Luxembourg

June 22-23, 2023

Oh hi, it’s us… just two Americans in Luxembourg for 36 hours, casually being interviewed to wish the Grand Duke a happy birthday. Uhm, what?!

Anyway, hey again! Corey and I wanted to visit the 7th smallest country in Europe because, well, why wouldn’t we?! It was a 3.5 hour train ride from Brussels where we were staying for a couple weeks and cost us $137.55 TOTAL to get there and back (aka 4 separate train tickets).

The town of Luxembourg in the country of Luxembourg was beyond beautiful, it was quirky and filled with hills. Like, endless hills. So many hills that there’s a whole ass elevator (for people AND their bikes) to get back to street level.

The public transit was by far the nicest that we had been on in Europe and the UK. It was clean, modern, air conditioned and as of 2020 is 100% FREE to the public. The people keep to themselves but are generally very friendly and helpful! When we first hopped on the tram from the train station we searched high and low for a hub to do contactless payment because in Belgium you can get a large fine if you don’t pay for public transit. In Belgium, it’s the honor system (that you’ll scan your metro pass or credit card) sort of but with a ton of cameras on public transit watching your every move, no big deal. Anyway, a quick google search turned up that it was FREE99! What a treat!

We walked 4 min from the tram stop in the pouring rain (supes fun), checked into a little historic French hotel and bistro for the night that was in the dead center of the town so we could properly explore all of the cute shops! Per usual, we were hungry so we found a baked potato spot called Kumpir The Happy Potato that made my soul SO HAPPY! Not that you’d know this but I call Corey “potato” for truly no reason, some people call their significant other “babe”, “honey”, “sweetie”. Well, not me. Potato it is! Sooooo obviously it was fate and we HAD to go here. Cool, so fast forward the 5 min walk – THIS FOOD WAS INSANE. IT WAS INCREDIBLE. IT WAS PERFECT. It was the tiniest little spot that had zero inside seating, it was located inside the metro station at the ground level. The potatoes were giant and the toppings/fixings were endless and 100% included in the cost. There were Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and Mexican mix ins and easily could be totally vegetarian – I got ground beef added to mine but C was all veg. Not going to lie, this is going to be the most in-depth part of this blog, so if you’ve made it this far, don’t worry the rest will be a quick read!

After our potato adventure we walked across the road to the wine shop to get a bottle for our very chill, low key night (lol at that sentiment – you’ll see why soon). The shop clerk helped us pick out two bottles that suited our preferences and price point then told us that the town is typically very quiet and keeps to themselves but tonight is their national holiday and there will be dozens of DJs on the streets, thousands of people dancing, drinking and partying all for the Grand Duke’s birthday and the center of the chaos would be the center of town. So uhm yeah, love that I surprised Corey by booking the cutest hotel in the CENTER OF THE NOT SO SLEEPY TOWN. Whoops.

We explored a bit of the town around 7pm or so before the party got too crazy, took cute pictures when we saw a news crew walking near us. Me being who I am and knowing how adorable he and I are together I had a pretty solid feeling that they would come up to us so we just stood there being cute and chatting when SURPRISE, they asked if they could interview us. We chatted for a couple min with them about basic things like how long we’d been in Luxembourg and they asked if we wanted to wish the Grand Duke a happy birthday so we of course did. Then as we finished up they started walking away and C and I stood looking off into the distance (again another feeling that they’d film us again) and he put his arm around my shoulders – I quickly remedied that by asking him to put his arm around my wait to properly snatch it. PS, they filmed that cute moment too. Did we stage the whole thing? Well, yeah. But we definitely would’ve been that cute regardless.

The party went on all night but surprisingly in our room we couldn’t hear anything and slept soundly! We ended up drinking some wine and then going back out to the party around midnight. IT WAS CRAZY!

Anyway, we walked around the next day as well – taking photos, exploring the town and accidentally going on a hike because that’s what google maps decided we needed to do to get to our restaurant. Then ended up exploring ancient ruins (again bc google maps) all to just get food. Love that for us. Took more cute photos and then finished off the trip with a spritzy little cocktail that made me just tipsy enough to want McDonalds for the first time in years (outside of wanting it on road trips) sooooo we got some impossible chicky nugs and every sauce they made before popping over to the train station. My hot girl tummy (aka sensitive tummy) wasn’t thrilled on our 3.5 hour train ride back but we made it and the trip was PERFECT!!!

Fave Restaurants, Hotel, + Shop:

Hotel Français – https://www.hotelfrancais.lu/en/pages/home.html
Kumpir The Happy Potato – https://goo.gl/maps/E22RvANq85yMGMxr8
Vinoteca Ville (wine shop) – https://goo.gl/maps/x8y7LFpAZQTXqEiA6
Hertz Pop/Up (super yummy limoncello spritz) – https://goo.gl/maps/1mcSVSLL669BF4mA8

See you for the next blog post recapping one of our adventures!