Saturday night in Luxembourg town and there is precious little dancing in the streets to observe. In fact, there is precious little anything in the streets to observe. But it was late October, the end of the tourist season, with the nights drawing in for the frosty nip that requires hopping, if not dancing, in the streets for those who come without their flannelette underwear and skiing socks.
However, locals will tell you that the night-life in the duchy has experienced an upswing since the advent of, you dreaded it, the Irish pub. "We have always been fond of drinking, but these pubs showed us how to be a little more lively, to make more noise," said one sedate Luxembourger. A couple of these pubs have been established in the Grund, the old town which nestles below the historic fortress of Luxembourg. The rock on which the original castle was built was called Licilinburhuc, from which the word Luxembourg evolved.
The strategic position of that castle and battlements, dating back to the 10th century, were such that control of them, and of Luxembourg, see-sawed through a list of conquerors scarcely short of the modern membership of the EU. (No Irish however: that had to await the advent of the Irish pub.) Spanish, French, German, Italians, Austrians, Belgians, Dutch - all have had their turn at domination. Luxembourg finally became an independent entity in 1867.
Now the fashion for Irishness has given a bit of a lift to Guinness (expensive), but Luxembourg's 400,000 residents have three of their own locally-brewed beers as well, and a selection of delicious local wines - for the Moselle river runs right through the place, in its position wedged between France, Germany and Belgium, on the plateau of Ardennes.
The middle-class homogeneous feel of this predominantly Catholic place is somewhat misleading. This is a melting-pot of races (an astonishing 120 nationalities have representative communities) and a high percentage of blue-collar workers, many from Portugal, who came to build all these dull modern buildings in the 1970s and '80s. Some of them have bleached into white collars now, and their offspring are entering the newer traditions of banking, service industries and broadcasting. Over 100 international banks have offices here, and Radio Television Luxembourg runs channels in dozens of countries, the latest being Hungary. The Astra satellite was launched by a consortium with Luxembourgish leadership.
The old town of the Grund is charming, with paved squares, winding medieval streets, and a mini-Buckingham Palace where the Grand Duke, the Crown Prince and members of their family come out to the cheers of the crowd on Luxembourg's national day. There the people will be addressed in Luxembourgese, or Litzemburgish (the national language since 1986, although its use and derivation, a sort of Germanic tongue with bits of French interwoven, dates back centuries). For example, to say "Hello" (or to greet at any time of the day) in Litzemburgish you say "Moyen", from the German "Morgen". But to take your leave the word is "Avara", a bastardised French "au revoir". French is in fact the official language, as distinct from national, but many people speak German and English as well. To shame with all of you who have nothing but English and a cupla focail!
The Grund is full of restaurants, many of them very good, as you would expect in a city which hosts the secretariat of the European Parliament. That they are also pretty pricey is similarly consistent. Taxis tend to sting the wallet too. A barely-10-minute ride from the airport to one of the big hotels near the complex of convention centres will set you back anything between 650 and 1,000 Luxembourg francs - that's around £13-£20.
Outside the Grund there is a rather sterile landscaped area. A visitor from Singapore, Catherine Lim, likened it to the Australian capital, Canberra, which was purpose-built for politicians and bureaucrats in the 1920s. Like all made-to-order capitals it has an eerie soulless feel amid the landscaped lawns and neat modern buildings, and parts of central Luxembourg are like this too. But the great thing about Luxembourg is that a short walk away there is always something of interest to view.
In the city, there is the fortress that was once know as the "Gibraltar of the north", from where various European conquerors gazed suspiciously out for attackers in the dark days before Eurocratisation. There is also an intriguing network of catacomb-like tunnels known as the "Casemates". All around are pockets of that dark green foliage which makes a very pretty "floral" arrangement for the old buildings.
But very modern architecture has gone into the current jewel of Luxembourg's history trail, the Musee de l'Histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg in Rue du Saint-Esprit. This opened three years ago but still looks brand new. It consists of three old houses which were linked and converted into one museum. The design is elegantly simple, with extensive use of pale, slightly polished cedar. The floors, walls and much of the incidental furniture is in this lovely blond wood.
Accentuating the bosky theme (the duchy is full of forest) are a series of chunks of maple into which relief maps of Luxembourg city at various times of its history have been carved. At the different stages features of the locality such as the 1910 Josef bridge and the 1966 Charlotte bridge, start to appear. The last one is complete with the new landscape of the Kirchberg area that hosts several monstrous convention centres for EU gatherings.
The museum is fully interactive (take note up there at Collins Barracks). Electronic cards are given out at the reception, and these can be used to obtain the language of choice and switch on audio-visual displays. Attractive chair-pairs, in that lovely wood again, have tilting screens placed between them so a couple sharing the space can both examine the contents of the screen at will. On a lower-tech level, displays of Luxembourg's previous industrial life, such as a steel giant and Europe's premier glove-maker, are also fascinating. Gorgeous gloves that look like they were designed last week are in fact a century old.