All About World Heritage Sites
Make traveling more meaningful
It is officially Casemates season! On 1 March, the popular tourist attraction forming part of Luxembourg’s UNESCO World Heritage sites opened to the public now that spring is (hopefully) on the way.
Source: Knowledge Bites: Casemates – the Gibraltar of the North
Luxembourg. Say what? Where is that?
Source: UNESCO – 30 photos that will make you fall in love with Luxembourg
From The Old Quarter in Luxembourg City to the Grand Ducal Palace, here are a few places you can visit in Luxembourg.
For a tiny country, a Luxembourg vacation offers quite a rich blend of culture to be found on your trip to Europe.
Source: A Luxembourg Vacation Offers a Wealth of Reasons to Visit This Tiny Country | Goway
Throughout history, when people needed strong structures to protect their cities, towns, and other important areas, they built fortifications. These buildings, designed for the defense of territories in warfare were also used to solidify rule in a region during peacetime. Often built as part of castles, many ancient forts, some in ruins and some intact, are beautiful sites to visit.
We’ve collected some of the most beautiful forts in the world that deserve consideration on your travel bucket list. You’ll find them standing guard in Italy, Croatia, Scotland, Tyrol, Ukraine, Luxembourg, South Korea, Austria, Spain, India, and Oman. Check them out below.
1. EILEAN DONAN CASTLE — DORNIE, SCOTLAND
Eilean Donan, a mid-13th century fortified castle, is situated on an island at the point where three great sea lochs meet, and surrounded by majestic scenery. It is once of the most beautiful and important attractions in the Scottish Highlands.
There are four generations of the MacRae family past, present and future who are still the Constables of Eilean Donan Castle today.
Read more from source: Gorgeous Forts and Fortified Castles | Travel Bucket List | BeautifulNow
Luxembourg, a country with less than 1 million people living in it, is a central hub in the European Union. Despite what you might think, there is a lot more to this small and mighty country than meets the eye.
From food and historic attractions to the kind and welcoming nature of the city’s residents, this European destination is a gem, one that is often overlooked when compared to other cities.
I recently spent a few days exploring all the city of Luxembourg has to offer, from food and drink to history and culture.
After arriving on Thursday evening, I checked into the Hotel Vauban, a cosy hotel right in the heart of the city centre on Place Guillaume II Square, a mere five-minute walk to the famous Grand Ducal Palace.
One of the things we love about Europe is the opportunity to visit multiple countries during a short span of time. We were in the xx part of Germany last June and Luxembourg was only 90 minutes away. We don’t turn down two country day trips and we didn’t really know that much about Luxembourg. Luxembourg City, its capital city, formerly known as the “Gibraltar of the North” seemed like the ideal place to explore for a few hours.
Luxembourg is a tiny country nestled between Germany, Belgium and France. It’s usually ranked high in wealth and wine consumption. We saw evidence of the wealth part when we spotted two expensive Tesla cars used as cabs. It is also one of the three headquarters of the European Union along with Brussels, Belgium and Strasbourg, France.
The Casemates and fortifications of Luxembourg have existed for centuries, but it was not until the 1990s that extensive work began to unearth and restore the city’s buried treasures for tourism purposes.
In 1994, the old city quarters and fortifications of Luxembourg were selected as a UNESCO World Heritage site and, prior to the new designation, a number of new tourism initiatives were launched. Among them: the Wenzel Walk, a three-kilometre trail created along the outer wall of Luxembourg’s fortifications, erected by Wenceslas II, Duke of Luxembourg, from 1383 to 1419 and after which this path is named.
The tourist brochure promises 1,000 years of history in 100 minutes and it lives up to its word: the trail is actually doable in 100 minutes.
Charming and romantic, you’ll find it hard to come across a more laid back capital city of the same name as the country.
While it doesn’t have the same wealth of attractions like its giant neighbours – France and Germany – Luxembourg, where French is the dominant language, has a rich cultural heritage and is pulling out all the stops to lure long-haul travellers, such as visitors from Asia, Australia and the United States, to the only Grand Duchy in the world.
First-time visitors head straight for the Grand Duke’s official residence – the grand-ducal palace – to see the changing of the guards, which happens every two hours in fine weather and every 40 minutes to one hour in snow or wintry weather.
