(Note: currently 1 euro = 1.17 US dollars, unfortunately)
When I couldn't get a room reservation in Beilstein on the German Moselle, I decided to spend more time in Luxembourg. The guide books either gave Luxembourg limited space, or left it out altogether, but what they did say sounded attractive. I planned to spend two nights at a Hotel-Restaurant in the northeastern area known as 'Little Switzerland', three nights at an Irish pub in the Parc Naturel de la Haute Sure, and one night at a Hotel-Pizzeria in Luxembourg City itself.
Turned out, Luxembourg is a great place for foodies, hikers, lovers of castles, lovers of rural scenery and lovers of dramatic scenery. Can you tell that it made my 'places-to-revisit' list? Or at least the City and the northern countryside did.
The scanty coverage in the guidebooks seemed to be matched by a lack of English-speaking tourists in the countryside. Supposedly Luxembourg has a large English ex-pat population, but they must mostly stay in the city. Out in the countryside some basic French or German really comes in handy: the third language is Letzebuergesch (or Luxembourgeois), not English.
I crossed the border from Germany at speed on the autobahn, flashing past deserted immigration booths. After a long day's sightseeing I was tired, and ready to relax at my hotel. So, as I followed the signs to Echternach and then to Berdorf, I paid less attention than normal to the River Sure, dictating the winding course of the road north, or the deep, forested, gorge that led up onto a sunlit plateau.
Thanks to an elderly woman in the village, I finally found the Hotel Bisdorff down a quiet country lane (quiet if you discount the occasional tractor, anyway). The hotel definitely contributed to my favorable impression of Luxembourg. My room came with a balcony large enough for a table and chairs, a flower-box hung from the railing and I faced a screen of tall northern firs -- the kind with swooping branches and drooping needles that belongs in a production of the 'Ice Queen'.
The hotel offers a swimming pool (with chilly water), a terrace and a garden, but its raison d'etre is food. Sylvie Bisdorff's father cooked for the Grand-Duc, and she has published a cookery book: while the hotel is maybe a little shabby round the edges, the food is impeccable. At 64 euros for a single, demi-pension is a wonderful deal -- after a five-course gourmet dinner and a lavish breakfast buffet (cook your own bacon and eggs, or gorge on cheese, ham and perfect pate), you'd have to do some serious hiking to need lunch.
[Food alert] Dinner the first night began with an excellent dry sherry (not included) and a creamy chicken soup, followed by melon with two kinds of ham and port -- I like ground ginger with my melon, but this combination worked well. The star of the meal, though, was the green apple sorbet, sitting in a pool of calvados. Icy-cold, tart and sweet, barely there, it easily outshone the rather chewy rabbit with basil. I had trouble finding room for the berries with whipped cream and ice-cream that finished the meal. The next night the first course was a delicious scampi salad -- shrimp flavored with garlic and ginger on greens with slivers of red pepper and pine nuts. The mushroom soup was essence of mushroom, the salmon vol-au-vents perfectly cooked. I'm not sure what liqueur accompanied the mango sorbet, but I enjoyed both it and the rich, tender venison that followed. The only sour note was the red cabbage sauerkraut, which I found too acid a partner for the venison's red wine sauce. The plum tart with cream for dessert was definitely overkill. [End food alert]
Tearing myself away from the breakfast table to explore the countryside was worth the effort, and the rental car. While the area didn't look like any picture of Switzerland I've ever seen, it had its own charms. Uplands with open fields and steep-sided river valleys were connected by rock-walled ravines and deep forests like those I had encountered on my way to Berdorf. I drove through the dappled shade of tree-tunnels into the shadow of strange rock formations. I walked through evergreens to a cascading mountain stream, and later through a high rock maze labeled 'the Labyrinth'. And I found a wonderfully evocative ruined castle at Beaufort.
The castle was almost deserted, and big enough to be interesting. Across the minor road leading to it, swans ruled a small lake and a four-kilometer nature walk started from a picnic site. Picnickers, along with walkers and bikers, get careful consideration in Luxembourg. It's criss-crossed by well-marked hiking trails, bike paths parallel the main roads, and the roads themselves are liberally provided with pull-offs, often with picnic tables. Although, in a country so clearly saying 'slow down and smell the coffee' I was surprised by the number of motorbikes whipping past me at high speed.
Luxembourg is also well-supplied with castles, ruined and otherwise, and after reluctantly leaving the Hotel Bisdorff, I meandered along back roads to visit the restored castle at Vianden. Coming into Vianden from Diekirch, I nearly drove off the road -- hovering protectively above the town, framed by trees, the castle was almost too picturesque. More popular than Beaufort, it was another place where visitors were free to wander at their own pace, admiring the chapel, the armory, the tapestries and chests, and the wonderful views.
Driving the scenic N27 that afternoon, taking the long way to Insenborn and my Irish pub, the Chateau Borscheid appeared equally perfect from a distance, although it later proved dull and dangerous close up. The pub, the Clann Hotel, was also a disappointment. I had expected it to be cheap and cheerful, but found it merely cheap. On a Friday night, when crowds come by bus from Luxembourg City for live music, it might be more cheerful, but no place for those wanting sleep.
I did have a nice chat at the bar with the owner's father-in-law, until he mentioned that Hurricane Isabel had hit North Carolina. Since I had seen no news for several days, the hurricane had faded from my mind, and the TV over the bar, even when tuned to CNN, only provided pictures of Kill Devil Hills. (Turned out my house was fine, although I had trouble finding an Internet cafe to check. Two kind ladies in Diekirch's Military History Museum finally made some phone calls and produced two addresses for me. It was as well I had asked for help, as there was no indication outside that the place I visited was even a cafe, never mind an Internet cafe.)
At the Clann Hotel I was surprised to discover that some hotels in Luxembourg close one day a week, but it seemed a good excuse to abandon my three night reservation and move on. The hills around the man-made Lac de la Haute Sure looked like good hiking territory, but my feet were complaining, and it was out of season for boat trips on the lake itself. I did spend an hour taking photographs in the pretty village of Esche-sur-Sure, below the dam, before moving on to Bourscheid.
Bourscheid proper (pop. 350), up on the wind-swept plateau, yielded an acceptable but unexciting hotel. If I had kept driving I could have stayed in Bourscheid-Moulin/Plage (pop. 14), in the valley below the castle, at the Hotel-Restaurant Theis. As it was, I settled for lunch on their terrace overlooking the Sure, already a significant river. The open-faced pate sandwich suggested that dinner would have been good, and coffee came with a little plate of sweets, including a fragile chocolate cup filled with whipped cream. Afternoon quiet had settled on the valley, the castle soared above it, and a few couples sprawled on the grass by the river, reading or sleeping. Life was good.
Next day I abandoned the hills, valleys and castles of the Ardennes for the Luxembourg Moselle. Although pretty enough, once I extricated myself from the busy towns of Wasserbilig and Mertert, the area could not compete with northern Luxembourg, much less the Rhine. Ordered rows of terraced vines marched across the low banks of the river, and the houses were square and unadorned, aside from bands of color around the windows.
I stopped at the friendly Tourist Information office in Grevenmacher, and then visited the butterfly garden and Bernard-Massard wine caves. The weather had changed the previous night, and I was glad of the warmth of the garden, but after the big butterflies I saw last year in Malaysia I could generate little enthusiasm for the rather small ones flitting around the hibiscus and orchids. The guide at the wine caves did his best with English for me, but if I hadn't already understood the methode champenoise I would have been little the wiser. However, the Riesling I tasted (I'm not fond of champagne) was excellent, and the peanuts that came with it were lunch.
I decided Remich, with its 'outstanding tourist infrastructure,' was a little too big and bustling, while the hotels in Ehnen, my second choice, were closed for the day. I settled for a room with a balcony overlooking the river at the Hotel-Restaurant de l'Ecluse in Stadtbredimus, and finally figured out how to close the heavy metal blinds I had first encountered the night before (opening them was easy, but unhelpful in the absence of drapes).
Next morning steam rose off the river and the vineyards glowed in the early sunshine as I drove to Trier to return my rental car. While gas is (much) cheaper in Luxembourg, renting a car is cheaper in Germany, and Trier is only just over the border. As in Koblenz, the rental office was out of the center, and I was glad of the car's navigation system, which at least got me to the right street. There was no-one available at the Hertz office to drive me to the station, but a bus stop was right outside.
The first bus went to the TI and the Roman gate known as the Porta Nigra rather than the station, but I took it anyway, glad that I had packed light -- I wound up sightseeing in Trier with my luggage. I did take the tourist 'train', the Romer Express, for a tour of the city once favored by Roman emperors and a good-enough look at the outside of the huge basilica and baths, but I walked through the overpopulated market square and round the ornate cathedral. The present cathedral is big, but Constantine's cathedral here (yes, the Emperor who legitimized Christianity) was even bigger.
But Trier was just the appetizer: I took the train back over the border to Luxembourg City, which may have the most arresting location of any capital city anywhere. The fortifications that made the site the 'Gibraltar of the North,' begun by Count Sigefroi back in 963, were dismantled in the late 1800s, but the rock on which they stood is still there, and it still drops sheer to the banks of the rivers Petrusse and Alzette. The views from the Corniche, the walk along the line of the fortress' walls, rival those from the Mediterranean Corniche that runs from Nice to Monaco.
Bridges now span the ravines in all directions, and I stayed south of the Petrusse River near the station. At 38 euros a night, I may have had the cheapest hotel room in the City, but it was clean enough, and after climbing five flights of stairs I was above the traffic noise. Although it was a Hotel-Pizzeria (the Bella Napoli) I ate my evening pizza at the Cafe Beaujolais on the main square, the Place d'Armes, in the old city, although I found the square, full of tables and chairs and offering Chi-Chis, Pizza Hut and McDonalds, disappointing after Brussels and Bruges, and the pizza disappointing after the one in Wiesbaden.
The city had plenty of good places to eat, though, and I was seduced, literally seduced, by a wine and cheese shop just off the Place d'Armes. Three walls held bottles of wine, bread bins covered part of the fourth, and a long cheese counter held over a hundred different cheeses. Better still, I could have four cheeses, two breads and a glass of wine for 9.50 euros.
I settled in at a table next to '97 vintage port, 20-year old tawny port and a limited edition French Chardonnay and noticed a Monsieur P. Kaempff's Chevalier du Tastevin diploma on the wall. Kaempff-Kohler has been selling fine food and wine since 1922 -- the cheese and wine shop was only a third of an operation that includes foie gras, truffles and caviar, but the robust Corsican red wine, creamy, mellow Roquefort and soft goat cheese were all I needed.
My other lasting memory of a too-brief visit to Luxembourg City is of the city's History Museum. I entered an elegant three story mansion on the Rue de St. Esprit. Then I took a large, glass elevator down, rather than up -- the museum extends three stories down into the bedrock. Unfortunately, few of the labels were in English, although I was handed a somewhat worn folder with English translations of the most important information.
I exited the museum at the rear, just above the Corniche, and watched a train leaving town over one of the city's high bridges. I was regretting the fact that I would be riding the train the next day myself, headed for Maastricht, in the Netherlands.
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