The northern third of Luxembourg is the Oesling, part of the Ardennes: high, wooded, thinly populated and cut by deep river valleys. It is the country's walking region and it carries a heavy twentieth-century history.
The Battle of the Bulge
In December 1944 the German army launched its last major offensive of the war through the Ardennes, and the northern half of Luxembourg was overrun. The fighting through that winter destroyed several towns almost completely and killed thousands of civilians. Every village here has a memorial, and American and German cemeteries lie near the capital.
The National Museum of Military History at Diekirch is the principal museum, with full-scale dioramas reconstructing the fighting, and it is unusually good — detailed, sober and focused on what the winter meant for soldiers and civilians alike.
Clervaux
Clervaux, in a tight loop of the river Clerve, is the loveliest town in the north: a white castle, a Benedictine abbey on the hill above, and slate roofs in the valley.
Inside the castle is The Family of Man, the photographic exhibition assembled by Edward Steichen — born in Luxembourg — for MoMA in 1955. It travelled the world for eight years and was given permanently to his home country. Five hundred and three photographs from sixty-eight countries are arranged around the themes of birth, love, work, war and death. It has been on the UNESCO Memory of the World register since 2003, and it remains one of the most affecting things to see anywhere in the country.
The rest of the north
Wiltz holds an open-air festival in its castle courtyard each summer and a museum of the national strike of 1942 against forced conscription. Esch-sur-Sûre sits in a near-complete loop of the river beneath a ruined castle — the most photogenic village in Luxembourg.
The Upper Sûre lake, a reservoir supplying the country's drinking water, is the main inland swimming and watersports area, with marked trails around it.
Walking
The Ardennes carry the Escapardenne long-distance trails, linking Luxembourg with Belgium, and dozens of local loops. The terrain is steeper than anywhere else in the country and the valleys are genuinely deep.
Practical
Trains run north from Luxembourg City to Ettelbruck, Diekirch and Clervaux, and are free. Distances are small — nowhere in the north is more than an hour and a half from the capital — but the roads wind.