We love a walking tour when we visit a new city. It’s great to do this as one of your first activities to learn the local history and get recommendations from your guide. During our walking tour of Luxembourg, our local guide was able to point out restaurants, where we could try traditional dishes and where we could find the tourist office for day trip information. 

The key sites and points of interest we visited during our tour were: the city fortifications, the oldest religious site in the city, the judicial buildings and monuments, and we were able to watch the changing of the guard at the Grand Ducal Palace. Our guide also had lots of interesting historical facts about both the city and the country, such as the fact that the country was gifted to the king of the Netherlands in 1815 and the royal family have been on the throne ever since. This is why the Luxembourg flag is very similar to the Netherlands flag, the only difference is that the blue stripe is lighter in colour.

The tour we did is advertised as a free walking tour, which means you just pay a tip at the end for how much you think the tour was worth. We paid €10 each, but however much you decide to pay  just make sure to get cash out first as they don’t have a card machine. 

The Pfaffenthal panoramic lift is just a 10min walk from the centre and completely worth the short walk. It has amazing views of the valley from the viewing platform and you can even go right to the end where there is a glass floor. You can then take the lift down to the valley floor. If you're like me and not great with heights, you'll be glad to hear the lift itself doesn't have a glass floor, just glass walls! 

Then you can enjoy another short 10 min stroll through the valley to the Pfaffenthal-Kirchberg funicular. The walk through the valley feels like you're in a completely different place after being in the city. It's like you've taken the lift to a small European village with a stream running through the middle. The main reminder that you're still in Luxembourg city is the very impressive Red Bridge, which stretches overhead.

When you reach the funicular, it's another short lift to the platform where you can board. The ride is short but fun, especially if you haven't been on one before. When you reach the top you can either walk or take the tram across the Red Bridge, back into the centre, or you can take the opportunity to explore the financial district. 

The financial district has its fair share of impressive skyscrapers, many of which are the headquarters for banks or office buildings for the EU. We particularly recommend taking a look at the Museum of Modern Art, a skillful combination of old and new architecture designed by the architect who did the Louvre pyramid. Behind the museum is also a complex of forts, which was deliberately designed to be maze-like to keep out invading forces. Also located within the financial district is The Philharmonic, a curved white building with thin columns all the way around. Opposite The Philharmonic is another tram stop, where you can catch a tram back to the city centre.

This was a whole day tour which left the city at 9am and returned us back at 5pm. We were able to get off at various stops, either to take photos or to wander off on our own for a set amount of time to explore. The tour is available through the official sightseeing Luxembourg website for €99 but we booked it through getyourguide which has it for the same cost. However, the benefit of using getyourguide is that they often have sales or discount codes you can use to bring the cost of activities down. 

The first stop on the tour was a short 45 min walk through the Müllerthal Region countryside with an English speaking local guide. The guide stopped at key points to give us information on the moss, ferns and fungus that grow in the area, as well as the limestone formations. She also shared the history of the hiking trails and ongoing maintenance. The walk takes you alongside the river and at the end we were able to stop at the very picturesque waterfall, Schiessentümpel.

The next stop was just a quick hop-off at Beaufort Castle. If you're not that interested in a full tour of the ruins of Beaufort castle, then this day tour is a great way to get to see the castle ruins without making a special trip. On the day we visited the castle it was undergoing restoration works and was closed anyways. So if you are planning on doing a full trip to the castle, it's best to check online first to see if the tours are running, as entry is only allowed with a tour guide. You are not allowed to wander freely.

My favourite stop on the tour was the UNESCO site of Vianden castle and town. We were given 2.5hrs to explore and after a rather steep walk to the castle, we enjoyed some great panoramic views of the town and valley from its windows and balcony. Several of the castle rooms are staged with traditional furnishings to show what the castle might have been like when it was initially inhabited, with other rooms displaying artwork or artefacts. There is also detailed information about the recent restoration work from 1977 to 2018 which renovated the castle from ruin to the state it is in today. The entry cost was included in our day tour, but audio guides were available for €2 if you are interested in spending a bit longer going round and learning about all the historical artefacts and information on the family of Vianden.

The last stop on our tour was at Echternach, a town on the German border. A local guide met us as we got off our bus and gave us a walking tour, explaining the local history and the importance of the saint buried in the Basilica. Five different churches have stood on the site of the Basilica and inside we were able to see evidence of each of the previous churches. My favourite fact from our tour was that the town is famous for the annual dancing procession that takes place to honour the disease-curing saint buried in the Basilica, and the year after COVID-19 over 7000 people took part in the dance in the hopes the saint would protect them! 

The Luxembourg Notre Dame Cathedral is hard to miss, as you can see its steeples peeking out between buildings from most parts of the city. You might notice during your visit however, that the steeples of this building don’t match! This is because, much like the Parisian Notre Dame, the Luxembourg cathedral also had a fire where it lost one of its steeples. They have since replaced the lost steeple and modernised the design in the process, meaning it no longer matches the existing one!

It's free to enter the Cathedral as a tourist, but there are plenty of collection boxes inside if you want to contribute to the upkeep of the building. If you want information on the artwork and architecture within the building that you can enjoy at your own pace, there is the option to download an audio guide from the sightseeing.lu app for €5.99. You can also buy the same guide through getyourguide for £5.29 and enter the code directly into the sightseeing.lu app. 

We also want to highlight the fact that this is a working religious building, so it still holds services. As entry is prohibited during these, it’s best to check and avoid the service times.