Best Things To Do In Luxembourg City And Beyond: Full Itinerary

It’s often overlooked by people planning a European city break, but I recently discovered that Luxembourg’s minuscule size makes it an appealing destination for people who want to pack a lot into a long weekend.

The best things to do in Luxembourg City are easy to cram into one day thanks to the city’s compact layout, and the rest of the country is generously scattered with magical castles, wineries and hiking routes for keen explorers.

It’s not hard to fill up an itinerary for Luxembourg!

I was hosted in the city on a press trip with Visit Luxembourg, so I thought I’d share all of my Luxembourg travel tips and the best places to see in Luxembourg City and its surrounds in this three-day travel itinerary.

If you’re planning a trip but aren’t sure how long you’ll need, I’d say that three days is enough to see Luxembourg’s top attractions – but there’s plenty to see and do so you can always stretch this three-day Luxembourg itinerary out a bit, and add more sights!

What to do in Luxembourg City (and the rest of the country) in three days

Watch my full Luxembourg travel vlog on Youtube

Before we dive into Luxembourg’s top attractions, here’s a money-saving tip.

I recommend picking up a Luxembourg Card if you’re there for the weekend.

It’s a useful hack for saving money during your stay because it gets you into more than 60 museums and Luxembourg tourist attractions for free and means you can use public transport at no extra cost.

Use my Travel Resources page to find the best companies to book your Luxembourg trip with

DAY 1: Top things to do in Luxembourg City in one day

Whether you’re in Luxembourg for a longer trip or you’re just doing a day trip to Luxembourg City and want to see the main sights in the time you have, use this one-day itinerary to help you decide what to see and do in the capital in 24 hours.

Short on time or don’t feel like walking? The hop on hop off bus is an easy way to get around Luxembourg’s tourist attractions.

Find out where to eat breakfast in Luxembourg City

Start your day in Luxembourg City at the best breakfast spot in town: Chocolate House by Nathalie Bonn. Their famous hot chocolate creations are basically a Luxembourg attraction in their own right.

They’re served as a cup of hot milk, along with your pick of 50 different flavours of hot chocolate spoon. You plunge the chocolate spoon into your hot milk and drink it as it melts.

Terribly indulgent and completely worth the calories! They also serve regular dishes if you don’t have a sweet tooth.

Cost: 4.25 Euros

Visit Grand Ducal Palace

Chocolate House is located directly opposite the Grand Ducal Palace, so you can sit outside and watch the guards in front of the elegant Flemish Renaissance facade as you sip one of their signature hot chocolates.

This building is a Luxembourg must-see. I actually saw the Duke come back to the palace when I was there!

Once your sugar rush kicks in, you can do a guided tour of the palace (from mid-July till end of August).

Walk Luxembourg City’s Museumsmile

Art and culture lovers, rejoice. There are seven museums within a one mile radius of each other in Luxembourg’s city centre. If you connect them all on a map, it draws the shape of a smile, so they’ve nicknamed it, rather aptly, ‘Museumsmile’.

This stretch offers culture-hungry travellers plenty of inspiration for their Luxembourg to do list.

Spend some time working your way around Villa Vauban, Lëtzebuerg City Museum, National Museum of History and Art, National Museum of Natural History, Museum Dräi Echelon and Museum of Modern Art Grand-Duc Jean.

The last stop should be Casino Luxembourg, a contemporary art museum, because you can eat lunch at their fabulous restaurant.

Free with Luxembourg card

Lunch like a Lady in Luxembourg City

Ca(fé)sino at Casino Luxembourg is an elegant brasserie where meals are served buffet-style. The food is delicious, especially considering it’s self-service, and on a warm day you can eat on the terrace.

The dining room is a rather special setting as it’s housed in the old restored Saint-Hubert salons, with original 18th-century walls illuminated by contemporary neon lighting.

Cost: 26.50 Euros for brunch

Take a walking tour of Luxembourg City’s sights

In the afternoon of your first day in Luxembourg City, take a walk to see more of the city’s highlights, like Notre-Dame Cathedral, Place Guillaume II and The Chamber of Deputies (parliament building).

This is one of the best free things to do in Luxembourg.

Free

If you prefer seeing a city on wheels, book a bike tour of Luxembourg City instead.

Enjoy the best view in Luxembourg City

No trip to Luxembourg City is complete without a pause to take in the views from ‘Europe’s most beautiful balcony’, Chemin de la Corniche.

This was my favourite moment from the weekend in Luxembourg. Nobody should visit the city without seeing this.

The promenade wraps around the 17th-century city ramparts and offers stunning views over the river and The Grund below. Do you agree this is the best viewpoint in Luxembourg?

Free

Take a walk along the river

You can also see the Alzette up close with a walk along its banks. During my stroll, I was tricked by a mermaid sculpture. For a moment I thought she was a real, living woman!

Her name is Melusina and she has quite the story to tell – it’s written on a plaque so you can read it for yourself.

It’s a lovely thing to do in Luxembourg for families with young kids who believe in fairytales!

Free

Explore Luxembourg’s ancient tunnels

From there, visit the Bock Casemates, a complex network of underground tunnels first built in 1644 as a defence system. They give Luxembourg its nickname as Gibraltar of the North.

Entry is only 6 Euros and it’s one of the more unique activities in Luxembourg City.

Eat dinner at a Luxembourg restaurant

I recommend Brasserie Mansfeld  for dinner in the city. There’s a decently priced set menu (49 Euros) and the restaurant decor feels sumptuous and modern.

If you’re looking for the best places to go for nightlife in Luxembourg City, start at Dipso for wine or Urban for a busy atmosphere on weekends, when the crowd spills out onto the cobblestones. 

Want to stay out later? Luxembourg’s nightlife is centred in Grund and Clausen, so you’re bound to find a party in those areas.

DAY 2: Castles and easy hikes in Luxembourg

If you’re staying in Luxembourg for two or three days, it’s worth hiring a car to get out of the city and explore some of the best attractions around Luxembourg City.

There are loads of different day trips you can do from Luxembourg City and while public transport is efficient, you’ll always have more freedom if you have a car. On your second day in Luxembourg, go explore the country!

Find Luxembourg’s most picturesque castle

There are over 100 castles packed into Luxembourg’s 2,586 square kilometres, so go find them!

Some are basically just stately homes but others will give you serious princess vibes and are known as the most famous places in Luxembourg.

If you rent a car to get around Luxembourg, drive to Vianden to see what I think is the most magical castle in the country.

The tiny town, which is located in the north-east of Luxembourg (29 miles from Luxembourg City), is reigned over by a fairytale castle in the hills.

During the summer months, you can ride the chairlift for panoramic views over the castle and the Our River snaking through the town below. This is also free with the Luxembourg Card!

For a different perspective of Vianden Castle, there’s a viewpoint opposite Hotel Belvedere.

Another of the most picturesque castles in Luxembourg is in Larochette. I sadly wasn’t able to visit its ruins because of road closures (I was there on Luxembourg’s National Day).

There’s also Grand Castle Ansembourg, whose splendid gardens are open to the public.

Explore Little Switzerland

Continue your Luxembourg road trip and discover the Mullerthal region, aka Luxembourg’s ‘Little Switzerland’, which hides some of the best places to visit in Luxembourg.

First stop should be charming Echternach, the oldest city in Luxembourg.

Echternach has a grand Abbey with a gorgeous Orangerie, a Roman villa archeological site, a lake with pedal boats and plenty of medieval streets to wander.

The Market Square, crowned by the Column of Judgement, is a good place to eat lunch.

Check Echternach hotel prices and availability

Chase Luxembourg’s famous waterfall

I’m a big believer in chasing waterfalls. If you are too, make a stop at The Schiessentümpel on Little Switzerland’s Black Ernz river.

This is Luxembourg’s most famous waterfall and is one of the best photography spots in Luxembourg.

You can get there either from the Touristcenter Heringer Millen over local hiking trails (W6 & W7) after approx. 1 km, or from the nearby larger parking situated between the village of Mullerthal and the crossroads at the Breidweiler bridge on the street called CR121.

Discover Luxembourg’s best hikes

If you’re planning to hike in Luxembourg, the Mullerthal region is the place for it. I visited right after a storm so many of the multiple-day hiking trails were closed, but we were able to do a 4km hike on the C2 route.

This is a unique hiking experience because part of it involves passing through some seriously imposing rock formations, with narrow passages sometimes blocked from the sunlight overhead. It isn’t a hike for the claustrophobic!

Check Mullerthal hotel prices and availability

After a long day exploring the best spots around Luxembourg, head back to Luxembourg City and have a casual dinner at Brasserie Siegfried.

I didn’t actually eat here but the other people on my trip did and they got to try local Luxembourgish dishes like Bouchée à la Reine – creamy chicken and mushroom with pastry. It’s a heavy dish, so you’ll want to crawl straight into bed afterwards!

DAY 3: More of the best things to do on day trips from Luxembourg City

If you have three days in Luxembourg, there’s still plenty to do outside of Luxembourg City. Day three of my itinerary covers some of the more off the beaten path, unusual things to do in Luxembourg.

Visit a photography exhibition

We went to an incredibly moving photography collection called Family of Man in the Clervaux Castle.

First exhibited in 1955, there are 503 photographs by 273 artists from all over the world, and they’re grouped together to depict how life, death, birth and the like are celebrated around the world.

It highlights how alike we all are in our humanity, and I thought it was worth the drive out of the city.

Learn more about Luxembourg’s castles

There’s also a collection of models of Luxembourg’s fortified castles here, Museum of Models of Luxembourg Castles, which will be particularly interesting if you came to Luxembourg to see its famous castles. Also free with the Luxembourg Card!

If you’re hungry after this, you can eat lunch in Clervaux Castle’s café-restaurant Au Vieux Chateau, which is housed in the old watchman’s tower.

Find out where to drink wine in Luxembourg

Next stop for your final afternoon in Luxembourg should be the wine region, the valley of the Moselle.

Surrounded by hilly vineyards, this area produces nine different varieties of grape: Riesling, Pinot noir, Pinot blanc, Pinot gris, Gewürztraminer, Auxerrois, Rivaner, Elbling and Chardonnay.

I loved the sparkling wines and crémants particularly.

Head to Grevenmacher and visit either Caves Bernard-Massard or Caves Grenmacher wineries for a guided tour and tasting.

There’s a lovely wine bar on the banks of the Moselle river called Bistro Quai. We ordered some (reasonably priced, delicious) sharing platters and a few glasses of crémant, and spent a relaxed afternoon looking over the water to Germany.

You can also take a river cruise on the Moselle for views of Luxembourg on one side and Germany on the other.

Check Grevenmacher hotel prices and availability

Where to stay in Luxembourg

If you’re looking for budget accommodation in Luxembourg, Hotel Parc Belle-Vue is a good basic option.  The accommodation itself is nothing to write home about, but its grounds have an incredible view over the city and the location is decent.

If you’re looking for a more luxurious experience in Luxembourg, the best five-star hotels in the city are Hotel Le Royal, Hotel Le Place d’Armes and Sofitel.

Check all Luxembourg City hotel prices and availability

Booking.com

How to get to Luxembourg

You can fly to Luxembourg from various airports. If you’re planning your trip now, I recommend you check flight prices on Skyscanner and set up an email alert that will let you know when the price has dropped.

From Luxembourg Airport, you can get the number 16 bus into the city.

Alternatively, you can get to Luxembourg via train from its neighbouring companies. Check out Interrail passes to save money on multiple journeys within Europe.

How much do things cost in Luxembourg?

Let’s start with the most important thing (for me, anyway): how much does alcohol cost in Luxembourg? A glass of the local crémant costs around 6 Euros, with G&Ts at around 13 Euros in the main nightlife area.

Average meal prices in Luxembourg City are around the 15 Euros mark, but you’ll obviously pay more in posh restaurants.

Luxembourg city’s taxis are expensive and operate on a fixed rate of approximately 34 Euro per 10km.

Buses are free with the Luxembourg Card, so it’s definitely worth investing in if you’re in Luxembourg for two or three days because you’ll also save on all the tourist attractions.

Healthcare is expensive in Luxembourg. Make sure you have good travel insurance before your trip. Travellers tend to agree that World Nomads offers the most comprehensive protection. Use the box below to get a quote!

What to eat in Luxembourg

There’s a lot of French and Italian cuisine in Luxembourg, but there are also some common Luxembourgish dishes you could try (yes, people from Luxembourg are called Luxembourgish).

I was only in Luxembourg for a few days so obviously didn’t get to try everything, but some of the local favourites are ‘Bouneschlupp’: a green bean soup, ‘Judd mat Gaardebounen’: smoked neck of pork with broad beans, F’rell Am Rèisleck:) trout in Riesling and cream sauce and Gromperekichelcher: potato fritters.

Luxembourg also has some delicious ham and cheeses!

You might like to watch my Luxembourg travel vlog on YouTube for more inspiration. Don’t forget to subscribe!

See my top European city break destinations

Thank you for reading my Luxembourg itinerary! I hope I’ve given you lots of ideas for the best things to do in Luxembourg City and beyond but as I was only in Luxembourg for a long weekend, I’d love any comments with more recommendations for things to see and do there.

Please leave your feedback in a comment and follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest for more travel inspiration.

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