Learning our ABCs – 2

Position: 48°17’45.8″N 4°04’29.1″E

From Clémency we made our way to Luxembourg City and spent a few hours walking around its centre. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg exists mainly as a tax haven. Albeit with some very pretty places to visit. Its small population and high-income levels help keep its debt to GDP ratio vanishingly low. Observing Ascension Day meant light traffic and thin crowds until lunchtime. That gave us plenty of time to window shop and stroll through the thickly wooded ravine that cuts through the heart of the city. Crossing over a wide bridge towards the municipal park, we admired a couple of statues then wandered past pubs heaving with boozers and made our way back to Clarice. She had been happily charging in the carpark and awaiting our return.

Three hours was enough time to get a sense of the place. Luxembourg City is neatly organised, full of art nouveau buildings, streets of banks, and a killer shopping and dining district in its centre. Prices are high. Not New York high, but steep compared with Belgium. Someone has to pay for all that grandeur. It might as well be the tourists.

V is for Vianden

Several canyons and forests 30- and 40-kilometres northeast of the city make for good hiking. Perhaps Ascension Day means the day everyone in the country ascends from their sofa and heads outdoors for a walk. Cars lined the narrow roads feeding in and out of Müllerthal, Luxembourg’s ‘little Switzerland’. That’s marketing speak for an area of pretty hills and winding rivers that break up the farmland.

Given the press of humanity, we drove on towards the German border and Vianden Castle, “one of the most beautiful in Europe”, according to the New York Times. Vianden, the town, sits alongside a river and is stuffed with seasonal hotels and cafés. A steep cobblestoned road leads up to the castle, but you can also take a path through the woods or even ride a gondola up and walk down.

Luxembourg’s rugged topography makes for winding, picturesque roads. In fair, warmer weather those roads attract gangs of motorbikers. Mostly from the UK, Holland and Germany. The terrain calls for an ‘adventure bike’, not a Harley Davidson bagger. European manufacturers dominate the adventure segment and that translates to BMW 1200GSs for the Germans and Triumph Tiger 900XCs for the Brits (and occasional Frenchman). Riders were mostly middle-aged and older men, doctors and accountants, with an occasional female partner riding pillion. I was jealous. It would be great territory for Carol and me on Lily, my Tiger 800XC.

Having trudged up the hill and admired the price of admission to the castle, Carol, as marshal of land manoeuvres, decided our tour of the Duchy was sufficiently complete. I spun Clarice round and headed south. To France and Champagne.

H is for Hitchhiker

When I was 19 I hitchhiked across northern France with my younger sister Felicity in tow. We got as far as Metz thanks to a young woman who enthusiastically wrote down detailed instructions on where to find her flat In Paris. “She thinks you’re hot shit,” my sister clarified as I examined Rosanne’s scribble. (The idea I was being seduced hadn’t occurred to me. And while I never followed her instructions, I never forgot her name.)

Soon, a Turk with a guitar in the back seat of his creaky Citroen DS pulled over and we climbed in. Gravel pinged off the wheel arches as he stomped on the gas and sped off. In minutes he was insisting we play the guitar, despite neither of us knowing how, or even why he was asking. As he got more excited he pressed down on the accelerator. The rickety car sped up and rattled louder and louder until we could barely hear each other talk.

Ninety minutes later, fed up with our lack of musical ability, he dumped us in a village near the German border. A single hotel faced the town square. It had the only open bar for miles. Fat farmers with enviable beer bellies sat around talking politics, their plaid shirts stretched to their limits. Every head turned towards us as we walked in with our backpacks and bad French. The décor consisted of bare wooden tables and harsh down-lights. It was a scene straight out of Straw Dogs.

C is for Cathedral

Until a couple of weeks ago that was all I knew about Metz. Turns out the city has a magnificent cathedral at the base of which is a monument to the American forces that liberated the city in 1945. Big cathedrals are a thing in this part of France. As are the remnants of wars with Germany and its antecedents (Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, etc.). Indeed, the entire region was under Prussian control in the 1870s. That’s what happens when you share a border and make better wine than your neighbours, I guess.

Built on top of a low hill, Metz’s cathedral looms over the landscape like Snoopy doing his vulture impersonation. At the time of its construction this projection of power and wealth was undoubtedly seen as good for business. By World War I it helped the enemy (Germany) target the city for more accurate bombardment. The nave has the third highest ceiling in France. And it’s a real neck stretcher when you look up. It is so tall that it looks precarious and makes you wonder how people constructed such things in the 16^th century. Or more especially the 13^th century when the first bricks were laid. Serious and near-continuous restoration has continued over the past 200 years. Several stained-glass windows benefit from Marc Chagall’s unique appreciation of the sublime. This kind of blending of old world and new world is something I think the French are uniquely good at.

B is for Baroque

Nancy (pronounced Noncy) has a glorious history, particularly if you appreciate 18^th century baroque architecture. Today the city looks a little down on its heels. Certainly, the empty cans of beer and cigarette stubs outside the thick steel door of our Airbnb didn’t bode well. Other reviewers mentioned this and recommended we suspend disbelief. Heading upstairs, the shoulder’s-width winding staircase had us wondering what we’d do if there were a fire. It didn’t help the electronic deadbolt required three or four tries before it opened again after it was shut. Mentally, I knotted the bedsheets together and tried estimating how long the drop to the street might be. But the room was comfy enough and views looked directly over the Spanish-style cathedral, which, mercifully, silences its bells at night.

Place Stanislas is the primary reason tourists visit Nancy. Built between 1752 and 1756, entering the plaza instantly transports you out of France. There is enough marble and gilt to satisfy any Austro-Hungarian emperor. No surprise, it was constructed by a German architect on the orders of Stanislas I, formerly the King of Poland, then current Duke of Lorraine and father-in-law to Louis XV. Tourists thronged the walkways and cafés and gave the place a jolt of energy reminiscent of its glorious past.

T is for Timber-framed

Troyes (pronounced Twaah), boasts more timber framed buildings from the 16thcentury than anywhere else in the world. Walking through the narrow streets you quickly realize Troyes is not a museum or an offshoot of Disneyland. The buildings continue doing what they were originally built for: housing people and conducting commerce. Slightly off the main tourist drag, a few narrow streets almost parody images from the fairytale picture books I grew up with.

Old buildings lean drunkenly towards each other. Right angles in their original framing are long gone, replaced by more organic, flowing lines. Roof lines almost kiss, separated by only a sliver of blue sky high above your head. Elsewhere, in restaurants or coffee shops, the interiors are functionally modern. Some incorporate elements of the original design with exposed beams giving an olde worlde ambiance. Others, a minority, eschew the past and opt instead for plain white walls and bright pin-spot lighting. This is another example of the past brought forward and blending with the present.

C is for Chabaud

Among its many treasures, Troyes has a splendid Musée d’Art moderne. Although what passes for modern art nowadays is at least a hundred old. While there are a few name-brand painters represented, Degas, Monet, Seurat, among them, the collection also displays the works of lesser known artists. Together the collection reminded me that all art is derivative, and all artists (re)create what sells. There’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone has to make a living.

My favourite artist-I’d-never-heard-of? Auguste Chabaud. ‘La Gare’ and ‘Yvette’ both date from 1907-ish. The paintings are simultaneously derivative (Monet/Lautrec) and something brand new. The next time I’m in Graveson, I’m going to check out his museum.

Having by this time embraced full ‘vacation mode’, those times when you’re away from home and concerns about money can wait until you’re back, we headed out for a proper French meal at Chez Daniels. The prix fixè was delicious, asparagus, seabream and cheese for Carol, terrine, lamb and crème brûlée for me.

D is for Dom

Directly north, between Troyes and Riems (pronounced Reams), the major growing areas of champagne country spread out along the Marne River. Having skipped over a smaller area south of Troyes, the Aube, I’m going to ignore it for now and look forward to exploring it when we go back one day.

Dom Pierre Perignon, a monk, moved to the Benedictine abbey at Hautvillers in 1668. He was about 30 years old. His job? Cellarer. A calling he devoted himself to for the rest of his life. Taking Saint Benedict’s rules of prayer, hard work, and study to heart, Pierre laboured to improve the quality of the abbey’s wines and grow its vineyards. He was tremendously successful. However, he did not, as is often rumoured, invent the fizzy stuff beloved of rap stars and Formula 1 drivers.

Rather, his focus was on consistency. In modern parlance that would put him in charge of quality control. Which, as we know, is all about processes. Had the International Standards Organization existed, he would probably have served on several committees. Through better winemaking and improvements in the art of blending wines he helped make vintages more consistent. His hard work paid off and he doubled the abbey’s annual income which earned him the honorific ‘Dom’. Many of his ideas are still in use today, we later learned during a tour of James Bond’s favourite champagne maker.

T is for Taittinger

On reflection, we probably wouldn’t have spent as much time in Riems as we did. Don’t get me wrong. It is a perfectly nice city with a regionally competitive cathedral and open cafes surrounding walkable plazas. Several famous champagne houses call Riems home, including Taittinger, Ian Fleming’s choice for his famous spy. It’s just that Épernay has the same attractions in a smaller city with easier access to bike paths and vineyards. Plus, Hautvillers, with Dom Pierre’s abbey, is just a few kilometres north of town.

Nonetheless, our tour of Taittinger was cool in every sense of the word. I enjoyed Taittinger champagne even before I learned of 007’s hankering for it. The winery in Riems is really more of a storehouse which takes advantage of a destroyed 17^th century abbey’s abandoned cellars. They run for miles underground. Hewn from chalk by monks who knew that the cool, constant temperatures 20 metres down were perfect for aging and storing wine.

Taittinger (pronounced Tate-on-jay) lays down thousands of bottles of champagne in every size from a Standard to a Methuselah. You should know, however, if you buy a handy 15 litre Nebuchadnezzar, the wine is not fermented in the bottle but filled before it is shipped. The risk of spontaneous explosion during secondary fermentation being too high.

A back of the envelope calculation led me to believe Taittinger has around $1 billion in inventory waiting to mature. A process that can take up to 10 years. That’s a lot of unrealized value and probably a key reason Starwood Capital (it owns hotels like Westin, Sheraton, St. Regis, etc.) sold the winemaking side of the business back to the family after it had purchased a controlling interest in Taittinger in 2005. How do you make a small fortune in wine? Buy some hotels, apparently.

B is for Bicycle

Not having had our fill of champagne, we booked one night back in Hautvillers. A long bike ride, Carol reasoned, would offset any excesses from wine tasting. In this she was correct. Ever since our first cycling adventure in Franschhoek, South Africa, we have coveted e-bikes. Of course there is no space on Aleta for such things. A day’s rental is far less than purchasing one…or two.

The young man at the bike rental eyed us up. How far could we expect to ride, we asked? It depends on how much power you use, but plan on 35 kilometres, he said. Off we went in search of the bike path alongside the Marne Canal with only a vague idea of how to get there.

Two things to know about France. First, they look out for cyclists on the road. They have to. There are so many bike riders drivers can’t help but see them. Second, bike paths are clearly marked, so follow the signs and you’ll get where you’re going. Eventually.

B is for Barge

The gentle swales of the Marne Valley draw your eyes along the hillsides south of the river. Wheat, grass and rape seed grow easily there. Looking north, chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier vines fill every nook and cranny with enough sunlight to make things grow. After a thousand years the neatly ordered rows of vines, many with a bright rose bush at one end, are optimally placed.

Gazing eastwards along the valley at the crest of a hill, I wondered what life was like during World War I. Four years of ceaseless bombardment and trench warfare raged only a few dozen leagues to the east. But the green vistas, horses, sheep and castles shook that dark thought out of my head. Riding along the sleepy canal a few minutes later inspired daydreams of living on a barge big enough to store a couple of e-bikes and motoring up and down France chasing the seasons like snow birds.

V is for Vineyards

Champagne lost 40% of its vineyards during World War I. Vines become productive only after at least three years of nurturing. New markets in North America opened up after the war and production began ramping up. Then the crash of Wall Street in 1929 pulled the rug out again. Owners changed hands and so did rules protecting the Champagne marque. Since 1936 only wine produced in Champagne, may be called ‘champagne’. Today over 300 million bottles of champagne are sold each year. Some of the best, of course, are sold directly by producers in the region. Vineyard tours by bus, chauffeured limousine, and bicycles are all popular. China, as relative newcomers to wine collecting, is well represented.

A brief thunderstorm sent us inside a café for a refresher. Finally, back at the bike rental store, our lad was suitably impressed by our 50 kilometre ride and that we had used only 10% of our batteries’ power.

B is for Blanc de Blanc

Perusing the wine list at the ‘clotaire’ restaurant just down the street from our rooms, each champagne indicated how much sugar (in grams) was added to the bottle for secondary fermentation, the step that makes bubbly bubble. More sugar means a sweeter wine. Two days earlier this piece of data would have been completely lost on us. Autodidactivity pays off again. My pedagogical Papa used to say, “If you sit still and listen, you’ll learn something.” He was right.

Preferring dry wines, we opted for a bottle of local hero Pierre Gobillard’s Blanc de Blanc with only five grams of added sugar. It beat the pants off anything we’d sampled in the past three days. The next morning, we rushed to his tasting room and bought as much of the stuff as we could safely store on Aleta. Two bottles. We have one left. We may drink it tomorrow, then rent a car, drive back and buy a case. Or two. Or enough to fill a barge…

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