Audiotur Coup de Coeur

The objective of this tour is to take the visitor on a discovery journey through the city. It is a sort of guided walk where the aim is to show the advantages, the charms and the assets of the city of Esch You don't know Esch? This tour is for you. It will allow you to leave with a good first impression of what the city of Esch has been, is and will be in the future.

It is important to note that this guided tour is neither an architectural nor a historical tour of the city.

The Infofabrik is the starting point of the tour, even though the visitor can start the walk from any other point of interest.

As the second largest city in the Grand Duchy, Esch-sur-Alzette is still a little-known city. Most tourists in Luxembourg know the capital, Luxembourg City, the castle of Vianden, Echternach, Little Switzerland and the Moselle valley, but very few take the time to come to Esch-sur-Alzette to discover its unique heritage. Capital of the Red Rock Region, this city has long suffered from a bad reputation, but it is now a city in transition, in upheaval and currently placed in the limelight thanks to the title of European Capital of Culture 2022. All of this has the potential to change people's ways of thinking about Esch.

Thanks to its scale, the Belval site has already begun to change the city's image a few years ago, but the city center is catching up and may become a must-see in Luxembourg. Esch-sur-Alzette has 36,000 inhabitants, dozens of different nationalities, and is truly multicultural. In short, Esch is just waiting to be able to show its best side.

Esch has an important history in the heart of the Greater Region. We will not summarize it, as this is not the main goal of the visit. We will emphasizing though the industrial dimension of its history, which is still very visible today. In the middle of the 19th century, following the rediscovery of iron ore around Esch, the city exploded economically and demographically, but also at the level of its urban development. Around 1900, a real upheaval took place, when a small peasant city suddenly transformed into Luxembourg's Texas, where fortunes were made quickly. This brought a population from all over Europe to work in the heart of the iron mines and steelworks: German, Belgian, French, Polish, Italian and Portuguese people mostly. Esch will continue to grow repeatedly in the heart of a working region where the factories never sleep. A hard life of labor that has, over time, given its character to the population of Esch. If Luxembourg City was the political capital, one could say that Esch was the economic capital of the country.

Following the closure of factories and mines, the city went through a complex period but, like the rest of the country, it was able to overcome the crisis and used it as an opportunity to develop new services and other activities. Like in any city and employment basin undergoing transformation, not everything was and still is simple, but major projects have been developed for local growth. Esch has learned how to reinvent itself, largely thanks to its population, which has always been able to adapt to changes due to its workforce.

Through this visit to some local highlights, we will paint a pointillist portrait of the city of Esch, from the past to the present, while trying to catch a glimpse of its future development. A unique portrait!