The Luxembourg City History Museum illustrates the thousand-year history of the City of Luxembourg with both permanent and temporary exhibits.
Like the city itself, the museum successfully combines ancient architecture with modern extensions. It is housed in four restored houses from the 17th to the 19th century which still bear archeological traces from the Middle Ages. Examples of how to combine old buildings with the expectations of museum visitors are the floating glass façade and the panoramic lift which offers extensive views of all floors. The huge glass cage of the lift gives up to 65 people views of the rock foundations on the lower levels as well as views of the city's Grund district and Rham plateau on the upper levels, revealing the stages of Luxembourg's history over the centuries. Also of interest are the ancient, vaulted cellars which were discovered during excavation work in the early 1990s.
The floors below the street level entrance house a permanent collection illustrating the town's architectural and urban development while the upper floors are reserved for temporary exhibitions. A multimedia system extending throughout the building documents the history of the town including its cultural, political and social development. It provides access to some ten thousand documents and almost sixty audio-visual sequences.
References:Manarola is a small town, a frazione of the comune of Riomaggiore. It is the second-smallest of the famous Cinque Terre towns frequented by tourists, with a population of 353.
Manarola may be the oldest of the towns in the Cinque Terre, with the cornerstone of the church, San Lorenzo, dating from 1338. The local dialect is Manarolese, which is marginally different from the dialects in the nearby area. The name 'Manarola' is probably a dialectical evolution of the Latin, 'magna rota'. In the Manarolese dialect this was changed to 'magna roea' which means 'large wheel', in reference to the mill wheel in the town.
Manarola's primary industries have traditionally been fishing and wine-making. The local wine, called Sciacchetrà, is especially renowned; references from Roman writings mention the high quality of the wine produced in the region.