Karyn's Picks and Pans: Cologne and Vianden

We spent a few hours in Düsseldorf on the way home from Berlin, but there is nothing particularly noteworthy about it. We ate at a fine doner kebap joint in the Altstadt that was basically like any other, and we had a rather pricey spaghetti ice at an Italian Eis Café on the Rhine Promenade…that spaghetti ice, while tasty, was certainly not the best I've had. As far as museums go, we visited the K20, which is a museum of 20th century art. I've been there before. Contemporary art is so not my thing…the Pre-Raphaelites are about as recent as I like. But they had a Picasso exhibit going on, and I do enjoy some of his works, so I paid the 10 euros admission charge to go in again (highway robbery, I tell you!). Sue and Lindsey seemed to like this art museum in particular…Lindsey was particularly excited about all the Paul Klee works.

Okay, so moving on to Cologne…

* Café Scholl Am Dom - Whilst Lance and I waited for Sue, Lindsey, and Lori to climb the 509 steps to the top of the cathedral tower (I was NOT doing that again with my bad knees!), we sought out a place to do lunch. This fit the bill. It's near the cathedral, although you can't see the cathedral from there (we could, however, hear loud and clear when the church bells rang). They have a nice variety of things on their menu to suit all tastes. And they have great looking cakes, although we didn't eat any of them. Lance and Sue had omelets, and found them more than satisfactory. Lori and Lindsey had "toast Da Vinci" (Da Vinci is a theme in the café, which is odd since the café is not Italian, nor were we in Italy), which is a salami, tomato, and toasted cheese sandwich. I had the ham rolls with potato salad, and what the menu failed to mention, which was a delightful surprise, is that the ham is rolled around tender stalks of white asparagus laced with some kind of cream. Delicious. We were serenaded by a canary in a cage right behind our table. This place is also not too touristy…there was a mix of locals and tourists. If you get the Cologne Welcome Card, there is a coupon for this place…for a free espresso, I think, if you order a meal.

We did stop at another place similar to Café Scholl for cake later in the day…I wish I could remember the name of it, or what street it was on. They also sold chocolates and homemade jams. I know it's in the vicinity of Groß St. Martin. Lance and I ordered the same thing…it was some kind of chocolate cake with a white chocolate coating and some marzipan layers. It was pretty good. I know that doesn't help you. Sorry.

Vianden, Luxembourg



Damn, now why can't I remember the name of the café where we ate lunch? A little voice keeps saying over and over "Café des Arts" (does that make me sound Schizophrenic?), but I tried to look it up and only see one in Luxembourg City. So that can't be right. I think I'm getting mixed up because we ate at so many different places and because I've been writing so many travel guides…everything is swirled up in my brain. I really should've written all this stuff down in my notebook that I always carry, but Sue was recording everything, so I suppose I can just ask her. I'm afraid I was a terrible journalist on this trip. I had too many other things to think about (being housekeeper, personal chef, tour guide, translator, chauffeur, etc.).

Anyway, if you're ever in Vianden, it's right off the end of the street that runs along the river. There are a few cafes there, but this one caught our attention because it served crepes (it was the first one we encountered that did so). And crepes were exactly what we hungered for, we just didn't know it until that moment. The service was laidback, to say the least. Don't expect quickness. But it was not unreasonable. My only real complaint is that they gave everyone else a little bowl of peanuts to munch on while they waited for their food, and our table didn't get one. But the huge crepes were more than filling, so the little peanut starter wasn't necessary anyway. I highly recommend what I had, which was a bacon and egg crepe (lard appears prominently on the menu with this choice, and there is something to that, actually…this was super fatty bacon). The crepe was stuffed with bacon and served with a fried egg on top. Lori ordered the same thing and picked out a lot of the bacon. Lindsey ordered a dessert crepe, which looked like a work of art. Lance got a cheese crepe. Sue got the vegetarian, which she said was spicy. I had a nice Moselle Riesling with mine. Lance drank Leffe Blonde, a Belgian beer. I think Sue and Lori got the Diekirch. You should know some French if you come here. We had an English speaking waitress who took our order, but the lady that served us our food and brought us the bill only spoke French (and perhaps a smidge of German, because I seemed to communicate with her better when I switched from French to German). We managed. I had 5 years of French in high school and college and Sue knew it well enough from all the time she spent in France.

Also, have ice cream at the café next to the chairlift. It's nothing fancy, but they have soft serve, which is a nice treat. We got a kick out of their soft serve machine. You choose a small container filled with ice cream…whatever flavor pleases your fancy. They insert the container into the machine and swirl the ice cream into the cone. I've never seen anything like it. The kids will love it. Either that, or we're just easily impressed.

A note about the chairlift: it does NOT take you directly to the castle. It's a fun ride, but then you must hike down the hill a bit to the castle, which is already on a craggy cliff overlooking the town. This hike was steep, and really hurt my knees. And if you get the return trip, of course you must hike back up.


View of Vianden from the chairlift

We did pay for a round trip, but opted instead to hike down from the castle through the street that leads into the center of town. This was a better option, because we got to see more of the town that way. And if any place in Europe oozes charm, it's Vianden.


walking through town

This place is like a fairy tale (if you could overlook the insane amounts of motorcyclists everywhere). So do the chairlift, but just do it one way (and be sure to smile at the top…they take your picture!).

Karyn in Luxembourg

Yesterday I took an MWR trip to Luxembourg City. MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) is a military organization that plans activities for military and their dependents. Here in Europe, they very frequently arrange coach trips to various destinations. Usually they are day trips, but sometimes the trips last all weekend.

Anyway, the trip to Luxembourg took about 3 hours. We drove through the Belgian Ardennes (past Bastogne) down into Luxembourg, and shortly after passing the border, we were in Luxembourg City. It's the largest city in Luxembourg, but doesn't have the feel of a capital city at all.

When our bus arrived, a tour guide got on and showed us the city's sights. Our first stop - the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial, where over 5,000 WWII dead are buried. General Patton is also buried there. He died after the war ended, but his will requested that he be buried there with his men.

There is a Nazi cemetery down the street from the American one. I wanted to go in and look at it, but sadly, the tour did not include that. We did learn that over 9,000 Nazi soldiers are buried in that cemetery, approximately 5,000 of them in a mass grave.

The bus brought us back into town, where the guide pointed out various landmarks. We stopped at the casemates (the city fortifications) to look at the views of the valley below.

The bus tour ended around lunch-time, so we got off the bus, splitting off to do our own thing for the day. The guy who had been sitting next to me on the bus, Nels, asked if I would mind if he joined me, provided I didn't plan to spend my day shopping. I didn't plan to spend my day shopping, so I agreed to let him accompany me.

Our first stop was to find some lunch. We walked into a square with a variety of restaurants. I spied a Chi Chi's and I hadn't had Mexican food in some time. He agreed this was fine, so we decided to split a combination plate of their nachos. Honestly, the food was lousy. Chi Chi's isn't a great Mexican restaurant to begin with, but the overseas ones are really bad. I regret going there to eat. While we were eating (al fresco, I might add, although we were under an umbrella), it started sprinkling a bit.

After lunch, we decided to just walk around for awhile. The sky started darkening and we knew worse rain was coming (I was prepared, Nels was not). We ducked into a church when the rain started pouring down - Eglise St. Michel.

Once the rain let up a bit, we found ourselves going back toward the casemates. You can take tours inside it. There are various tunnels and caves inside where battles were fought. The rain started coming down again, so we decided to get tickets for the casemates tour and then spent the next hour or more walking through pitch black tunnels and going down slippery, narrow, winding stairs.

By the time we left the casemates, the rain had stopped and the sun came out again, so it started to get really muggy and miserable.

After that, we mostly wandered around, stopping for McFlurries at McDonald's. There was a jazz band playing in the square, so we listened in for a few minutes and then moved on.

We toured the Notre Dame cathedral, which isn't nearly as impressive as Cologne's, Strasbourg's, or Westminster Abbey. But it was still pretty.

About 45 minutes before we had to meet up with the bus to go home, we stopped at a restaurant called La Boucherie for drinks. (I wish we had eaten there for lunch. The food looked really good. And it was just 2 doors down from Chi Chi's). They had a new flavor of Cola Light - Sango (orange-flavored) that is being test-marketed in Luxembourg and Belgium. So I ordered that. It was very nice. (I ended up buying a big bottle of it to take home when the bus stopped just outside Liege on the way back).

Even though we didn't do much, we saw a lot of sights, and I could appreciate the things about Luxembourg that weren't particularly touristy. There were a lot of interesting details on both residential and commercial buildings, so I tried to photograph those things. The part of the city that lies in the valley seemed to be largely untouched by tourist traffic, so we enjoyed wandering around there as well. It was peaceful and quiet, with just a few sidewalk cafes and nothing that particularly catered to tourists.

We did a lot of walking, particularly on very steep (wet) cobblestone streets, which was a lot of fun, let me tell you. And there was a lot of stair climbing as well. But what I found to be really interesting about Luxembourg is that you can appreciate it on various levels. The views of the valley from the top of the casemates are equally as wonderful as the views from the valley. And in-between is nice too. I hope my pictures demonstrate that.

Pictures

Anniversary in Clervaux

Once again, it's time for another "Karyn and Lance took a trip somewhere" update. We decided to take a little getaway to Clervaux, Luxembourg because it's was relatively close (a 2 hour drive) and looked to be a pretty nice place to relax. Clervaux is a tiny town with a few things of interest, but not so much that we have to cram in a lot of sightseeing, so it sounded pretty good to us.

We left yesterday at around 10 am. The drive was interesting, since there was construction and we were made to go on a detour that took us on some pretty winding mountain roads. The area is in the Ardennes mountain region, which stretches from southern Belgium to northern Luxembourg. The Battle of the Bulge was fought in this region during WWII. We went through some picturesque small villages and past some really quaint hotels and restaurants.

When we finally got to Clervaux, we were pleasantly surprised at our hotel. It wasn't where we wanted to stay originally, but it was a 4 star hotel and the nicest one we've stayed in so far since we've been in Europe. It had a king size bed, a balcony that looked out onto a mountainside with a view of a charming little church and old railroad buildings, and a bathroom with a bidet. We had never seen a bidet before, so we had no idea what it was at first. The room was also quite large...most of the hotel rooms we've stayed in so far have been cramped. We had no shower, but a big bathtub, which was good enough. We were half-board guests, meaning that we got dinner and breakfast with our room rate, but it was only about lunch time when we arrived, so we decided to venture out in search of lunch.

It was quite cold and I was in the mood for soup or a sandwich. So we walked to 10 minutes or so into the touristy part of town. Most everything was closed except for the restaurants, the Chateau de Clervaux (Clervaux Castle), and the Abbey. We stopped to look at one of the few WWII monuments set up to honor America before we looked for a place to eat. We found a restaurant called Splendid, which served sandwiches and such, and had a bakery attached. And it wasn't too expensive. So I got the Quiche Lorraine, which was very good. Lance got the spaghetti carbonara.

After we ate, we decided to head to the chateau to have a look around. The chateau houses two museums: the Family of Man and a museum devoted to the Battle of the Bulge. Right inside the castle walls is an American tank from WWII and a howitzer. We decided on the Family of Man museum, which is one of the most famous photography exhibits in the world. There were several hundred black and white photographs depicting human life all over the world. Some of the photographs were pretty famous...some appeared in Life magazine...and I recognized at least one photo from Ansel Adams. It was a very interesting exhibit.

There was a Gregorian chant concert scheduled at the abbey at 3 pm, and I really really wanted to go. So Lance and I decided to head to the abbey after our visit to the chateau. The abbey is at the top of a mountain, so we had a lot of climbing to do to get to the top. There were a couple of trails that went up there. We took the one that took us past the large Clervaux Church, so I could take a look at the beautiful mosaics on the front. We took a peek inside too, but it was very simple on the inside, unadorned except for the stained glass windows.

We reached the abbey around 3, but didn't go to the concert. Lance wasn't particularly interested in it anyway and they wouldn't let people in past 2:50. So we walked around the grounds for a bit to get a closer look at the building and then went to a small museum inside that explains the history of the abbey, the order of the Benedictine monks, and the various musicians that have worked there (the only name I recognized was Claude DeBussy). The museum was all in French, so I didn't understand enough of it to get anything out of it, although Lance and I had to laugh at the picture of the monk in full monk regalia, wielding a weed whacker as he was tending the abbey lawn.

After that little exploration, we decided to go back to the hotel and get some rest. The main point of this trip was relaxation, after all. And it was raining between a fine mist and a pretty steady rain, so we wanted to get warm and dry. So we hung out in our room and watched television for a bit (CNN was the only thing we could find in English), then walked back to Splendid to get a couple of croissants and some drinks to tide us over until dinner, which wasn't being served until 7. After we had our snack, we laid down for a nap.

A little after 7, we went down to the dining room for our dinner. I had no idea what to expect since we never did the half board thing before. I ended up calling it the "No Choice Cafe" because they didn't give us a menu. They just served us food and we had no idea what we were having until they put it in front of us. There were four courses total. The first course was a very smooth and creamy potato soup, served with bread and butter. Lance and I both liked it. However, he was less than thrilled with the second course, which was salmon on toast (I like salmon though, so I didn't mind it) with capers and pearl onions on the side. For our main course, they served us a HUGE very raw steak topped with herb butter with a big bowl of french fries to share between us. And for dessert we had a mirabelle tart, which is a tart with tiny green plums on it (they looked like olives). Lance picked all his off and just ate the crust and whipped cream. I ate mine, but I had no idea what it was, and I didn't particularly care for it. I asked the waiter later on what it was.

So after almost 2 hours of eating, we walked up to our room, feeling nearly ready to explode. After letting the food digest a bit and then taking a bubble bath, we went to bed.

This morning we awoke and went down to breakfast...had a gorgeous meal of croissants, brotchen, various spreads, meats, cheeses, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, orange juice, and some of the best hot chocolate ever. We walked back to Splendid to pick up a couple slices of very luscious looking chocolate layer cake to have for dessert for our anniversary dinner tonight, and we stopped in the grocery to pick up a bottle of Federweissen, which is a seasonal beverage that I heard about from my German friend Katrin. It's not wine, but she calls it "rotten grape juice." It's bottled at the in-between grape and wine stage, I guess. It was cheap, and I hear it's really good, so it's worth a try.

We went back to our hotel, packed up our stuff, stopped to pose for a few pictures together using the self-timer on my camera (because it seems we never get pictures of us together when it's just the two of us traveling). And then we checked out of our hotel and drove home.