Luxembourg is a modern, cosmopolitan, lively city on a human scale. The marks left by the past merge with a contemporary world on the move. This scholarly mixture is one of the components of the identity of this city: a meeting place for cultures with a rich historic past.

Because of its strategic position between the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire, the fortress of Luxembourg became one of the most important fortified sites in Europe between the 16th century and 1867, the date of its demolition. Reinforced on several occasions during handovers from one great European power to the next  (the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, the House of Burgundy, the Hapsburgs, the kings of Spain and France, and finally the Prussians), its fortifications presented an overview of military architecture spanning several centuries. The greatest engineers came from all corners of Europe, such as Vauban for example, leaving their mark on this fortress regarded as the Gibraltar of the North. Today, the fortress of Luxembourg expresses this common European past.