Postcard From Luxembourg

We’re publishing a guest post today by Russell Davis, a blogger who has made a point of travelling to all 27 countries in the E.U., completing his quest during lockdown. His final trip – number 27 – was to the tiny principality of Luxembourg. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a nightmare. Here’s an extract:

The Luxembourg trip started off okay. I flew from London City Airport (a place where in one toilet four out of five hand basins are designated unsafe to use), to the tiny country’s tiny capital in a tiny plane provided by Luxair, which was considerably more pleasant than Ryanair last month. I stayed at the somewhat overpriced Novotel Luxembourg Centre.

The country’s tight rules had been tightened up further on November 1st. This followed seven deaths over the month of October where Covid was mentioned in a nation of 633,000 people. A further three people, so fewer than one in 200,000, succumbed to it during my three-night stay; the grand Covid death total for Luxembourg over the last two years is 855. Consequently, my hotel was awash with paranoia: every time you went to the hotel restaurant (called Red Square, ironically) you had to show proof that you’re double-jabbed; masks are mandatory everywhere; the remote control in my room was in a sealed envelope to protect me from harm; hand sanitiser is the most common furniture and there are instruction sheets on how to use it, perhaps in case guests mistakenly apply it to their feet. But this is a hotel where the breakfast baked beans have carrots in them and room service come to tidy your room at 8.40am. Carrots! 8.40am! Not good.

Worth reading in full.