Explore Luxembourg City

Place Guillaume II, known locally as the Knuedler, is a square in Luxembourg City's old town on the site of a former Franciscan friary; the nickname recalls the knotted cord the friars wore. The City Hall, completed in 1838 to plans by Justin Remont, stands on its south-west side, and an equestrian statue of King-Grand Duke William II rises in the eastern half.

Place d'Armes is a square in the pedestrian centre of Luxembourg City's old town, laid out in 1671 by the Spanish engineer Jean Charles de Landas as a parade ground for the garrison. Lined with trees and café terraces, it has a bandstand used for summer concerts, the Cercle Cité of 1906–1909 at its east end and a Christmas market in December.

The Grand Ducal Palace in Luxembourg City's old town is the Grand Duke's official workplace as head of state. Its Renaissance façade dates from the rebuilding of the former town hall in the 1570s; a wing was added in 1891–1895. Visitors see it from Rue du Marché-aux-Herbes, where soldiers stand guard; guided tours of the interior run only in summer.

The Pétrusse Casemates are galleries in the Beck bastion beneath Place de la Constitution and in the Pâté ravelin the Spanish built in 1673. The Austrians added a great staircase in 1728–1729 and a gun battery in 1746. Opened to visitors in 1933, they reopened in 2022 after safety works, with light installations that tell their history.

Notre-Dame Cathedral was built in 1613–1621 as the church of the Jesuit college and became Luxembourg's cathedral in 1870. The late Gothic building with Renaissance details was enlarged in 1935–1938. Inside are the venerated statue of Our Lady, Comforter of the Afflicted, patron of the city and the country, and a crypt with the tombs of the grand ducal family.

Casino Luxembourg is a centre for contemporary art in Luxembourg City, housed in the Casino Bourgeois, built in 1882 by the architects Pierre and Paul Funck as a venue for balls, concerts and lectures; Franz Liszt gave his last recital there in 1886. Since 1996 it has shown temporary exhibitions and runs an art library.

The Chemin de la Corniche is a promenade along the 17th-century ramparts that Spanish and French engineers built above the Alzette valley in Luxembourg City. It runs from the Bock promontory to the Holy Ghost Citadel and looks down on the Grund district and across to the Rham plateau.

St Michael's Church stands by the Fish Market in the old upper town of Luxembourg City, on the site of the castle chapel the counts built in 987, which makes it the oldest religious site in the city. Destroyed and rebuilt several times, it took its present form in 1688 and combines Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque features.

The Adolphe Bridge carries road and tram traffic 42 metres above the Pétrusse valley, linking the old town with the station district. Designed by Paul Séjourné and Albert Rodange and built in 1900–1903, it has a central stone arch of about 85 metres, at the time the largest in the world. A deck for cyclists and pedestrians was hung beneath it in 2018.

Luxembourg's national natural history museum occupies the former Saint-Jean hospice on the bank of the Alzette in the Grund, Luxembourg City, where it opened in 1996. Its exhibitions cover geology, minerals, fossils, plants and animals, from the formation of the Earth to the wildlife of Luxembourg today, alongside temporary shows.

Neimënster Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey in the Grund district of Luxembourg City, begun in 1606 and rebuilt after the siege of 1684. Later a prison, barracks and military hospital, it was restored and opened in 2004 as a cultural centre with exhibitions, concerts and a cloister showing sculptures by Lucien Wercollier.

The Bock Casemates are galleries cut into the rock of the Bock promontory, where Count Siegfried built his castle in 963. Austrian engineers dug them from 1745; they could hold some 50 cannon and 1,200 soldiers. The visit passes an archaeological crypt with remains of the first castle, gun chambers with views over the Alzette valley and a 47-metre well.

Villa Vauban is the art museum of the City of Luxembourg, in a villa built in 1873 for the glove maker Gabriel Mayer and extended in 2010. It shows 18th- and 19th-century paintings from private collections, a section of the old fortress wall is visible in its basement, and it stands in a park laid out by Édouard André.

Musée Dräi Eechelen occupies Fort Thüngen, built by the Austrians in 1732 in what is now the Kirchberg district of Luxembourg City; its three round towers crowned with golden acorns give the museum its Luxembourgish name. Opened in 2012, its permanent exhibition traces the history of the fortress and the country from 1443 to 1903.

The Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial in Hamm, on the eastern edge of Luxembourg City, is the Second World War cemetery of more than 5,000 American soldiers, many killed in the Battle of the Bulge. Established in December 1944 and dedicated in 1960, it holds the grave of General George S. Patton and a stone chapel with a mosaic ceiling.