Luxembourg

Luxembourg divides into two landscapes. The Éislek in the north, a corner of the Ardennes, is wooded plateau where the Sûre and the Our wind through deep valleys. The Gutland or ‘good land’ to the south is farmland and sandstone, its Mullerthal gorges nicknamed Little Switzerland, and the red earth of the far south held iron ore. On the eastern border the Moselle passes terraced vineyards, and Schengen, a village on its bank, gave its name to Europe’s open-border agreement in 1985.

In 963 Count Siegfried acquired a rocky spur above the Alzette, and his castle grew into a fortress called the Gibraltar of the North. Later counts gave the Holy Roman Empire three emperors and Bohemia a line of kings. The Congress of Vienna made Luxembourg a grand duchy under the Dutch king in 1815; it lost its larger western part to Belgium in 1839, and in 1867 it was declared neutral and its walls pulled down. German troops overran it in 1914 and 1940.

Robert Schuman, whose plan of 1950 launched European integration, was born in the Clausen quarter, and the grand duchy helped found the European Coal and Steel Community. Each Whit Tuesday pilgrims hop through Echternach in a dancing procession, and the Schueberfouer funfair has run each late summer since 1340. Steel built the modern economy: Arbed, formed in 1911, grew into ArcelorMittal. Banks and investment funds crowd the Kirchberg plateau, and RTL grew out of Radio Luxembourg.