Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Luxembourg

Luxembourg – Ibis Budget

[I originally posted this in July 2018 but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]

Since I’ve been coming to Luxembourg relatively frequently, I’ve tried to find a hotel which is near to the airport. And this, Ibis Budget, is just a five-minute walk from the terminal, although they also operate a shuttle vehicle for those with luggage (or who can’t walk, or are too lazy). The Ibis and Ibis Budget are in the same building, the Budget part to the left, and the standard hotel to the right.

Ibis Budget is cheaper, so I obviously stay there. It’s also cheaper at weekends, which I will remember for future trips where I can be flexible with dates. This is also because bus travel in Luxembourg is free on Saturdays.

There is a corridor on the first floor, as well as on the ground floor, which links the Ibis and the Ibis Budget together. On higher levels, there is a fire door which seems to stop hotel guests from doing that, although I’m unsure why. Often there are no staff members at the Ibis Budget desk, but it’s possible to check-in at the main Ibis reception.

For those with Accor status, they can claim a free drink, even with Ibis Budget. This is something else I’ve never quite understood, as Ibis Budget often don’t provide a free drinks voucher. The voucher mentions beer and soft drinks, not making any reference to wine. This is the beer that can be acquired though in the ground floor bar of Ibis.

The room is basic, but having stayed in different room types, this appears to be the refurbished looking room. They have twin and double rooms, usually with the bunk bed arrangement above.

I’ve stayed in many Ibis Budget hotels around Europe, and they have the shower in the main part of the room. That’s absolutely fine when alone, but is a rather more challenging situation if you’re with someone and want privacy. I’ve noticed several reviews over the years about how people don’t like it.

I mention the shower in the room thing because for the first time in an Ibis Budget, I’ve noticed that they’ve put a curtain up between the shower and the bedroom area.

The breakfast room is downstairs next to reception, and is clean and serviceable.

The selection is reasonably wide, with cereals, breads, meats, cheeses, hot drinks and fruit juices.

And my little selection.

I’ve stayed at the hotel around six times now, and I’ve never encountered any issues with noise either internally or externally. As mentioned, it’s a short walk to the airport, and there is also a bus stop outside the hotel which takes around fifteen minutes to get to the railway station in the city centre.

August 11, 2025
Flights – British Airways (Heathrow T3 to Luxembourg)

[I originally posted this in July 2018, but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]

My morning British Airways flight from Heathrow T3 having safely landed in Luxembourg. The load was a little light across the aircraft and the new boarding by group operated by BA was efficiently managed.

This is the breakfast on Club Europe, which as I’ve commented on before is what I think is the weakest meal that BA serve. It’s excessively salty for my taste (and I like salt….) and sits in a pool of grease, but I’m sure that it’s not an unpopular product. It’s a shame that they don’t offer the cold meats selection as an alternative though.

One minor thing which a few crew do is ask customers if they want tea or coffee when they serve the breakfast. It threw one customer, who wanted an orange juice, but thought that their selection was limited to tea or coffee. That promptly threw the crew’s service slightly as customers they’d already served then ordered additional drinks.

Indeed, the service on this flight was about as minimal as the crew could get away with, never asking if customers wanted anything else and never really being pro-active. Fortunately I’m pro-active in asking for more orange juice…. There were two crew to deal with a very light Club Europe cabin, which was just four rows and that was only half-filled.

Another problem I keep noticing on BA flights isn’t exactly a serious issue, but their cleaning crews even in their home base rarely seem to be able to check the seat pockets in the time they have. There are routinely things left in seat pockets from previous customers. Ryanair resolved this by removing seat pockets, creating a handy compromise of preventing customers from leaving things in them.

Although Club Europe customers can order from this BOB (buy-on-board) menu, it’s designed for Euro Traveller customers. Alex Cruz removed free food and drink from the Euro Traveller cabin and replaced it with this effort, operated by Bidvest. Most of the food is supplied by Marks & Spencer and the quality seems reasonable, not that I’ve ever ordered from it.

The sandwiches selection on the BOB menu.

One of the little illogicalities about the BOB menu is that the coffees that are served in Euro Traveller are much better than the ones in Club Europe. The Bidvest selection have the coffees which have in-built filters and there’s some attempt at selling branded products. The Club Europe coffees are the standard BA filter coffee efforts, and they’re not exactly a taste sensation.

The beer selection on the BOB menu.

So, another efficient flight which took just 55 minutes to get from Heathrow T3 to Luxembourg. BA continue with their strongest point though, which is to be inconsistent with their customer service.

August 1, 2025
Flights – Wizz Air (Cologne to Luxembourg)

[I originally posted this in July 2018, but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]

Needing to get from Gdansk to Luxembourg in just over a day didn’t give me many affordable options. I tried to get a Ryanair flight, but there were no direct flights anywhere near, but there was the option of getting a Wizzair flight from Gdansk to Cologne and then a Flixbus from Cologne to Luxembourg. So it was a first experience of both Wizzair and Flixbus for me….

The booking process was easy to manage and surprisingly efficient, which is always reassuring. So reassuring was the process that I decided to join the Wizz Air Discount Club, which for an annual fee gives extra reductions off the price of every flight.

Quite understandably, there are strict rules about not taking photos of cabin crew on most airlines, and I noticed Wizz Air point that out in their literature. Hence why this photo is side-on of the nearby seats, rather than of the entire cabin. The seat design doesn’t feel very modern, but the cabin was clean and tidy, with the seats being sufficiently comfortable.

The boarding arrangement is very much like Ryanair, so it’s efficient, via steps and involves standing on the steps down to the tarmac for ages. But, the efficiency pleased me, everyone knew where they should be and when.

The food and drink was all reasonably priced, and approximately 25% of customers ordered at least something. The price of noodles is the same as coffee, and I thought that this would be more filling. It’s what I like getting on Amtrak in the US, and they were perfectly acceptable at €3 (around £2.60).

The selling frenzy from the cabin crew wasn’t quite as bad as Ryanair, with fewer passes down the cabin and that made it feel slightly more relaxing. However, there were still numerous different items for sale, so it wasn’t entirely peaceful.

Overall, I felt that the entire operation seemed efficient and the staff were all polite and helpful. The flight was pretty much punctual and although the surroundings weren’t exactly luxurious, they did represent excellent value for money on this occasion. I’m sure that I’ll fly with Wizz Air again soon based on this experience.

July 30, 2025
Luxembourg – the SNCF strike

[I originally posted this in May 2018, but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]

After arriving safely at the railway station in Luxembourg I faced the problem that was the SNCF rail strike. I decided to keep my trip to France, rather than changing to Germany, as the media had reported over recent weeks that support for the strike was falling and that more services were operating.

After checking with a staff member, they said that the trains to Thionville were running every hour, with the half hourly ones being cancelled. That was my expectation from the SNCF web-site, so I went to buy a ticket from a machine. The machine only let me buy tickets on services that were operating, so all seemed well.

Then the board never updated the platform that the train was going from and it then got “deleted”. I went to speak to the staff at the main information kiosk at the station and they confirmed I’d need to wait an hour for the one after.

There seemed something strange about this that didn’t quite ring true, as I didn’t see why so many trains would be cancelled to Thionville, especially as they had just sold me a ticket. So I went to the international departures desk and asked them.

The lady there was very helpful, and she was rather bemused at the situation as well. After a long conversation with her colleagues she said that she thought that the train was running and the information boards were wrong. She then suggested to go to platform nine and see if the train I had booked onto was running, and if not to speak to the conductor on the TGV service to Paris (which stops at Thionville) to see if they’d let me on.

As I got to the platform I could see the train that I had a ticket for was there and wasn’t looking very cancelled. I found a staff member who told me to get on as it was about to leave, which I did, although I was a still little unsure of whether this was actually the right train.

However, the right train it was and my trip to Thionville began. Luxembourg railway station is the first place that I took Dylan to, so happy memories of the place, although it was rather more stressful this time. Still lots of pigeons that looked like they might “get squished”.

The train was a double decker one and looked modern and well presented, although it was unclean and had rather a lot of litter on the floor. The prices for the train also weren’t that cheap, more expensive than the UK for the same distance. However, I got to Thionville safely and happily, so the end result was all very positive.

Thionville railway station.

January 28, 2025
Luxembourg – Walk to the City

[I originally posted this in May 2018, but have reposted it now to fix the broken image links. And, public transport is now entirely free in Luxembourg]

Rather than spend €2 on the bus from the airport, I thought it’d be a far better idea to walk into Luxembourg city from the airport hotel. The city authorities have nearly made this very easy and they’ve ensured that 95% of the route has pavements. The other 5% appears to have passed them by….

I’ve been to Luxembourg a few times before and it’s a beautiful city centre and a lovely end point for the walk. It’s about four miles to walk in and the weather was fortunately not too hot. The end point was Luxembourg central railway station, for the excitement game that would be “will be there a train during the SNCF strike?”.

The walk begins.

Reaching the city. It’s a pretty uneventful walk until the delights that are the city centre.

January 26, 2025
Luxembourg – BiFi

These snacks don’t have much to do with Luxembourg, other than this is where I first encountered them. They’re also sold in other northern European countries and particularly in Germany, where they’re made. They’re effectively just Peperamis (which are only sold in the United Kingdom and in Ireland to my knowledge), but nonetheless, they’re in a different branding and therefore exciting to me.

April 7, 2020
Deutsche Bahn : Bonn to Luxembourg

Above is Bonn railway station (it’s not leaning, that’s my poor walk-by photography effort), but before I get going about this journey, I’d add that I haven’t been much of a fan of Deutsche Bahn before this little expedition. Their trains are frequently late, the services are overly busy and the customer service is diabolical. However, they managed to excel themselves on this journey by exceeding even my low expectations, but, fortunately the Gods were on our side this time……

So, there were meant to be four parts to our journey. It was essential we caught each component part, as the final leg was on the last train into Luxembourg.

The journey was meant to be:

(i) Bonn to Koblenz (20:14 to 20:46)

(ii) Koblenz to Wittlich (21:40 to 23:05) – bus replacement

(iii) Wittlich to Trier (23:15 to 23:41)

(iv) Trier to Luxembourg (23:49 to 00:37)

Throughout the day, we were aware that our first train from Bonn to Koblenz would be late departing, this was clearly explained in the app and I liked that. We had a 54-minute wait in Koblenz, so a slight delay wouldn’t be a problem, but anything much longer would be. The delay was fifteen minutes at one stage, but throughout the day that dropped to around six minutes, although I became quite addicted to checking this throughout the afternoon.

The first train turned up around eight minutes late and was nearly full, but we managed to find seats and everything went smoothly into Koblenz. Although, I’d note, that the train was not clean and the toilets were particularly bad. We filled the time in Koblenz with a McDonald’s, which was at the railway station, and Nathan won a chicken burger on the McDonald’s Monopoly game which he kindly gave to me. At this stage, we were relatively confident that this was all going to work out.

Incidentally, Koblenz is a beautiful city from what we saw of it, that’s Fort Constantin overlooking the railway station.

The replacement bus service wasn’t well advertised, but we knew where to go as we’d got off here the previous day.

We got to sit at the front and the replacement bus journey was on time and so we getting really quite confident of the situation, expecting to be at Wittlich for around fifteen minutes whilst waiting to connect onto the third part of our journey. All went well with the journey, but it appeared that the general confusion caused by Deutsche Bahn meant a German passenger had got on the wrong bus and was now being hurtled along to an incorrect destination. It wasn’t clear exactly what was going on, as his long conversation with the driver was in German, but it didn’t look good…..

Safely into Wittlich railway station.

The train, operated by CFL, turned up on time in Wittlich and we were now becoming more relaxed at the situation as we knew that we were definitely getting to Trier. Signage was poor, but there were only two trains left to run that day, so it would have been difficult to get on the wrong one, especially as they were both going to Trier.

The information screens didn’t have the correct times on, which was initially confusing, and the time for Saarbrucken made no sense.

A friendly conductor came to check our tickets and then revealed that the final train on our schedule didn’t exist. Deutsche Bahn had effectively sold a ticket on a train which wasn’t even operating. Just marvellous. However, the situation wasn’t critical, the conductor, who fortunately spoke good English, told us that there was a service operating to Luxembourg from outside of the railway station. This was a bus replacement, which wasn’t ideal, but we were relieved that there was a solution (every problem needs a solution).

I need to go back a bit in this story now, as our train was arriving into Luxembourg central railway station at just before 01:00, and it was a one hour forty minute walk to our hotel at the airport as public transport had stopped by that time. We were toying with the idea of either getting a taxi or walking at this stage, although we’d have probably walked as the taxis were expensive.

However, we noticed that this bus replacement service was not going to the railway station, it went to the park and ride where Flixbus depart from. This is a twenty minute walk from the railway station and I was surprised that Deutsche Bahn thought for one moment that this was acceptable. At least in the UK, the bus replacement actually leaves from the station the train did and gets into the station that the train was meant to. Anyway, that meant we would be facing an even longer walk back to the hotel and there was no guarantee of a taxi being available. Unfortunately, Luxembourg has banned Uber and Bolt, instead using their own service which ran on a particularly clunky and irritating app. This showed that no taxis were available, so there was a dawning realisation that this could become a long night.

So, we departed the train at Trier and went to the front of the railway station, with the above photo showing our options. I was moderately surprised that there were no staff and the railway station building was closed, a situation which is intolerably unsafe (not necessarily for us, but for a lone female traveller it certainly is). We wandered around looking for a replacement coach service, and there weren’t any. We did have a back-up plan of visiting the Ibis Styles in Trier, where I’ve stayed before, but this was expensive and would have given us a troublesome early morning trip from Trier to Luxembourg before our flight.

Fortunately, at the very last moment, Nathan noticed that there was a Flibco coach going to Luxembourg. So, I speak to the driver and explained our predicament. It now becomes apparent that this coach, which was about to depart, was the bus replacement service. Instead of operating a proper service, Deutsche Bahn had randomly put passengers on this service. Well, some passengers, Nathan and me weren’t on the list. Quite why there needed to be a list was a mystery, as Deutsche Bahn must have known some customers might have booked late and clearly some people weren’t on it anyway (we weren’t).

The driver was confused at this whole situation, this was Flibco’s regular service, but he was expecting a few Deutsche Bahn passengers. He was very helpful and after some confusion, and doubt whether he should be accepting us, he let us on. We were immensely grateful at his helpful attitude, but I was conscious that we were actually on the bus we were meant to be on.

It was at this stage that we realised we were enormously lucky. As this wasn’t a traditional bus replacement service, it was already going to Luxembourg airport as part of its usual route. This was ideally where we wanted to go, as our hotel was located opposite and this meant our planned long walk would no longer be needed. The driver was happy for us to go there and just thirty minutes later, the coach pulled in to the airport and Nathan and I were considerably pleased at the situation. We were the only passengers to embark or disembark and I can confirm it was quite a relief to be there safely.

Amazingly, we reached the Ibis at 00:40, with just enough time to enjoy our two free drinks from the hotel. A glass of Bofferding beer has never tasted so good….

I will say though, Deutsche Bahn were pretty appalling. They have an astoundingly low number of customer service staff, their stations close far too early, their app is unreliable and the efficiency was generally inadequate. I’m conscious that things go wrong, but the company had clearly made little effort with its replacement bus services and the facilities for those with disabilities were near zero. Hopefully I won’t be stuck using them again for some time, of all the rail services I’ve used across Europe, they are hands down the worst operator I’ve endured.

December 4, 2019
Flights – Luxembourg to Heathrow T5 (British Airways)

And so, this is my last flight of 2019, a simple BA trip from Luxembourg to Heathrow T5.

A view of the tarmac from the airport terminal, a photo which would have looked better if the terminal windows were just that bit cleaner….

A nice smooth boarding process, group 1 was called first, then groups 2 and 3 together, then groups 4 and 5 together.

The aircraft was G-EUPB, an Airbus A319 which British Airways have owned since it came into service in November 1999 (woooo, happy twentieth anniversary!).

We were able to get exit row seats for a little extra comfort, although I had the usual dilemma of trying to keep an eye on my bag in the overheads. Some other customers never cease to amaze me with the size of their baggage which they bring on board and try and shove anywhere they can with little comprehension of how their bag simply won’t fit however many ways they turn it around. The crew on this flight were doing far more lifting than they probably should, making real efforts to ensure that everyone could get their baggage in the overhead bins. There must come a point though that customers try and bring just a little less on board, as the current system is unnecessarily time consuming.

As an aside, I don’t mind my bag by my feet, but it is still unfair that crew ask customers to move their smaller bags to under the seat to make way for larger bags. For customers who only brought one small bag on board and wanted some extra leg-room, they’re disadvantaged in a bid to make way for those customers who have brought along something the size of a kitchen cupboard.

One very minor disappointment, I was hoping to get the December issue of High Life (primarily as it was December), but they still had the November ones on board….

A frosty Luxembourg……

All was well with the flight, although the take-up of the M&S on board menu seemed lower than it usually was. One day the on-board menu will be from Greggs, then watch the sales soar…..

The flight had a couple of loops over London meaning that time saved during the journey was lost, but the flight arrived on time and on schedule. As another aside, I was able to make it through Heathrow’s automated machines with no effort, but we had to wait about 20 minutes whilst Nathan joined a queue for special passengers (ones considered a threat to national security I thought, but apparently this wasn’t what the queue was).

December 4, 2019
Deutsche Bahn : Luxembourg to Bonn

At the moment there are some bus replacements operating on this service, so many journeys aren’t as complex as the one which we had to get from Luxembourg to Bonn.

The train tickets were Sparpreis, cheaper advance saver tickets. The German pricing structure for rail tickets is complex and there are all manner of quirks, expensive prices and discounts available, but the Sparpreis tickets from Luxembourg to Bonn were under €40 each return.

Our connections were:

13:33 – 14:56 Luxembourg to Wittlich

15:06 – 16:31 Wittlich to Koblenz

17:13 – 17:44 Koblenz to Bonn

This sounds relatively complex, although the journey back was worse, but more about that later on…..

Some trains in Luxembourg railway station, I always like the look of these TGV trains. Not that we were getting them, they were a bit expensive compared to our complex routings with Deutsche Bahn….

The first train was operated by CFL (the Luxembourg rail company) and the second and third trains by Deutsche Bahn.

It was a double decker train (Dylan would have liked that….) and was sufficiently spacious and had power points, although no wi-fi. It was on this journey which crossed from Luxembourg into Germany that I discovered that for some reason my phone didn’t want to connect to Vodafone Deutschland.

Nathan’s adapter, the clunky looking thing at the back, for his Nokia 3310 seemed to take up about two feet of space……

The bus section of the trip was relatively eventful as there was some shouty man on board who seemed to want to cause a disturbance. A member of rail staff who was travelling with the coach did stand up and shout back at the man, which was all rather exciting. I like a bit of drama on my bus replacement services. Although I needed drama since I didn’t have any Internet connection, which was proving to be quite a challenge for me.

Disembarking from the bus.

It’s not very clear from the photo, but the police met the shouty man at Koblenz to ask him some questions….

Koblenz railway station. The city is of relevance to Norwich, as the two are twinned. Not wishing to score cheap points, but Norwich’s railway station is significantly better in terms of facilities and staffing. Although it doesn’t have a McDonald’s, so I think I prefer Koblenz. Or at least I do until Norwich railway station gets a Greggs.

After a quick trip to McDonald’s, it was time to get the last section of the trip from Koblenz to Bonn. Facilities at the railway were limited and the toilets were chargeable.

The delights of Koblenz railway station platforms.

These boards were of limited use, as our train details fell off the screen after its expected departure time had passed. There was information in the app, but it was total nonsense, at one stage telling us to change to platform 5, and then a few minutes later stating it was platform 3. Deutsche Bahn, if I’m being honest, have a shocking lack of customer service staff and it’s noticeable from being used to UK stations how poorly they handle customer issues. There was no-one to ask, but to cut a long story short, our train came in around 45 minutes late.

On the bright side, and as can be seen from the above photo, all the freight trains that came rushing by didn’t seem to have been impeded. And, it was extra excitement for waiting passengers who thought that the arriving train might actually be a passenger train to get them to their destination.

Eventually our train to Bonn arrived and it was relatively quiet, so it was easy to get a seat. Certainly Deutsche Bahn need to work on the cleanliness of their trains as well.

And safely into Bonn ready for our one-day adventure there….. It’s a shame that the app was of limited use during the disruption, as it would have been enormously useful to have information about what to do. Rolling delays are the most frustrating, as it’s not possible to sit somewhere in the warm until the train arrives, it just involves standing on the platform to see what rolls up.

December 2, 2019
Luxembourg – Germanyinternetgate

Everything was going marvellously as the train pulled out of Luxembourg, until we started to approach the German border. Then tragedy took place, something went wrong with my phone connecting to Vodafone Deutschland. By something went wrong, I meant everything went wrong and there was no connection at all. There was no wi-fi on the train that I was on either, so for several hours I was totally without mobile data.

I hardly mentioned the situation to Nathan, who managed to get signal on his Nokia 3310, which very much irritated me. But jealously is a very bad vice, so I didn’t tell him that. I turned the phone on and off at least 20 times (my phone, not Nathan’s, although I was tempted to interrupt some snooker game he was avidly playing, like a young Judd Trump), but to no avail. I remained brave, calm and dignified in the situation and tried to forget about the crisis. But I struggled, if I’m being honest.

Fortunately, suddenly when we were in Bonn, around six hours later, the phone signal whirred into action and my e-mails came flooding through. Panic was over and normal service was able to resume, meaning I could go to the pub without fear of missing out on something on-line.

December 1, 2019