Not far away from Luxembourg by car, you can easily reach “La Gaume” in Belgium and one of the favorite place of many beer lovers: Orval.

One of the 6 trappist beer in the world (5 in Belgium), it is still made under the supervision of the monastic community (no visits of the brewery are allowed for “simple” tourists).

Orval is a “living” monastery, you can only access the ruins of the old abbaye, the museum and the visitor stand in the church. Still worth a visit, and a trip back home with a trunk loaded of the famous beer.

Just grabbed my bike after work to go and shoot Luxembourg, best thing to do after a hard day. I went back to the Philharmonie, it has been quite a time since I took pictures there. This is definitively a great spot at night, the new buildings offering plenty of opportunities with the huge reflections.

Luxembourg has recently (January 2008) modified its law on intellectual property. Already known as a “Tax Haven” for E Business companies (Ebay, Paypal, Skype,… have their headquarters in Luxembourg), the new law is designed to boost the development of intellectual property business chain.

Luxembourg will propose a 80% tax deduction on the income generated by a patent, copyright on software, trademark, design or model…The effective rate will be of 5,9 % on the net IP income. It should also be noted that the 80% deduction will also be applied to the revenue generated by a taxpayer using his own patent for business purpose (relatively to the net income that would have been received if the patent was licenced to a third party). The 80% deduction will also apply to the capital gain realised on the disposal of this IP.

For startups, I think this will definitively help boost their creation in Luxembourg; slowly (hopefully) creating a viable cluster that would help sustain the development of such activities. Some of you might be interested…

Luxembourg is a nice place to live and even greater if you like walking. The best thing you can do is go to the tourist office and buy the official 171 rambling routes guide. With that little help, you’ll end in place like this. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………