:45 am, so I took a cab to the airport and grabbed myself a chocolate croissant for breakfast before boarding my flight. After landing around 9:00 am, I took the bus into the city to stop by my hostel. When I first got on the bus, I couldn’t figure out how to pay or buy a ticket so I was frantically googling and watching other passengers to figure out how payment worked. I noticed that nobody was paying the driver or scanning tickets or anything, which was confusing. I later learned that all public transportation in the entire country of Luxembourg is free! So I didn’t need to worry about paying for the bus at all. This was the most impressive thing I learned about Luxembourg. Luxembourg is the richest country in Europe, and as part of an eco-friendly initiative, they made all public transit for the entire country free of charge to encourage more people to take advantage of it and lower their carbon footprint. On my walking tour later in the day, I learned that since so many people from France, Belgium, and Germany commute to Luxembourg City for work, they even have parking lots at all of the borders so people can drive to the border, park their car, and then take the free public transportation. I really loved seeing a country with the available funds put it to good use! It made everything so easy and accessible.

I was staying at the one and only hostel in Luxembourg City. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to check in until 1:00 pm, but I wanted to just stop by. Similarly to how at the airport I always just like to see my gate before going to get a snack or use the bathroom, I just like to see my accommodation before taking off for the day. I knew that the hostel was just outside the city center, but what Google Maps didn’t show is that Luxembourg City is separated into two parts, the upper city and the lower city. My hostel was in the lower part of the city called the Grund. I zigzagged down the steep walkways to get to my hostel only for them to confirm that I couldn’t check in for another 4 hours. I had only brought a backpack with me, and it wasn’t heavy at all. So I just brought all of my stuff with me as I hiked back up to the city center to find some food. If I had known that just stopping by the hostel would require so much uphill walking, I would have skipped it.

For my second breakfast, I went to a cute cafe called Cereal Lovers. The woman working there was so nice. Cereal Lovers offers different bagel sandwiches, yogurt bowls, and coffees. I couldn’t decide whether to have one of the savory bagels or the sweet yogurt bowls. I decided to go with a bagel sandwich with cream cheese, spinach, tomato, and cucumber. It was delicious! I was still hungry though, so I went back and ordered a yogurt bowl as well that had so many fresh fruits. I got the best of both worlds!

After my breakfast, I walked to the main town square to join a free walking tour. My guide Carol was great. She was knowledgeable and funny. One thing I noticed right away about Lux City was how quiet and slow-paced everything is there. I noticed this again during my tour with Carol. She extended our tour at the end to take us down into the Grund, and it felt like we were just taking a slow, leisurely walk with a friend. It was so calming and peaceful.

Carol took us through several of the town squares and told us about the extensive history of the country’s monarchy. The Grand Ducal Palace is right in the middle of the city center. It’s a beautiful palace from the exterior, although guided tours are only available for two months during the summer, so I wasn’t able to go inside. We were able to catch the changing of the guards though.

We walked along Le Chemin de la Corniche, which has been nicknamed by some as the “most beautiful balcony in Europe”. It is the walkway along the very edge of the upper part of Lux City. From here, you can look out over the Grund (the lower part of the city) and admire the stunning views. Not only is the architecture beautiful, but you can see the river flowing, trains passing, and the gorgeous autumn colors. It was a mostly overcast day, but we got lucky and the sun came out right as we were there.

After the walking tour, I wandered the streets of the city center for a while. And when I say “wandered”, what I really mean is “walked in circles over and over and passed through the same streets five million times”. I think I walked every possible route through the city center that a person could. I was looking for somewhere to get lunch, but I just couldn’t find anything that was calling my name. So I kept walking all over until I finally found something that piqued my interest. I ended up getting a green curry and a smoothie for lunch. I sat and relaxed at this restaurant for a while as I ate and read my book. I recently got a Kindle, and I’m so glad! It has made it so easy to read on my trips, and it fits perfectly in my purse.

Once I was done eating and reading, I did some more walking. I planned to go to the Pfaffenthal Lift, which is a panoramic elevator that takes you down into the Grund. However, once I walked all the way over there, I learned that it was closed. Instead, I decided to walk across the appropriately named Red Bridge (Carol made sure to point out how creative Luxembourgish people are with their nicknames) to the other side of the upper city. This part of the city is a little more “industrial” than the city center. The Philharmonic Concert Hall and the Museum of Modern Art are located here. By this point, it was starting to get dark, and I wanted to check into my hostel and rest for a bit before I got dinner. I had originally planned to take the panoramic elevator down into the Grund and walk to my hostel, but since that wasn’t an option, I figured there had to be a walkway on the other side of the bridge that went down into the Grund. I put the hostel into Google Maps, and it said it was only a 19 minute walk. I could handle that! I followed the directions and circled around the concert hall and along a walkway. As the walk started heading down the hill, it was taking me off the beaten path and I started going basically into the forest… which was a little alarming as it was getting dark outside. I kept checking Google Maps to ensure that I was still going the right way, and I was. It was definitely making me a little on edge to be walking downhill through the forest as the sun was setting. Not to mention that I really had to go to the bathroom so I was in a bit of a hurry. I tried to take a picture to capture how dark and scary it was, but my phone turned on Night Mode so the brightness is turned up. The photo is blurry though, which makes it even funnier because the shakiness of the photo accurately represents the panic I felt while hurrying through the forest at dusk while trying not to pee my pants.

I did eventually make it to the hostel, go to the bathroom, and check into my room. I relaxed in my room for a while after meeting one of the other girls in my room – a friendly but very chatty Danish traveler who talked my ear off for an hour straight about her recent leg injury, the Danish school system, her relationship problems, and more. She was super nice, but I was glad for a moment alone when she left for dinner.

I hiked back up to the city center for dinner at a restaurant that Carol had recommended. I ordered a penne pasta with veggies and a glass of Chardonnay. Unfortunately, after a few bites of my pasta I could feel an itch in my throat that told me there must be nuts somewhere in my food. When I asked the waiter, he said the kitchen told him there are no nuts, just pesto… which is made of pine nuts… He didn’t seem to think I was right about that, but either way, it was giving me an allergic reaction so I couldn’t eat it. He kindly took it away, and I ordered something else instead. It was basically a pizza that had a white sauce with onions, potatoes, and mushrooms. It was very good! I also got lemon ice cream for dessert. I had brought my Kindle with me and was happily reading at dinner until a young couple of study abroad students on a date sat at the table next to me. The restaurant was not very big, so their table was only like a foot away from mine. I could hear their every word, so I instead spent my meal eavesdropping and learning their life stories. It was extremely entertaining. Who needs a Kindle when you have live entertainment at the neighboring table?

After dinner, I went back to the hostel and got ready for bed. By now, all four of the beds in my room were filled. One of the other girls was from Canada, and her pajama shirt was the same t-shirt from the Taylor Swift 1989 tour that Nicki and I had both gotten at her concert in 2015. It was fun to talk with her about Taylor Swift, our obsession with her new album, and how nervous we were about getting tickets for her upcoming tour.

Tuesday, November 8th:

My morning started with a beautiful walk to the more urban part of Lux City. I had tickets to go down into the casemates in the afternoon and tickets for a dance show in the evening, but otherwise, I was planning to have a chill day. I first went to a coffee shop called Bloom. I got an acai bowl and hung out there for a while. Afterwards, I walked around and explored before stopping again to set up shop in another coffee shop where I got an avocado bagel sandwich and a hot chocolate. I was able to get a comfortable chair in the sun where I sat and read my book for more than an hour.

I decided to motivate and walk back into the city center and check out the interior of the Notre Dame. I had seen the outside on my walking tour the day before, but I was glad I stopped inside to see the beautiful stained glass windows. I also went to the National Museum of History and Art. It was free, and there was an exhibit showcasing different pieces of Luxembourgish furniture throughout time. After my museum visit, I relaxed in a park and again read my book.

At 2:30 pm, I joined a group of fellow travelers for a tour through the Petrusse Casemates, the underground tunnels and galleries hidden beneath Lux City. We got to walk through the tunnels and learn about how they have been used since they were built in 1644.

After my tour through the underground tunnels, I spent the rest of the afternoon in the city center. I bought myself a magnet souvenir, went to a pastry cafe, and read my book some more. Around 5:00 pm, I decided to start heading towards the direction of the theater for my evening show. It was farther West than the city center, so I figured I would go there a few hours early to explore that area and get some dinner before the show. I took the bus there but was disappointed when I got there and realized the theater is in the middle of a very residential area. I thought this was odd since it is the National Theater of Luxembourg and it was surrounded by residential buildings. Unfortunately, that meant that there wasn’t really anything to explore so I hopped right back on the bus and went back into the city center since I still had three hours to kill before the show. I found a restaurant where I got a caesar salad and a mimosa for dinner while I read my book before I took the bus again and made it to the theater just in time for the 8:00 pm show.

The show I saw was called Every Minute Motherland, and it is a show that was created as a “response to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and the refugee crisis that followed it”, as written in the show’s program. It was a 55 minute performance created in collaboration with the dancers, who were all Polish or Ukrainian. There was a Q&A session after the performance with some of the artists in which they shared that the choreography all stemmed from improvisation sessions where the dancers were prompted to tell their stories from the war and of fleeing their homes through movement. They shared how it was a very emotional and cathartic experience for them all to relive these experiences in the rehearsal process and again on stage. The show was created and premiered in Poland, and there are only three other performance dates. They only performed one night in Luxembourg, and I am so grateful that I found out about it and was able to go. It was such a moving and powerful performance. It is hard to find the right words to describe the show. The dancers were beautiful and extremely talented. Their technique and movement quality was gorgeous, but it feels wrong to use such positive words to describe such a heavy and emotional show because I know that the beautiful movement came from a place of hurt and trauma on the dancers’ part. I admire the dancers for choosing to put on this show. I can’t even begin to imagine what they have gone through being exiled from their homes and seeing their country be ravaged by war – let alone reliving it repeatedly in rehearsal and on stage. It reminded me of how much dance can serve as a tool to process and communicate our emotions. It’s one of my favorite things about dance, but I’ve never experienced it on this level. As I was reading the program, the choreographer’s biography listed some of his other credits. I spotted a familiar name and learned that the choreographer of this show has worked with the Hungarian Eva Duda Company, which is the company that KJS opened for at our first performance in Croatia. That was a cool little Easter egg to find. The dance world is so small, and I love it!

The next morning I got a quick breakfast before heading to the airport to fly back to Barcelona. I enjoyed my time in Luxembourg City, and I’m glad I was able to visit and see what the city has to offer.