Downstairs, the hostel offers a bar that serves lunch and dinner and drinks/snacks. Check the hostel website (www.youthhostels.lu) for weekly menus and opening hours. A great place for a coffee or to pick up some fruit to take with you during the day. There is also a really nice terrace outside that I found to be a perfect place to read and meet people.

The hostel has obviously made an effort to conserve energy in their timed lighting systems and water faucets that shut off automatically after about 10 seconds (this is actually perfect-- better than the faucets you have to hold down the whole time). Commendable and convenient.

Once you achieve a good shower temperature, it's great, so you shouldn't have to worry about cold shower water. Breakfast is basic but filling, with typical bread, cereal, cheese, meats, jams, applesauce, coffee, etc. The breakfast room is big, and I enjoyed picking up bits and pieces of lots of different languages.

The only drawback to the hostel is the steep path you have to take to get to it. Although their website suggests taking the #9 bus from the train station, I just picked up a map from the tourist office (which shows the hostel location), walked to the centre city, crossed the big Montee de Clausen bridge and followed the "Auberge de Jeunesse" sign turning left down a path that leads to rue Fort Olisy and the hostel. It's not really that hard, but the path would be a little challenging with huge bags or if the weather was especially wet. The hostel does offer a shuttle service to the train station for 2 euros per person, so you can always contact them and arrange transportation before your arrival.

Overall, this hostel is excellent and would be perfect for budget travellers of every age and motivation. See the website for further details in English.

Some of it still undergoing construction (it began a renovation project a few years back), the exterior of the hostel was refreshingly modern and painted in bold hues of yellow and red. Upon entering the somewhat sterile lobby area, we checked in only to find out that we were in a co-ed dorm. While this is something that may not bother everybody, as a woman, I prefer not to see strange men prancing around in front of me in only their tighty-whities. In any case, the staff at the front desk was very friendly, and I temporarily put aside any fears of seeing an old guy trotting around in tight briefs.

Arriving at the second floor, we were pleasantly surprised by the energy-saving lights in the hallways that only turned on upon detecting motion. Also, we were thrilled to see recycling bins, an amenity that we had not yet encountered in Europe. We entered the room, which, like the rest of the hostel, also turned out to be modern and clean, save for a few odd stains on my duvet and pillow (luckily, we were given duvet covers and linens to put over our duvets, mattresses, and pillows). The room contained a cabinet for each person and provided that one brought her or his own lock, it could be secured. The bathrooms (across the hall) were quite clean.

The hostel also included a cafeteria/bar with a less-than-impressive salad bar offering an array of canned vegetable salads and huge plates of lasagna for approximately 5€ (a little over 6€ with the salad bar). Breakfast was acceptable, with the usual assortment of meats, cheeses, breads, jams, and cereals.

For those wanting to check email, there were two unreliable Internet kiosks in the lobby area that had difficulty accessing the Internet and wouldn’t return the remaining balance of my money. I would recommend using the Internet café in town instead, where the computers and the ambience are better, as is the price.

Finally, an amenity I wish we had been aware of before our trek to the hostel was the shuttle that, for 2€ per person one-way, would take you to or from either the train station or the airport. Unfortunately, it only runs only Monday through Friday.

Breakfast was included in the price, and this was a decent but typical hostel breakfast: a selection of breads, jam, cereal, cold meats and cheese, orange juice and tea or coffee. All of this was served in a gigantic cafeteria-like dining room, with rows and rows of tables, where people from all over the world were conversing in numerous languages. In this room, you doubt the statement that not many people make it to Luxembourg, because it sure seems they’re all here. But I suppose the trick is that everyone who does visit the country visits this city, and if they’re in that certain demographic, they’ll end up staying here rather than in some pricey hotel. This is the only official hostel in the whole country, after all.

There were other meal options. There was a medium-sized bar in the hostel that served food, but they stop serving hot food at about 8 or 9pm. My friend and I went there late one evening, looking for a hot meal, and watched in horror as this obnoxious group of Germans got the last four plates of spaghetti. We sat there and sulkily ate our cold cheese baguettes. One service the hostel offered that we happily used (more successfully than the evening meal) was the packed lunch. With a little notice in the morning, you can have one to take away with you, for less than $5. Our lunches included a sandwich, an apple, a bag of chips and a soda, and they were good.

The biggest negative point I have to make has to do with the showers: a big room with faucets, entirely open. I checked them out in the evening after we had arrived, and since we were only staying one night, I decided to forego the shower. So I don’t know anything about the water temperature and so on. I’m just too shy for semi-public nudity, somehow. Plus there really was nothing to keep men from walking into the shower room, though it was single sex.

I can’t remember what we paid (it was in Luxembourg francs anyway), but currently a bed costs €15.50. And they do accept credit cards. You can book a bed or room if you view the hostel’s description on the International Booking Network website.