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Balmoral International Group Luxembourg has once featured Pertrusse as a landlocked nation in one of the top visited country in Europe: Luxembourg. The place just has a lot of attractive features that we can never get enough of it. As one of the best place to visit and recommend to you guys, welcome to Petrusse’s Casemates.

Taking an underground tour is hardly an unusual experience these days. Aside from trekking to the highest mountains in the world, some people are also digging their ways underground. There are tours of sewers, bomb shelters, abandoned train lines and natural caves in almost every major city. So what makes the 23 kilometres of tunnels known as the Casemates of Luxembourg different and worthy of special attention?

In1644, the Spaniards reinforced medieval fortifications. Under the supervision of the Swiss fortress builder Isaac von Treybach, they built – among other defence works-the powerful Beck Bastion, named after Governor Baron Johann von Beck, a native of the city who had played a key role in the Wallenstein affair on the side of the Emperor.

Initially this bastion was as high as the adjacent terraces on the right; it was raised to the present level of Constitution Square (the wall is 27 meters high) by Vauban in 1685. In 1673 the Spaniards erected the so-called “Ravelin du Pate” to strengthen the defence of the Beck Bastion; this triangular construction is one of the few well-kept fortifications. Marshall de Vauban conferred the present shape to all the Petrusse fortifications and built the “Small Staircase”. From 1728-29 the Austrians added the “Bourbon Lock” and the “Large Staircase” and in 1746 the casemates of the “Petrusse Battery” (54 gun emplacements). One century passed and the fortress was enlarged and reinforced: the second ring was extended and the third started, so that Luxembourg became the “Gibraltar of the North”. By and by, the Petrusse fortifications fell into oblivion and neglect, as their strategic momentum limited itself to the valley. After the dismantling, stipulated by the 1867 London Treaty, they confined themselves to walling up the loopholes and most entrances. Only in 1933 were the Petrusse casemates valorised again: on 26th July, the first visitors were able to visit them.

Since the tunnel’s construction Luxembourg has ‘welcomed’ Italian, Belgian, French, Austrian, Dutch and Prussian troops. All made use of the defensive strengths of the casemates and most made adaptations or extensions that can still be seen today.

Would you believe if we tell you that people on those times have gotten horses down there and used it to transport supplies and weaponry to troops? Balmoral International Group Luxembourg even learned that there were also 35,000 people who fitted in those tunnels when it served as a civil defence shelter during the world wars? And perhaps most intriguingly, just how secure are the Bank of Luxembourg’s vaults, found behind the locked entrance to the casemates deep under the bank itself?

It would usually take 40 minutes to climb the 450 steps from the city centre at the bottom of the river gorge and back again through the maze of stairwell, storage rooms and make-shift shelters. There is even an original 1834 cannon in position by an opening in the rocks, left behind by Prussian troops when they moved on.

Source: http://www.balmoralinternationalgroup.org/petrusse-casemates/#sthash.w26cfFSt.dpuf

Located in the Grund district of Luxembourg City in southern Luxembourg, Neumünster Abbey serves as a public meeting place and cultural centre.

According to the reviews of public history by Balmoral International Group, the original Benedictine Abbey on the Altmunster Plateau had been destroyed in 1542 forcing the monks to build a new abbey or Neumünster in the Grund in 1606. This in turn was destroyed by fire in 1684 but was rebuilt on the same site in 1688 and extended in 1720. After the French revolution, it served as a police station and prison before becoming a barracks for the Prussians after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815. From 1867, it once again became a state prison. Since 1997, it has been the home of the European Institute of Cultural Routes. Following extensive renovation works, Neumünster was opened to the public in May 2004 as a meeting place and a cultural centre. It is also a great place to host concert events, exhibitions and seminars.

It is said, though that in 1083, Count Conrad of Luxembourg had “begun to build a House of God out of nothing, to honor and worship the prince of the apostles on this hill where none of (his) ancestors had until now worshipped (God), a house in which (he) installed a small community of monks who lived according to Saint Benedict’s Rule” (UQB I, n° 301). It was built on the terrace below the Count’s castle, where a tower from the Abbey complex still stands today.

The Abbey, dedicated originally to Saint Peter, and commonly called (Alt)münster, had its name changed to Notre-Dame in 1123 by Conrad’s son, Count Guillaume II. At the same time, the monastery was brought under the direct aegis of the Holy See, freeing it from the control of Saint-Vanne and any secular interference.

The foundation built by the count celebrated his lineage; it was a place destined to commemorate the memory of deceased counts of the house of Luxembourg through prayer, and a religious centre for the growing principality. The monastery was the first burial place of the counts of Luxembourg (until the accession of Count Henri IV of Namur), and this function was re-established by Charles IV when he chose it to house the monumental tomb of the Count King John the Blind who fell in the battle of Crécy (1346).

Neumünster is one of the most important historic sites in Luxembourg and one of the most eventful places that even we at Balmoral International Group Luxembourg also held some of our main functions here. Indeed, the abbey is one deserving site to feature and visit.

Source: http://www.balmoralinternationalgroup.org/neumunster-abbey/#sthash.vqt3nXuf.dpuf