Luxembourg with my lovely mum

Travel is not a tickbox mission. Except that it is. For the right reasons though! I want to ultimately see every country in the world. Not just because I want to 'tick it off the list', but because I want to experience every culture and wonder that the world has to offer, from the ginormous and mighty (like the Great Wall of China) to the cute and tiny (like Vatican City). So yes I want to tick off all the countries, but because I want to experience and tick them off. I've actually nearly done all the countries in Europe now and this little gem has been high on my list for a long time. Meeting at the intersection of France, Germany and Belgium, Luxembourg is a small country known for their wealth and storybook semblance and I was very excited to tick it off. Not just because it puts my European total at 36/46, but because I couldn't wait to experience the unique melting pot of blended cultures. I also couldn't think of someone better to experience it with than my lovely Mum! We do a girls trip every year and with the last few having been in the UK, we knew we were overdue an abroad trip.

I don't normally love an afternoon flight because you lose the first day, but when you're headed to a tiny destination that basically only goes from 1 UK airport, you pretty much have to take what you can get. Luckily, Luxembourg is only a hop, skip and a jump away and in only 1 hour, we'd arrived! In fact, it took longer to drive to Stansted (2 and a half hours) and to get through the new annoying Entry/Exit system and passport control (1 and a half hours). We actually arrived in golden hour, which was lovely because it bathed our hotel room in a lovely glow. We were staying at the Melia and it was the perfect base for exploring the city.

I'm not sure we still felt quite so enamoured with our hotel as "the perfect base" after we headed out for our first evening! All public transport in the whole country of Luxembourg is free (amazing) but our hotel wasn't really on any routes to the old town - we would have to walk for 10 minutes, get a tram, and then walk for 10 minutes the other side. It was a beautiful night and Google maps showed the walk being through a lovely park so we decided to take the 30 minute walk option instead. What Google maps doesn't show, is elevation, ground type, or surrounding area. We imagined we'd be having a stroll through the park, and we ended up with what can only be described as a yomp through the forest. Which is obviously totally ideal and practical in heels and dresses on a hot night! Me and Mum are very similar in that we find situations like this very funny so we were laughing away as we hiked up rocky paths, down through dark tunnels, and up and down giant hills. We hadn't quite appreciated just how hilly Luxembourg is and so if you want to cross the river, you have to hike all the way down a big hill, cross, and then hike all the way up a big hill on the other side. I wouldn't exactly recommend this walk in the way we did it, but if you were wearing more sensible shoes then it's definitely worth seeing because the Parc des Trois Glands was really beautiful and was home to a load of historic forts!

When we finally did make it to the old town (a fair amount longer than the supposed 30 minutes later), it was like finding a mirage in the desert, or land after a long time at sea. I don't think I've ever been so excited for a wine and a lovely dinner! Luckily, that's exactly what we had. When researching Luxembourg, I was rather disappointed to learn that their cuisine is much closer to German rather than French like I'd assumed. So to rectify that, I simply looked for French restaurants. Brasserie L’Hêtre Beim Musée had a beautiful big terrace, a lovely view, and the most incredible food ever. Mum and I both got the duck and it was so delicious! Although my favourite thing about French restaurants is the dessert menu. The café gourmand is my go-to because it's 4 desserts in 1. In my family, we've always called the art of having both rather than having to choose, "the Jenni option". This was certainly the dessert Jenni option to end all Jenni options!

Set up for a full day of walking in far more sensible shoes, we were heading back to the old town in the morning. This time, we checked out the Philharmonie building first (very cool) and then took the flatter route by walking straight over the big red Grande-Duchesse Charlotte bridge.

We were headed towards the lift down to the old town, but then this castle-like building caught my eye so we went for a little nosey around. The Pescatore J.P. Foundation is technically a retirement home, but it's basically a beautiful building surrounded by really well landscaped gardens. You can't go in the building (naturally) but we enjoyed admiring it from the outside!

Detour complete, we went back to the big lift to travel down to the old town in style. It has giant windows (so panoramic views) and given that it's a mode of transport, it was once again completely free. To say that Luxembourg is known for their wealth, it was really refreshing that most tourist attractions (that other cities and countries would charge for) were free. It's fair to say that getting into the old town was much easier than the night before! It was also weird to see it so quiet but it was a Sunday and it was kind of early in the morning. And what do we do in the morning? Breakfast! We opted for crepes in this really cute Italian themed cafe.

There were lots of things I loved about Luxembourg as a whole, but things I loved about the old town specifically were 1) how green it was. There were lots of tree-lined streets and pretty plants! And 2) how there were plenty of open spaces, cute little squares, and some well thought-out town planning. We had a wander to the Place du Theatre which had some fun statues, a cute mini library, and some really nice hidden bars. I could've easily stopped and a had a cocktail already but I get my drinking from my dad not my mum, so we kept it moving and kept exploring.

Next up was the Place d'Armes, which again was very pretty and tree-lined. However, the places were not as much of a vibe. Mcdonalds, Burger King, and plenty of places rated below a 4 on Google maps (sacré bleu). So we had a little wander around and admired the 20th century palace building, but we otherwise kept it moving again.

The grandest of all the squares was the Place Guillaume II and they had all these fun water fountains coming up from the ground in time with music that was keeping all the local kids entertained. Given that it was 30 degrees, I was dying to be a big kid myself and just run through them!

The Palais Grand-Ducal was my favourite building in Luxembourg; I love anything turretted and gothic. I also just had to get a picture of Mum with this lion coat of arms because we'd had a running joke about it all day. When she spotted a blue and white striped flag with a red lion flying above a local restaurant, she said 'oh look they have a Welsh restaurant here'. Given that we don't even see Welsh restaurants in England, I thought the assumption was hilarious and teased for her for the rest of the day, since that flag is actually just a flag version of the Luxembourg coat of arms (depicted on this grand iron gate).

We attempted to go and see the Notre-Dame cathedral but it seems there's some work going on with it right now so a lot of it was covered by temporary walls. We did a little circle round to try and admire what we could and from what we did manage to see, it was very beautiful.

Mum finally conceeded that it was beer time, so we stopped off at this cool brasserie, Brasserie des Nations Sàrl, which has been there for like 70 years! A French restaurant again, quelle surprise. We had a really amazing local beer which was just perfect in the heat of the day, Mum got a blue cheese salad and I got a steak tartare. Once we'd established that drinking had commenced, we headed back to a cute spot off the Place du Theatre that we'd found earlier for a spritz and a wine. I wouldn't say that Luxembourg was overly cheap for food and drink. It was somewhere between Nottingham and London prices. Probably not that disimilar than Paris. I shouldn't have been surprised really given that Luxembourg is known for their wealth, but with it being so tiny I thought it'd be a bit more of a bargain.

I always love a rooftop bar. Everyone should know this by now - it should practically be engraved on my headstone when I die. Here lies Jenni; loved a rooftop bar. I'm kidding of course... I won't have a headstone, I'll be sprinkled at sea. Anyway. There were a couple of rooftop bars in Luxembourg but some of them had some funky opening hours. Even this one, the La Fayette rooftop hadn't been open when we tried it earlier in the day. I think it opened at 2 and it was worth looping back and trying again. Not only were the views lovely, but this pimms cocktail was the most amazing, most pimmsy-pimms I've ever had. So heavy on the cucumber and SO refreshing. I might have to come back to Luxembourg one day just to have this again.

After 20,000 steps so far that day, we finally took the easy way out and took an Uber to dinner. We didn't fancy a repeat of the night before where we arrived at the restaurant sweaty and exhausted! Plus the plan the night before had been to catch the sunset but we didn't manage to, so we definitely wanted to this time. Instead of the old town, we were eating by the river this time and it was so cute and Hansel-and-Gretal-ish!

Our restaurant choices were a little limited because it was Sunday night and I forgot how much the French (and French-adjacent) love to close everything on a Sunday, Monday and sometimes even Tuesday. We ended up at a lovely Italian spot called Sazio, which had a beautiful courtyard and incredible looking pizzas. We both opted for pasta in the end and then shared an amazing creme brulée, set alight tableside! I made a rookie error ordering a red sauce pasta in a white dress. I obviously managed to splash a dot on myself approximately 2 minutes into eating.

It turns out that saving ourselves the walk to dinner, made sure we had an appetite for a yomp later on. Because I'd read that the best sunset spots in Luxembourg were on the Chemin de la corniche and I wanted to make sure we saw it this time. The sunsets in Luxembourg naturally aren't crazy because you're in a very hilly, inland, city. You're never going to watch the sun disappear below the horizon, but you can get some super pretty skies. So we hiked up the hill to this cool little drink spot, and it was full when we arrived so we decided to be cheeky and ask these 2 women if we could join their table. We're so glad we did! They called last orders and stopped letting people in not long after we arrived. Always be a chancer guys. Because if you are, you may just be rewarded with gorgeous views like this, while you sip on an amazing local rosé.

Luxembourg, like a lot of cities, is a donut. You have the main old town area in a small circle in the centre (the donut hole), surrounded by lots of other cool areas that go around it (the actual donut). If we'd explored the donut hole the day before, then Monday was the day to explore the donut itself. And with all this talk about sweet treats, we obviously started the day at this cute little boulangerie for coffee and pastries.

Our carefully-plotted itinerary was taking us in a clockwise circle around the city so after a walk through our favourite forest, our first stop was D'Wäschburen, which is an ancient wash house. You can still use it now for a little foot bathing, which sounded lovely in the hot weather. You'll never guess how cold the water was though! It was like being back in the Arctic sea in Tromsø.

I thought we'd seen some pretty great views already, but the best views in all of Luxembourg were at Casemates du Bock. It's essentially a giant complex of old walls and tunnels built into the rock face so not only does it have a cool historical aspect, but it also has the most gorgeous view across the revier os the Neumünster Abbey. It was hard to explain why but the whole scene looked like a tiny toy town! The view just keeps being more and more beautiful too as you walk in tandem to pretty much level with where we'd had dinner the night before. I enjoyed that despite how small Luxembourg is, we managed to not keep looping round and round the same streets - we planned a perfect itinerary that met but didn't cross over.

Continuing with our tour and we were headed into the busier 'new town'. I'd read that the train station was worth a visit because it has these beautiful stained glass windows inside. I was glad we went and saw it but we didn't hang around because there were lots of men just standing crowding around outside and it gave the whole place a bad aura. The girls will get it.

Somewhere with a very good aura indeed was the Place De Paris, a beautiful open square off the main road with Parisian architecture and lots of cute little bars and cafes. Paname had a gorgeous terrace area with deckchairs and lovely French bistro style seating (I always judge a place by their chairs and tables), so we decided to stop for a couple of drinks and a light lunch.

Once we'd put the world to rights and were ready for a change of scenery, we continued on up the main road. We wandered through the Place des Martyrs, past the Bourbon-Platte building, and then over the bridge crossing the Parcs de la Pétrusse. All the scenery in the old town is beautiful of course, but it's well worth exploring these smaller surrounding areas too because everything is much vaster and more open.

The last stop of the day was the Parc municipal de Luxembourg. I think technically it was 2 different parks connected by a road crossing through them, but either way we basically walked the length, passing cute little ponds and fountains, before setting up camp near the Mikrokosmos bar so we could enjoy their music. We did actually go in there for a little drink as the sun started to get lower too, and toasted our proseccos to another amazing mother-daughter trip. 

I love that Mum and I always make time for each other in this way, and I'm so grateful for the special bond that we have. Like we landed back at Stansted at about midnight (we had a lovely night flight that got delayed by an extra hour) and to keep us bright eyed and bushy tailed for the 2 hour 30 minute drive back, we blasted the Hamilton soundtrack and sang along the whole way. I know a lot of people have difficult relationships with their mums, but I feel very honoured to have been blessed with a lovely mum like mine. And a lovely mum like hers.