It is August. The big exodus has started. While people with Luxembourg based family take a trip towards new destinations, many people with more diverse roots have the same journey as every year: home to their families. Italians, Moroccans, Spanish people and especially the country’s giant Portuguese community get on overcrowded buses, planes, trains and highways to go south. On Local Matters today, we explore how Luxembourg’s Portuguese community travels. For this week, all buses and planes to Portugal are fully booked. Diana’s mother is going to get a bus in the morning, from the busstop Buoillon to Portugal. Most people already left during the weekend. This morning, only a dozen of people with destination Porto are waiting for the flixbus to arrive. It was scheduled for 6.40 but is 20 minutes late. Another woman has two big suitcases and a bag with her. She says: “Where I live, there is no airport. And I have a lot of luggage. I really have a lot of luggage. Small presents for the family, toys for the children. I don’t see them all the year, so when I see them, I want to bring them a small present, a souvenir.”
She is going to visit her children and all the rest of the family, for four weeks. An elderly man meanwhile takes a big suitcase and a cooling box with him on the bus to keep the food that he packed for the long journey fresh.
And one man has only a small suitcase. He says it would have been to expensive to take the airplane. He booked last minute and the plane would have costed 400 to 700 euros. On the bus he pays around 200 for the round trip. He says: “In August it usually costs between 400 and 700 euros to go take the plane to Portugal. On bus we travel for more than 30 hours, it’s going to be uncomfortable and a long journey, but the price difference is a huge argument. We take the bus here, it’s going to pass through Fracne, Spain, it has many stops. Il will be hard. But we’ll see. “
Photo: Rakoon / Wikicommons