A week in Luxembourg

Last week I visited Luxembourg with my dad and my sister.

Heidi and I are members of the Young Archaeologists Club and we were interested in the old fortress in Luxembourg City and the remaining city walls. We also wanted to visit Trier, the oldest city in Germany, and take a look around the Roman sites. It was very interesting and a great experience to see all of this fantastic archaeology and learn about history, but I am sure all of you would prefer if I talked about stamps and postal services, right? Well, as we were in Luxembourg we had to visit a Post Office to buy some stamps. It wouldn't have been right not to.

The first thing to say is that it's quite easy to find a Post Office in Luxembourg. Everywhere we went seemed to have one. It's also very easy to find a post box and these are everywhere around Luxembourg City. Luxembourg's post boxes are yellow and very distinctive although they are also as prone to being vandalised as British ones. Here is an example:

I did see a much nicer box on the walk to Vianden Castle:

Curiously on my very first day in Luxembourg I came across this Japanese post box. I had no idea what it could be doing in the middle of Luxembourg City, although I later discovered the building next to it is a Japanese restaurant that was closed at the time.

So, I mentioned Post Offices. Every town or village seems to have one, which is helpful. The main Post Office is Luxembourg City is very helpfully across the road from the central railway station. Heidi and I used this to send postcards to people back home. In the Post Office is the Post Philately shop which sells recent Luxembourg stamps and first day covers. We bought some stamps that we liked, some for using on the postcards and some for our collections. Here is a selection of some of the stamps we bought:

I don't know a lot about Luxembourg stamps but on the whole they seem well designed and very focused on local themes. I think you could easily learn a lot about Luxembourg's history and cultural identity by looking at its stamps. I found it interesting that since March 2023 Luxembourg's stamps have switched from using the French name "Luxembourg" to the Luxembourgish "Lëtzebuerg". Luxembourgish is the national language although French and German are also official languages. At the moment there are still some pre-2023 stamps available to buy.

I also bought this 2022 minisheet celebrating 50 years of the current Luxembourg flag.

This is no ordinary minisheet! It was a a historical first for Luxembourg because of the innovative use of technology. As the SEPAC website explains, "for the first time ever, lenticular technology was used for printing and processing. Thanks to the use of lenticular film, which enables you to see different parts of the motif depending on the angle at which it is held, it looks like the flag is flying on the stamp." It really is very good and also quite unusual.

Heidi also bought a minisheet but it was a bit different. Not surprisingly, she chose something bird-themed. This is the Birdpex issue from 2022.

Postcards posted in Luxembourg seem to to delivered in Great Britain just three days later, which isn't too bad. The price of posting a postcard (or a letter under 50g) to the UK is €1.70, less than the cost of a first class stamp over here. Curiously, it's even cheaper in Germany (€1.25).

We didn't find anything else of philatelic interest in Luxembourg, although there is a small coin and stamp shop in Luxembourg City and there is also a local collectors' club. I have signed up for regular updates so hopefully I will be reviewing more Luxembourg issues in the future.