“Where on earth am I going?” We had been driving for twenty minutes, and I started to feel a bit anxious. All I could see were the branches of enormous trees, creating a sort of green tunnel. I felt as if we were in the middle of an abandoned forest, yet the smooth, freshly built modern road reminded me that I was still in a civilised world.
We were driving to my fiancé’s house, and at that time, I didn’t know that most people live outside of the city. In fact, in Luxembourg City (which is the capital of the country of the same name, or the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg), only 132,000 out of 600,000 people reside, with the overwhelming majority being foreigners.
My fiancé lived in a charming pastoral village with stunning views of the hills, situated only a 20-minute drive from the city centre. Fifteen years later, as I started to produce my talk show “Expat Stories,” this fact was cited as one of the most attractive features by my guests. The fact that Luxembourg combines all the attractions of a large city with the calm and stress-free life.
So, here are the main pros of living in Luxembourg (according to my guests based on the data from 45 interviews):
I. Luxembourg combines the offerings of a big metropolis with a stress-free life.
“You can have a beer in the city centre and, twenty minutes later, be in the countryside in a calm and peaceful environment with a holiday flair. I don’t know any other big city where you can experience that.”
“This feels like a big metropolis but without all the hustle you would find in Paris or London.”
“Everything is close; if in Italy you would need 3 days, in Luxembourg you would only need 2 hours,” said the guests of my talk show.
In Luxembourg, the distances are short, but so are the itineraries to major European capitals. It takes 2 hours by train to Paris, a 2-hour drive to Brussels, 2,5 hours to a Belgian seaside, and just 1 hour by flight to London, Barcelona, Berlin, or Milan.
II. Luxembourg is a very safe country.
Although people who have lived here for more than a decade would tell you that Luxembourg used to be even safer than it is now, it is still a very safe place compared to most countries in the world.
Here are some quotes from my guests: “We need to warn our students who aspire to become criminologists that they will struggle to find work in Luxembourg. There simply aren’t enough murders happening here.”
“My 18-year-old daughter can take a public bus late in the evening and go wherever she wants safely. In many countries, this is not possible. We have a luxury here.”
III. There is no one dominant nation.
Although Luxembourgers make up half of the population, many of them have one or both parents from other countries. In general, there are over 180 nationalities living in Luxembourg. As more and more people obtain Luxembourgish citizenship, there are significant numbers of people who appear in statistics as being Luxembourgish, despite having different origins.
“Luxembourg is a country where multicultural life has truly succeeded, with so many nationalities and cultures peacefully coexisting. This hasn’t happened in many countries.”
