The Ville Haute, Luxembourg's old town on the rock

When someone tells you they saw Luxembourg in an afternoon, they nearly always mean the Ville Haute. Fair enough, since the squares, the palace and the shops are all here and close together. But the old town plays a trick on you. From the inside it looks like any comfortable European centre; from its edges it’s a fortress hanging over two valleys. This is how I’d walk it.

A plateau made for defence

The Ville Haute sits on the rock that the Alzette and the Pétrusse wrap around almost completely. UNESCO describes it as a natural fortification that only needed closing on its western side, and that geography explains the whole district. The streets are narrow because the walls stopped the town spreading outwards, and the World Heritage listing points out that most of the old plan survives, with houses squeezed into a layout set by the needs of defence.

Inside those walls, noble families and the big religious orders built their town houses, known as refuges, to be near the administration. Many are now ministries or museums, though the fronts haven’t changed. The district covers 105.90 hectares and has only 3,509 residents according to the city council, and with so few people living here I’d call it a centre that lives mainly by day.

The squares, in the order I’d do them

I’d start at Place Guillaume II, which everyone calls the Knuedler. The Hôtel de Ville and the city tourist office stand here, and on Wednesday and Saturday mornings so is the market. Two streets away is Place d’Armes, the «city’s living room», with its bandstand and the Cercle Cité. The third is Place de la Constitution on the southern edge, where the Gëlle Fra looks out over the Pétrusse valley.

Between the first and the third you pass the Grand Ducal Palace, with its 16th-century front, and Notre-Dame Cathedral, which is free to visit. That’s a good hour, and you’ve seen what appears on the postcards of the centre. Next to the cathedral, Place de Clairefontaine with its statue of Grand Duchess Charlotte is worth a five-minute detour.

With half an hour left, I’d finish at the Marché-aux-Poissons, the Fëschmaart or Fish Market. The tourist office calls it the historic heart of the old town, because it was the crossroads of two Roman roads and the first markets were held here, in front of the Dukes’ castle. It was also known as the cheese market, and the houses around it are of real historical value. Today the Nationalmusée um Fëschmaart, the national museum of history and art, presides over it.

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The eastern edge, the bit I wouldn’t skip

The Ville Haute changes character the moment you reach its walls. On the east, the Chemin de la Corniche runs along 17th-century ramparts with the Grund below. At its northern end is the Bock rock with the casemates, and at the southern end the Holy Spirit plateau, the Saint-Esprit Plateau, where the citadel stood and the law courts of the Cité judiciaire now rise. A lift from that plateau drops you into the Grund.

On the north side, in Pescatore park, is the other lift, the panoramic one, which goes down to the Pfaffenthal. It’s free and runs from 5:45 to 1:00. I like to use it the opposite way to most people, walking down the slopes beside the walls and riding back up. If the slopes aren’t for you, the Luxembourg sightseeing train does the circuit in about 40 minutes.

Museums for a wet afternoon

The district holds a good share of the capital’s museums. The national museum of history and art stands on the old fish market and costs €7, free for anyone under 26. The Lëtzebuerg City Museum on rue du Saint-Esprit tells the city’s story in its exhibition «The Luxembourg Story». Casino Luxembourg, given over to contemporary art, charges nothing. If I could only go into one, I’d pick the city museum, because it puts everything you’ve seen in the streets into order.

The city council’s own profile of the district also lists the Cinémathèque and Place du Théâtre, two stops most visitors walk straight past. And on the western side, the municipal park laid out by Édouard André from 1878 on land freed by the fortress gives you around 30 hectares of green right beside the shopping streets.

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Where does the old town end?

On the west, at the municipal park and avenue Émile Reuter, home of the Villa Vauban. On the south, at the Pétrusse valley, crossed by the Adolphe Bridge towards the station district. On the east and north, at the walls that drop to the Grund, Clausen and the Pfaffenthal. According to visitluxembourg, the Pfaffenthal and the Grund together form the oldest quarter of the city, and with the Ville Haute they make up what visitors call the old town. If you’re giving the capital a full day, see how I fit it together on my page about Luxembourg City.

One last practical point for a British visitor. The upper town sits inside the Schengen area, so there are no border checks once you’re here, but as a UK passport holder you’ll have been registered in the EES biometric system when you first entered the area.

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