CENTRAL EUROPE BLOG May 4th, 2026 - LUXEMBOURG

 

5/4/26– Woke up this morning to an email from Europcar regarding the return. It states all is well, however, has the windshield marked for a chip. Now I know they aren’t going to try and charge us for this when we had it for less than a day with around 100 kilometers driven, especially when there was no traffic around, we heard no crack and I was very safe in my driving. We’ll see what the final bill comes to, but we may end up having some words, with the credit card company involved. Just say’in.

Now on to brighter things. I’m able to sleep in and rest as today should be a light day. The rain is still falling but shouldn’t interfere with what we have planned.

We buy our tickets online for Petrusse Casemates, which consists of a series of underground tunnels used for defense of the fortress above and as a bomb shelter during the World Wars. Of course we have to once again walk up the steep path to the top (why can’t they just build an accessible elevator for the public), and arrive around 12:45pm.

The long staircase down already has me dreading the way back up later, but we follow through the cave-like tunnel as far as we can take it. On the other side, we exit to a grand view of the fortress walls, but of course we’ll need to scale more stairs to get back up. Oy, I’m beginning to feel the burn in my hamstrings.

Back at the top, we see Gelle Fra Monument, which commemorates the thousands of Luxembourgers who volunteered and perished during the first world war.

Continuing on, we grab a few items from the Monoprix and walk another six minutes or so to the free panoramic elevator. This is supposed to give us a great view of Luxembourg but unfortunately the one day of the month it’s closed happens to be today. Eh, what can you do?

With nothing else on our agenda, we trek back down to our AirBnb, enjoying more views along the way. We thought about going back to the pizza place we went to the first night but it appears almost every place is closed on Mondays. I do find a bar nearby that has a decent priced jalapeno burger and it isn’t too bad. Meat is always good with sore muscles and this was sorely needed.

Side note: I am impressed with how clean Luxembourg is. Amsterdam is nice as well but the trash spread out everywhere makes the city look… well, trashy. Now, find a way to replace the stairs with an elevator and I’m set.

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