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.
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."
No comments:
Post a Comment