Top 10 things to do in Luxembourg City, ranked

The unmissables (1-5)

1. Walk the Chemin de la Corniche — the balcony over the Alzette valley is the single best five minutes in the city, especially at golden hour. 2. Bock Casemates: the 17th-century tunnels drilled into the promontory are the reason UNESCO listed the old town. 3. Grund at dusk, cutting down from Ville Haute via the Montée du Grund. 4. Mudam on the Kirchberg plateau for I.M. Pei architecture plus a strong contemporary programme. 5. Notre-Dame Cathedral and the ducal crypt, quieter than any of the above.

These five aren’t interchangeable. Corniche and Bock are outdoor and free-ish; Mudam wants ninety minutes; Grund wants a beer at Scott's or Big Beer Company. Do them in that order over a day and a half and you’ve seen the city that everyone else means when they say Luxembourg City.

The rest of the top ten (6-10)

6. Pfaffenthal panoramic lift — free, three minutes, drops you 71 metres to the lower town with a glass floor. 7. National Museum of History and Art (MNHA) on Marché-aux-Poissons, especially the Gallo-Roman floors. 8. Philharmonie concert on Kirchberg if the calendar lines up; the acoustics justify the ticket. 9. Villa Vauban, a small municipal gallery in a walled garden most tourists skip. 10. The Wenzel Walk, a signposted 100-minute loop that stitches the fortifications together and ends where you started.