One year on + a lovely weekend

I just looked up my Gcal for a year ago, because I knew it was coming up to my first anniversary here in Brussels, but I couldn't remember when exactly. Turns out it's not for a few days - moving day was Friday the 13th, which wasn't an omen of anything in particular, unless you count that the movers broke my "Bio t'y foule" wine glass that I never understood what it meant anyway.

Gcal is how I organise basically my entire life, from little reminders to put something in my handbag to take to work, to travel plans, to organising an international move, and looking at my calendar a year ago reminds me of how stressful it was, but also kinda makes me feel organised and adult, so that's nice. I had forgotten just how much was going on around the move as well - I was in Mallorca three weeks before the move, Tours two weeks before, Brussels for one night the week before and Luxembourg the week after, seems crazy (most of that was booked before I knew I was moving though).

The past year has definitely flown by. On the minus side, I don't really feel any more integrated into the city (i.e., no friends). I haven't been trying, and am mostly fine with it, since I spend all my weekends with Jules and after work I'm pretty much okay just vegging out, but there are obviously times when friends would be nice. I've never really been in the situation before of making *no* friends in a new city, so I'm trying to take that as a sign it's down to lack of effort rather than inherent lameness, but that thought's always floating about somewhere.

On the plus side, oh my god is it better living in a nice apartment, getting paid a decent wage and not having a hellish international commute. We had a barbecue at Jules's place this weekend and invited one of my old colleagues and I found myself going on to another guest about how awful that used to be and then kind of had to bite my tongue because my colleague still does the commute (although she does live closer than I used to).  It's been fun visiting a few places in Brussels and around the country too, although inevitably you always end up feeling that you don't do half the things you would do even spending a week here as a tourist. It's a pretty good hub for travelling further afield too - for once, I don't have to tack on a trip to a major airport like Paris in order to have a wide choice of destinations. The cat is way happier to have me around more as well :)

Further to the "not integrating" bit, I don't really have any great observations or insights into Belgian culture. There are probably people (Flemings?) who would hate me for saying so, but day-to-day, things are pretty much exactly the same for me as when I lived in France. Being a national and EU capital, you hear a lot more languages spoken on the street, but everybody speaks French in supermarkets and so forth. It's relatively rare that someone will just start speaking Dutch to me. Honestly, most of the time I feel I could be in any given French city instead of in Belgium.

Anyway, I should be blogging about my trip back to Tours the weekend before last, but I can't find my camera cable, so I'll have to fill you in on this weekend's visit to Bourscheid Castle in Luxembourg instead. The weather this weekend was fabulous, hence Saturday's barbecue on Jules's awesome terrace, and it was still great for our Sunday morning trip to Bourscheid. It's in a fantastic location, perched on a hill 150 metres above a valley where the Sauer/Sûre river loops by.

When we were setting out in the car, Jules promised to tell me the "story of Jules and the Sauer", but only when we got to the river. I was quite excited, expecting a tale of derring-do, or perhaps an embarrassing mishap. When we finally got to the Sauer, he told me that he used to go fishing there a lot with his granddad. "And...?" And that's the story. Not to toot my own blogging horn, but that's why only one of us has a blog enjoyed by fives of people.

Source - we didn't get this aerial view of it, unfortunately

There was a really detailed autoguide to the place, but I found it really confusing so I don't actually know anything about the castle, oops. The audioguide was in the form of a dialogue between two guys, and either I didn't listen properly at the beginning or it wasn't properly explained, because I had no idea who they were meant to be. According to Jules the premise was that one of them was from the nineteenth century or something and one from the present day and they were like comparing notes on the state of the château through time, but I just got really confused with their dialogue e.g. "Was that tower there the first time we visited?" "I don't really know, but someone told me it was reconstructed during the renovations in 1972". Okay, that doesn't sound too confusing, but they lost me with all the talk of "in my day" and "our first visit". Plus I found it hard to follow when they pointed out different parts of the castle, like "in the back left corner there is X". How are you meant to tell where the back left is?

So anyway, I'll just recap what it says on the tourist website, which is that the stone castle was started around the year 1000, it underwent various renovations and expansions over the years before falling into ruin as early as the 18th century. The government acquired it in 1972 and has carried out extensive renovations. I always feel a bit cheated by big renovation works, as though I'm seeing a fake - this is one reason I've never been to Warsaw, although it's allegedly quite nice - but I suppose the bones of the place were more or less always intact.

Rebuilt or not, it's a stunning place, and the views from the top are magnificent. Something for everyone who thinks there's nothing to see in Luxembourg -

Bourscheid Castle

Jules amongst the ruins

Jules took forever to take this photo, on purpose I think!

Some of the castle wall was carved right out of the rock

Views from the tower of the gatehouse and ruined castle interior

We climbed up to the top to take the photos of the view below

Looking down on the Sauer

View from the other side of the tower

Pale tower selfie

Of course, the only photo where I was smiling normally was the one adjusting my sunnies (I finally took them back to the shop to get them tightened up on Monday°

Tower panorama - we had lunch at the hotel in the valley immediately to the right of the tower

The reason we actually were at Bourscheid to begin with was because I happened to spot that it was restaurant week in Belgium and Luxembourg, and the only participating restaurant in the Grand Duchy was at the Cocoon Bel Air hotel in the valley nearby. It was pretty much the same as the Dining with the Stars thing we did last year, in that you pay a fixed price and get a surprise menu (except this place didn't have a Michelin star). It's in a beautiful location below the castle, and the food was pretty good and reasonably-priced, at least with the special deal - I didn't see the normal prices.

Looking back up at the castle from our lunch spot

Our salmon entrée was a bit bland, to be honest #wewantplates

But the sea bass main was tasty!

I don't like crème brûlée, so I was glad that the "revisted" strawberry CB was actually not very crème brûlee-y at all

Ahhh, so much easier to kick back and enjoy life when the sun is shining and the long summer days stretch on forever. I feel so much more motivated to get out of the house and go exploring, and we really reaped the rewards this weekend. It was great!

Easter break: Three-star dining and charming Freiburg

So, first my birthday present from Jules was a digital camera. This was "sent back" in what everyone seems to think was a) rude and b) foolish, since my current digital camera is not that great. But, in my defence, I already have a digital camera. It just seems wasteful to replace one that works perfectly fine, if a little slowly. The second birthday present idea was a January trip to Lisbon, which sounded great, but in the end we couldn't find something that didn't work out as horrendously expensive for a quick weekend break.

And then, as we were discussing options for the Easter weekend, it somehow came up that we should visit the Auberge de l'Ill in Alsace, and that this should be my birthday present. Jules had waxed lyrical about this place a few times - visiting with his grandfather, who loved to pop by on the way to business trips in Switzerland, meeting the late chef Paul Haeberlin there, who first earned the restaurant its third Michelin star in 1967 (amazingly, it has retained them ever since), and raving about the fantastic foie gras. So, half of me listening to that is like, "aw, what nice memories" and I gotta be honest, the other half is all

Ain't no three-star restaurants in New Zealand! But haters are only going to hate until they themselves get invited to said three-star restaurant, and then enthusiastically leap at the chance. So on Thursday morning, we drove down to Alsace from Luxembourg, through pouring rain and roadworks the entire way, arriving about half an hour late but still lucky enough to be given the best table in the house, right in front of a bay window looking over the river and restaurant garden.

Panorama from our table

It was all quite fancy and I was a bit nervous - Jules, of course, is more at ease and generally helps me out, although I got quite flustered with the sommelier because I always feel like a dolt for not drinking white wine even if I have fish. The service, I must say, was impeccable. I spent quite a long time in the bathroom between courses - they had Japanese-style toilets which I had to play with (heated seats - bit weird, really - buttons that made the seat and the lid go up and down, and a bidet function that I was too scared to experiment with) and pictures of some of the famous guests in the corridor on the way to the loos. Queen Elizabeth and her Mum have eaten there, along with various European royals and statesmen, and French celebrities like Johnny Hallyday and Yannick Noah etc. And now me! But anyway, as I came back into the dining room I overheard a sotto voce "elle est là" from someone, and our meals arrived about 30 seconds later, so I'd probably been stressing the chef out with my extended ablutions.

Entrée - salmon soufflé, quite different from what I imagined, with basically a whole salmon steak in there

Pigeon stuffed with incredibly rich foie gras - I'm sorry my photo didn't capture how crazy long the pigeon leg was!

My favourite course, of course, an assortment of chocolate icecream, mousse, cake etc. presented so beautifully (I'd love to own that plate too)

Happy Jules has a coffee after our feast

One of the waiters took our photo in the garden (sheltering from the drizzle, that is)

Our ultimate holiday destination was the Bodensee/Lake Constance, but we stayed in nearby Freiburg, Germany, on Thursday night since our lunch took several hours and we had already driven all the way down to Alsace that day. Even though it rained torrentially and even hailed on our way in to the city (it cleared up later), I fell for Freiburg straight away. I can't put my finger on it, but it just seemed like one of those places that would be great to live in. The streets were super-cute and charming, it seemed to have some life to it without being too busy, the lady we asked for directions was probably the friendliest German I've ever encountered, and we grabbed provisions for a hotel-room picnic dinner in an awesome supermarket. (Seriously, I love exploring supermarkets in foreign countries, who's with me?)

Central Freiburg

Awesome building

Most of the streets in the centre were covered with intricate cobblestone designs. The streets also featured the water drains you can see on the right - although many were larger than this one and a bit of a hazard to be honest!

More cobblestone art - in front of a knife shop, appropriately enough (what happens if they close down though? Just a sinister knife left on the pavement for no reason. "Oh yeah, come visit my pet store, I totally don't stab any of the bunnies, ever.")

It was forecast to rain solidly for our whole trip, so it was a lovely surprise that Good Friday was actually a beautiful day. We woke up in Freibourg and had brunch at Café Extrablatt, a chain we also ate at in Aachen, which does a good-value buffet brunch in a trendy atmosphere (and this one is right next to the river, which is nice). It seems to be a popular hangout with students, probably due to the all-you-can-eat factor - we stuffed in so much breakfast food that we skipped lunch. The waiter even asked if we were Freiburg students, which made me feel like a young dickelchen (Luxembourgish for a young chick, as in both the poultry and female versions).

We then took the opportunity to work off breakfast with a gruelling trek up the 116-m spire of the Munster, some of it on a very narrow spiral staircase, in order to see the beautiful sunlit view of Freiburg from the top. It was tough, but worth it!

Freiburg Munster

Beautiful, bright statues in the portico

View over the towers of the (?) nave

Me and Jules at the top

Looking down at the square below

Peeping through the stonework

Amongst other things, you can see the lovely red Merchants' Hall in the foreground

The Munsterplatz from ground level

I'm sorry we didn't get more time to explore Freiburg's charms, but it was such a lovely day (with rain forecast again the next day) that we were eager to move on through the Black Forest to Lake Constance while the weather held... But that will have to wait for another post!

Reims dreams

Can you believe last week was my one-year anniversary with Jules? Me, who looked most likely to die alone eaten by Bobby (the cat)? I know, me neither. It's been a great year, although obviously complicated by my moving to another country two plus hours away. Which sucks, but has some upsides. Like, with summer around the corner, I've decided to pretend that weekends in Luxembourg are me going to my rural retreat (it helps that Jules's apartment is awesome and has a huge terrace I'm dying to be served cocktails on). Who doesn't want to be cool enough to have a little pied à terre in an exotic European country? I can merrily pretend to be rich enough to be engaging in a little light tax evasion in my Luxembourgish pad, much fun.

So we decided to celebrate this milestone in style with a trip to that most festive of regions, Champagne. We took Friday off work and made a beeline from Luxembourg to Reims on a beautiful sunny day, to have an anniversary lunch at Le Foch, the restaurant I dined in with my sister when we visited back in 2011. In fact, Le Foch was really why we stayed a night in Reims - I had initially thought of doing two nights in Epernay, but I wanted to have lunch there and I didn't want Jules to have to worry about driving afterwards. It turned out pretty well, since there's not all that much to see in Epernay other than champagne houses (which are pretty cool) and we also had a nice drive between the two cities - but more on that next time.

In front of an unfortunately-scaffolded Reims cathedral - not a cloud in the sky

A row of different animal gargoyles

Beautiful arches recede into the distance inside the cathedral

I don't have anything appropriate to say about this. Let's just say you wouldn't get into a white van with this on the side (it says "Don't be afraid" by the way)

We had a more modest five courses this time (plus amuse-bouches and petits fours - there was also a cheese course but I didn't put a photo of that because it just looked like cheese), as opposed to the seven or eight of the full dégustation I did with my sister.

Amuses-bouche: foie gras and apple pannacotta, parmesan sablé and the most delicious tuna (? tasted like hamburger but I think he said tuna) with a pickle gêlée on top

Rabbit cannelloni - weirdly tasted nothing like rabbit, more like tuna (tuna confusion all round) but tasty

Red mullet

Venison with puree and acidic turnips - you wouldn't think a turnip would be so delicious, Baldrick would have a field day

Chocolate feuilletine with spun sugar: soooo good and crunchily delicious

After the cheese course, a pear wine smoothie

Not looking awkward

Lunch lasted about three hours, then we still had some time to walk around Reims a bit and visit Le Vergeur museum.

Le Vergeur museum

This 13th-16th century building houses the collections of Hugues Krafft, the rich scion of a champagne-cultivating family who owned the house in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was a keen traveller, photographer and artist who was passionate about both preserving Reims history (he salavaged many pieces from the ruins after WWI) and collecting items from his travels in central and east Asia. Surprisingly, from the limited number of his own works on display in the house, he was also quite a gifted photographer. I suppose you always think these types will be a bit dilettantish and do these things because they have the leisure and money to, not because of any particular talent, but I was impressed. The house was left more or less as it was in his lifetime, at his request, so it offers a different perspective than your traditional museum. It's accessible (I think) only by guided tour. We were the only ones on the tour, which was nice, and our guide was very informative and knowledgeable.

AND there's a collection of some 50 original Dürer woodcuts and engravings. My favourites, the Apocalypse series, were taken from a book printed in 1511, but which was subsequently unbound so that you can see all of the woodcuts at once. It was incredible that these were 500 years old but looked just like new, and they were actually presented in a normally-lit room, not the semi-darkness you often find with old books and manuscripts. They reminded me a lot of the Apocalypse tapestries at Angers. No photos were allowed inside the museum, especially of the woodcuts of course, but there's some photos on the website here and I would recommend checking it out if you're in Reims - not too big either, so you don't get exhausted!

PS I know "Reims dreams" only rhymes if you mispronounce Reims. Or dreams.