Moving to Luxembourg from London in August 2020 was a bit of a gamble: we had planned to spend half of our time here and half travelling and, because of the response to the pandemic, ended up not going anywhere for a while. It took me nine months to return to London, which felt very different after spending so long in a tidy, manicured and indeed small place such as Luxembourg.
Small, maybe, but Luxembourg delivered entertainment in spades. The friendliness of the people was key. A couple invited us to their home for dinner because they listened to me during a ! We made a couple of friends for life because we often ran into them in our building’s car park. Colleagues, my chairman and my shareholder all went out of their way to make us feel welcome. Our schedule is actually a little too busy these days!
Then there is the town: we’re spoilt that we live bang in the middle of the Ville Haute, so we can go for beautiful walks around. We miss the market on Place Guillaume, as Hamilius isn’t ideal for it, and are looking forward to having it back: Saturday after Saturday, I hoped to learn the names of all foods in French, and, of course, all I managed at the market was to improve my Portuguese. We regularly enjoy going for walks in the Grund, all the parks that go from Limpertsberg to Pont Adolphe, visit the shops and constantly run into friends.
They say that the drawback of the old town is the noise. It’s hard to scare a Spaniard with noise, of course, as whatever you’ve experienced, elsewhere feels like the peace of a spa compared to what you see in Spain. This said, the proximity of the bell tower of the Église de Saint Michel to our bedroom window really means that we wake up with the Angelus every day of the week at 7am!
If you like food, and we very much do, Luxembourg is a great place. We possibly drink too many glasses of wine at Pas Sage, walk three minutes down from our house to Um Plateau, eat warming Bouneschlupp at Am Tiirmschen and curries at Thai House… In winter, we find the morning fog a bit spooky, but seeing it lift to reveal this beautiful town is a daily treat. And the spring truly is unbeatable.
We’ve ended up not visiting any neighbouring countries!
Born in Spain in 1979, studied history there before going to Oxford to do a master’s and a PhD. He has always worked in financial services technology at Xchanging (now DXC), FNZ (where he led their entry into the European market), Equiniti (where he ran a large regtech business called EQ Digital) and Kneip (where he serves as group CEO). He’s led the Luxembourg firm since August 2020. He’d lived 18 years in the UK previously. A dual British and Spanish national, Enrique is married, has no children and lives in Luxembourg’s old town. He is passionate about books, food, opera and travel.