To the Bruges!

The Basilica of the Holy Blood By Night

Yesterday was a travel day.  We slept in and bid farewell to a Luxembourg that was finally starting to come alive after the holidays.  But first, we had to stop at the Notre Dame Cathedral.  It was breathtakingly beautiful in a very understated way.  The columns were all carved stone; the tapestreys that covered the walls looked like they dated back to the 1500s; and the stained glass windows were simply divine.

It was a four hour train ride from Luxembourg to Bruges, with a change in Brussels.  We took advantage of a short layover to grab some hot chocolate (mine was white hot chocolate and it was amazing).  We got into Bruges at 4:00 p.m. only to find that the rain had beat us here.  Luckily though, it had mostly passed by the time we arrived and we only had to deal with a slight drizzle.

Bruges is unlike any city I've ever been to.  There's this kind of dreary yet mystical air to it that's very difficult to describe to anyone that hasn't experienced it for themselves.  I like the way that Kati described it best.  She said that it "feels Gothic."  After settling into our hotel - Martins Brugge - we grabbed our first Belgian beers from the John Martin brewery.  There was a strawberry lambic, a brown, and a brown scotch ale.  The lambic was by far both of our favorites.

By the time we finished our beers, it was well into the evening and we walked around exploring a little bit.  We stopped into the Markt for some Gluhwein and to peruse the shops before taking a stroll along the canal and killing a little time before dinner.

Me at Den Dijver

Our dinner was to die for.  We ate at Den Dijver, a gastronomic beer extravaganza.  The chef is world-renowned for his cooking.  He finds inspiration in different Belgian beers and then pairs the dish with the Belgian beer that inspired it.  Before the meal, they served us an apperitiv and a really light celery soup.  My first beer was a white ale made specially for the restaurant and Kati's was a cherry lambic that was to die for.  Kati started with mussels in a beer broth (paired with a blonde) that was really good.  The highlight of her meal though, was the main course, dory with eggplant and zucchini (paired with another blonde).  She finished up with a chocolate brownie with beer ice cream and a very good stoout.  I started with an incredible plate of quail with brussels in a celery sauce (paired with the breathtaking Rodenbach Grand Cru).  My main dish was phesant with pears and chicory (paired with a smooth brown ale).  Hilariously, when I was finishing the last of my phesant I bit down on...wait for it...a lead pellet from the shotgun that killed it.  Finally, I finished up with a creme brule (paired with an amazing dark beer).  It was hands down one of the best meals that I've ever had in my life!

After a leisurely three-hour gastronomic experience, we tried to stop in for a final beer, but found that most of the bars on my list of "must hits" were already closed for the night.  We settled for going to "The Pub" simply because it had an extensive beer list.  Kati got a glass of Bush (Belgian Bush...which is much better than American Bush) and I got a glass of the dark St. Bernardus 12.  We met some two very fun English couples from Birmingham, but had to turn in after our beers so we would have enough energy for our big day and New Year's Eve celebrations.

The Great Luxembourg Tour

Our big day in Luxembourg started at 8:00 a.m....well, mine did.  While Kati was getting ready, I set out into the city by myself to look for breakfast.  The city was deserted.  I was seriously the only person in the old town, save the Luxembourgish guard standing at attention outside of the Grand Ducal Palace.  The empty city was eerily beautiful through the soft drizzle.  Sadly, I couldn't find an open bakery to save my life, and we had to skip breakfast.

I was pretty nervous about the rest of the day because it was the first time that I had ever rented a car in a foreign country.  Luckily, I planned ahead and took a good roadmap of the country and I had a trusty navigator.  The car situation could not have worked out better.  The hotel owns two cars that the rent out to guests for cheap.  As an added benefit, the cars are already insured, so we didn't have to jump through any hoops to get international insurance.

It turns out that driving over here and finding your way is much easier than I had expected.  In fact, I like it a lot more than driving in the States because there's much less to remember.  We had the whole day ahead of us, so we decided to replicate our favorite day in Montenegro and go on a "Great Tour of Luxembourg."  (Though, without Georgi, our incredible Montenegrin guide that made our trip so much fun)

Our first stop, was the American Military Cemetery in Hamm, just outside of Luxembourg City.

Luxembourg, as the site of the Battle of the Bulge, is the logical place to have a large military cemetery.  I've never been to a military cemetery before.  It was a surreal experience.  It was exactly how I picture Arlington National Cemetery, but smaller.  The true highlight of the cemetery is the fact that General Patton is buried there.  For me, however, the most moving experience was seeing the graves for the unknown soldiers, marked with a cross that read "Here Rests in Honored Gory a Comrade in Arms Known But to God."  Even walking around a cemetery with a few thousand graves, it's impossible to  not feel the weight of the incomprehensible magnitude of World War II and the unfathomable loss of life that resulted.

After the cemetery we headed off for the Moselle Valley - the stop that I was most excited about.  The Moselle Valley is the smallest wine region in the world but includes parts of Luxembourg, Germany, and France.  The Luxembourg side of the Moselle Valley is famous for its white wines and especially for its sparkling wines (cremants).  Unfortunately for us, even though there are dozens of vineyards in the Moselle Valley, almost all of them were closed for the winter.  Luckily, I had done my research ahead of time, so we didn't waste time looking for open wineries.

The Moselle Valley is truly incredible, even in the winter.  The "Route du Vin" (Wine Road) runs the entire length of the valley right along the river that separates Luxembourg from Germany.  There are no huge towns.  Instead, there are just little villages, built on the hills, every 5 km or so.  The vineyards must have outnumbered the houses in the valley two-to-one.  Even though there were no grapes left on the vines, they were really impressive.

The only true winery that we stopped at was Poll-Fabaire in Wormeldange.  If we could only see one winery, I'm glad it was Poll-Fabaire.  They let us taste just about everything.  In terms of white wines, the three uniquely Luxembourgish wines are Rivaner, Ebling, and Auxerrois.  I've had several Auxerrois wines on our trip and they've all been fantastic.  The bartender at Poll-Fabaire, however, advised us to pass on the Rivaner and Ebling because they're just table wines and there are much better wines in the country.  We had an amazing Riesling, but the true highlight was the cremants.  Typically, when you're picking out a sparkling wine you have very limited options - brut, dry, and maybe a rose.  Here, the world of cremants is wide open.  We tried a Riesling cremant that was to die for, a Chardonnay cremant that Kati loved, and a Pinot Noir cremant that was truly divine.  Unsurprisingly, we stocked up on wines at the store.  (While getting so many wines sounded like a great idea at the time, my back is regretting that decision now.)

After the winery, we set out for to find a spot that I had picked out for lunch.  Ander Tourelle is a restaurant near Remich, right on the Route du Vin, that came highly recommended and had a great wine list.  I had done my research to confirm that it was open and to find the address.  My research, however, turned out to be flawed on both counts.  We spent about an hour driving around the valley looking for this place to no avail.  The trip was fun though, we got to see a bunch of vineyards, some incredible houses, and we passed through Schengen several times.  Schengen is a city in the southeastern corner of Luxembourg where Luxembourg, Germany, and France all meet.  It's famous as the place where the Schengen Agreement - establishing modern travel arrangements around Europe for European citizens, among other things - was signed.  In fact, the agreement was signed on a boat that they anchored in the middle of the river, right at the intersection of the three countries.  Finally, we broke down and asked some locals how to find Ander Tourelle.  They pointed us to completely different village than the one listed on the restaurant's website.  At that point, we found it easily, though when we did it was closed.

By the time we made it to the closed restaurant, we were both starving, so the hotel restaurant next door benefitted from our misfortune.  Lunch ended up being a bit pricier than we had anticipated, but it was pretty good.  We successfully stumbled our way through a meal where the menu had no English and the wait staff spoke very little English.  Kati got some shrimp scampi that was rather good and I got an (overcooked) cut of beef with the most incredible cabbage side that I've ever eaten.  We finished our meal off with a local luxury, lemon sorbet doused in a beautiful cremant.  (They tried to get us to substitute vodka for the cremant, but we declined)

After lunch, we decided to see the rest of the country, so we set off up the Route du Vin.  The scenery on the drive was stunning.  We got to experience what it's like to live in Luxembourg as we drove through countless villages and stopped off in a local supermarket to buy some more cremants.  We were in luck because they were doing tons of wine tastings in the grocery store.  Of course we partook and tasted some more fabulous cremants from a few of the vineyards that were closed for the season. We also grabbed two bottles of St. Martin's wines.  I wish that we could have stopped at the Caves du St. Martin.  It's one of the oldest vineyards in the Moselle Valley and their tasting room is built into the caves where they age and store their cremants.  But, like so many other vineyards, they were closed for the season, and they weren't willing to give the two of us a private visit.  Oh well.

Our intermediate destination was a city called Echternach, known for its quaint town square and the largest basilica in Luxembourg.  Along the way, somehow, we accidentally wound up in Germany.  We're not really sure when or how that happened, but we definitely came back into Luxembourg right before we entered Echternach.  The village was amazing.  First, we stopped at a stunning little church in the countryside on the outskirts of the village.  I thought that was great, but when we found our way into the city, it was even better.  The basilica lived up to the hype, as did the city.

Our final stop on our tour was in the northern city of Vianden.  We drove all the way up there just to see a castle that I've heard cannot be missed.  While we got there too late to visit the castle (it closes at 4:30 p.m.), it exceeded our expectations.  It was like something out of a fairy tale and we got there right at dusk.

Once we made it back to Luxembourg City, we went to dinner at Chiggari.  It is quite the unusual place.  It's tucked away in a very old house on a small side street in the heart of the old town.  The first floor is a beer garden and bar while, on the third floor, there is an old-school salon and a gourmet restaurant.  The restaurant looks very "tribal."  The walls are orange and black hand-painted designs and from the ceiling hang the frame of an old canoe and a bunch of decorated beams that look like, in another life, they traveled the world on a magnificent ship.  Chiggari has the best wine list in the country (it was even in the Guinness Book of World Records).  In fact, their sommalier has been recognized as one of the best in all of Europe.

Chiggari has a chef's menu, so we had a four-course meal of the chef's choice.  It was divine.  We started with what I would call the original wine cooler - a cremant mixed with sparkling water and a twist of lime.  The first course, a creamed celery soup with pecans in it, was followed with a perfectly roasted foie gras coupled with a heavenly fig marmalade.  Our main course was some sort of French white fish in two-tiered breaded "boat" and for dessert we had a chocolate ganache, cherries soaked in brandy, and a traditional ice cream cake-like dish from Alise.  The sommolier also paired wines with each of the dishes.  We had an incredible Luxembourgish pinot gris to match our foie gras and finished the meal off with a surprise - a muscato wine that both of us actually liked.  We were shocked.  I've tried muscato wines from many places and I hate all of them.  But this one wine from Spain paired with the dessert so well that we couldn't help but admire it.

After dinner, we took a walk down to the Chemin de la Corniche, known as the most beautiful balcony in Europe because it overlooks Grund.  You can see everything from the walkway along the top of the Casemates Bock.  The city was simply stunning.

I think that Kati put it best.  "Today was the perfect day."

Grund By Night

Casemate Bock at Night

It works!  We successfully avoided the ill effects of jet lag by sleeping away the time difference on the train ride from Brussels to Luxembourg City.  The fruits of our experiment have already been incredible.

When we landed in Brussels, the weather was phenomenal.  It was sunny and about 42 degrees.  Yet as we chugged through the countryside, the weather got increasingly worse.  By the time we arrived in Luxembourg City, it was dreary and raining steadily.  It was about a 1 km walk to our hotel.  Even though it was raininig, the walk through the city was really enjoyable.  It was almost like walking back through time as we moved from the train station, in the new part of the city, to the old town.

Our hotel, the Parc Beaux Arts Hotel, is located right in the center of the old town.  It's a beautiful hotel that they created out of several old houses.  The downstairs is also a restaurant and bar that, especially given the selections of soft jazz spilling into the air, makes you feel like you're in the 1920s and hanging out with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda.

We got into the city around 4:00 in the afternoon and quickly confirmed what I already suspected - everything is closed during the holiday season.  Yet neither that nor the weather deterred us from exploring the city.

Kati on the Wenzel Walk

The old town is really divided into two parts by the Alzette river.  The river, has dug out a very large area of the city.  There is the traditional "old town" (which I call the high town) and Grund, which is in the basin of the Alzette river "valley."  Initially, I just wanted to go to Grund to see the Neurumberg Abbey, but I'm so glad that we made the trip.  The Abbey ended up being closed for the holidays, but we walked around exploring nonetheless.  We must have been guided by our good friend St. Wenceslas (the patron saint of beer), because we stumbled onto the Wenzel Walk (his walk), which led us up to some stunning views from the plateau in Grund.  We could see the new city, the old town, the Casemates Bock, and everything in between.  The highlight had to have been walking along old ramparts and up and down stone fortifications and catching some of the most stunning nightscapes the city has to offer.

We wanted to grab dinner at Am Tiirmschen, a well-known local restaurant specializing in Luxembourgish cuisine.  The only problem was that they were booked solid until 9:00.  Our solution was to go back to the Beaux Arts restaurant and bar and waste a little time.  We grabbed a few glasses of wine and a plate of Luxembourgish charcutterie to tide us over until dinner (all of which were excellent).  Finally, it was dinner time and Am Tiirmschen lived up to the hype.  Kati got what I've been told is Luxembourg's unofficial dish, smoked pork in a cream sauce over broad beans.  It was truly some of the most incredible pork either of us has ever had.  I went for a lamb shank with vegetables (which was also very good).

After dinner, we weren't quite ready to call it a night, so we stopped in at Steiler, the oldest pub in Luxembourg.  It opened in 1691!  We had an amazing time amongst the Luxembourg locals, socializing to some interesting electronica remixes of popular songs.  The best part was really good beer was dirt cheap.  I got a Diekirsh amber ale, the darker relative of Luxembourg's most popular beer (named after the town it's brewed in to the north).  It was alright, but it couldn't compare to the beer that Kati got - La Chouffe, an amazing Belgian brew.  After two drinks at Steiler, we decided to call it a night so that we'd be well-rested for our big Sunday.

Bon Voyage Once Again

822 - The number of days since we returned from spending two months in Eastern Europe
821 - The number of days that I've been planning our next trip to Europe.

After months of planning, we're about to embark on a very brief jaunt to Europe - Belgium and Luxembourg specifically.  Until recently, I didn't think that Belgium and Luxembourg constituted "strange" or "unusual" destinations, though I've been assured they are.  I shutter to hear what people would say when they find out that my top five destinations are (in order): (1) Iran; (2) Cuba; (3) Madagascar; (4) Greenland; and (5) Russia.  Regardless, I'm excited.

This trip is so different from our last trip.  We're still backpacking, but we're staying in pretty nice hotels (not seedy hostels).  More significantly, we're only going for five days (not two months).  I've been told that the secret to taking a weekend excursion to Europe is to fly somewhere and immediately get on a train for several hours so that you can sleep through your jet lag.  That's our goal, to test this theory.

We'll arrive in Brussels tomorrow afternoon at 11:50 a.m.  Then we're going immediately hop on a three-hour train to Luxembourg City.  We're only staying in Luxembourg for two days, so we're going to have to make the most of it.  We'll be spending our time brushing up on World War II history and sights (including stopping to pay hommage at General Patton's grave) while enjoying gourmet food.  On Sunday we're going to rent a car - which, I must admit, I'm rather nervous about - and explore the country ourselves.  In particular, we're going to be driving through the Moselle Valley, the smallest wine region in the world.  Luxembourg is famous for its white and sparkeling wines, many of which are made with unique varietals that are rarely seen in the States.  If there's time, we're also going to stop in and explore Schengen, the namesake for one of the most famous European agreements in modern times.

After our short stay in Luxembourg, we're going to catch a train to Bruges for three days and celebrate New Year's Eve.  This second leg of our trip will be consumed (literally) with eating chocolate and drinking beer, with a good splash of culture and winter fun thrown in for good measure.  To prepare for our trip we watched In Bruges, which turned out to be one of the stranger movies I've seen in some time.  Five days is not nearly enough time to explore these two cities, but it's certainly better than nothing, and I couldn't be more excited.