Saturday, July 26, 2008

Reims

Reims is the unofficial capital of the Champagne region and we based our drinking sightseeing from there. The city itself has a very important place in French history- the city's Notre-Dame cathedral hosted the coronation of French kings into the 15th century and where Joan of Arc assisted in uniting France under one king. Here's Joan in front of Notre-Dame. She's kind of a big deal:


And while the church was beautiful and had some gorgeous stained glass windows, you don't go to Reims for the Giant European Church. You go for the champagne. First stop, the Taittinger Champagne House. The ground under the entire region is chalk, which is very easy to dig. At one point, the monks in the city had dug elaborate tunnels under the city, allowing them to move around undisturbed (sounds like crazy cool ninja monks to Rob). Now, every champagne house uses these caves to store their champagne as it ages. The tour is fascinating. The Taittinger House sits over 4 km of caves and those 4 km are stuffed with champagne bottles. The house itself only represents 10% of the storage space- the rest is stored and aged in other caves nearby.

After the grapes are harvested and fermented, they are aged anywhere between 15 months and 8 years, depending on whether or not they are vintage and the maker's own preference. At first, the wine is stored horizontally, separating the wine from the yeast sediment.


Once the sediment has settled, the bottles are moved into pupitres, which are the wooden boards shown here:


As the wine ages, the bottles are slowly turned and the angle of the pupitres are increased, ever-so-slowly sliding the sediment down to the top of the bottle. Oh, and the house has two guys whose sole job is to turn the bottles and they turn something like 6000 bottles an hour (the larger storage facility uses a machine). Once that process is completed, the end of the bottle is frozen, creating a small ice block, and the pressure then allows the expulsion of the sediment when the bottle is opened briefly. Then a small amount of wine and sugar (how much determines whether the champagne is a brut, sec, or demi-sec) is added and the wine is aged some more.

This mural shows three of the steps. The guy on the left is turning the bottles, the guy in the middle is disgorging the sediment (they still use candlelight to inspect the sediment), and the guy on the right is adding the wine and sugar.


Once the secret magic number is reached, the bottle is labeled and sold in one of these sizes (a normal bottle of champagne is the second one from the right):


After the tour, we had a tasting and, naturally, bought some champagne. There are several houses to visit in Reims, but we wanted to get out into the valley and check out some of the other towns, so we (sobered up and) headed south to Troyes...

Friday, July 25, 2008

Ghent


The first stop on our little road trip was Ghent, Belgium.  We'd been meaning to check it out on one of our Bruges trips, but after 2 days of gorging on beer, chocolate, fries, and mussels, we were always ready to go home and detox. Plus, we under the assumption that it was smaller than Bruges- a cute town worth stopping by on your way home.  Um, we were wrong.  Ghent is almost twice as big as Bruges.  In fact, in the middle ages, up until the 13th century, Ghent was the second biggest city in Europe.  

The historic center of Ghent is astonishingly beautiful.  Unfortunately, the city was setting up for its annual culture festival, so almost every river, bridge, and street view was marred with tents, wires, signs, fences, and stages.  Still, we were able to enjoy some spectacular scenery. Kathy's room at the hotel had a view of Gravensteen, the Castle of the Counts, and our dinner table had a terrific view of six or seven steeples and towers from the churches in town.  The castle:


The main attraction in Ghent is probably St. Bavo's Cathedral.  The church originated in the 10th century and houses one of the biggest masterpieces of the 15th century: The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb.  The center pulpit is also incredibly ornate.  When traveling through Europe, it's easy too tune out the Giant European Churches as they all start to sort of run together, but St. Bavo's is one that definitely stands out as being worth the visit.  

We also visited the bell tower and the castle, making stops for chocolate and lunch at a little place called 't Stropke (Hangman's Noose) next to Decapitation Bridge.  Yeah.


We probably could have stayed in Ghent another day or two, but we wanted to trade our beer for champagne so we packed up and headed down the road to Reims...



Thursday, July 24, 2008

Road Trip


Before bidding farewell to Erika's mom, we took a little road trip through the Champagne region of France, stopping first in Ghent, Belgium and returning through Luxembourg.  It was a terrific trip, and although it rained a lot, we lucked out with the timing as it mostly rained while we were driving and would stop as we reached each destination... mostly.  We'll throw up a post about each leg of our trip and put some more pictures on the Flickr page.  

It was wonderful having Erika's mom here and we're looking forward to seeing her and everyone else when we come home in... oh, wait, not sure if that's fit for public viewing yet. Anyway, here are Erika and Kathy enjoying a picnic overlooking the champagne valley:



Monday, July 14, 2008

Ahhhh. Mom is here.

Erika's mom is in town!  After two weeks of wandering through England, Kathy is spending a couple weeks with us.  We took her out on the boat for a tour of the city and then hit up the disappointing modern art museum (it's under construction, so all the good stuff is in the process of being moved).  

Yesterday, we visited the Kasteel de Haar, a castle near the city of Utrecht that has been extensively repaired and restored in the last few years. 


It was rebuilt among the ruins of an original 15th century castle.  The man responsible for the design and renovation (including everything from the building to the silverware) was Pierre Cuypers, a famous Dutch architect who also designed Amsterdam's beautiful Central Station and Rijksmuseum. Yesterday was also the opening day of a major summer garden fair in the parks surrounding the castle, so there were booths selling everything from plants and flowers to cheese and homemade mustard (oh, and boats, saunas, and patio furniture- it was a big fair).  

We were tempted by the Dutch poffertjes, but couldn't resist the Belgian waffles.  We packed a lunch (PBJ!) and enjoyed a Dutch-only tour of the castle. We don't know what he said, but it sure sounded interesting. 

And, at the end of the day, we came home and the girls made a delicious lasagna. Between the two of them, Rob is going to eat so well...

Monday, July 7, 2008

Thor's Bored


Life can be hard on a Norse god.  What do you do when there are no giants to fight?  "I guess I could ride around on my magic horse and shoot lightning bolts at the peasants, but I just did that yesterday.  Hmmm.  I guess I could clean my room...  Man, this sucks."

Statue of Thor from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Return to Scandinavia!


Hot off the heels of our Oslo trip, we spent the weekend in Copenhagen, Denmark with some family.  Erika's grandfather is enjoying a Scandinavian cruise, so we met him, Erika's cousin, Liz, and her boyfriend, Pete, for a weekend of fun in the sun rain.  Actually, there wasn't a lot of rain.  In fact, it mostly only rained when we were on the roofless boat cruise...   

Copenhagen is, of course, most famous for its hotdogs.  Well, not really, but to hear Rob tell it you'd think that all there was to do in the city was wander from hotdog stand to hotdog stand, gorging yourself on the delicious mystery meat- and, to be fair, he's partly right.  In addition to the great food, Copenhagen is the seat of the oldest monarchy in Europe, which wouldn't be that interesting either, except that we actually saw the Crown Princess, Mary.  She was eating a hotdog leaving a ceremony honoring the Royal Danish Guards as we were leaving our restaurant and we joined a small crowd watching her enter and then leave via her motorcade.  There is some dispute over whether she was waving to Peter or to Rob.  Also, her husband, Crown Prince Frederik was probably there, too, but who cares about that?

    Royal intrigue aside, we had a wonderful time hanging out with Erika's family.  We walked through Tivoli, the city's old fashioned amusement park.  We had dinner inside the park and caught part of the park's jazz band's show:

The lady on the right is not having fun.  

   The following day, we toured the beautiful National Gallery, home of the largest collection of Rodin statues outside of Paris.  There are hundreds of Danish, French, Roman and Greek works and the museum does a great job contrasting the (mostly white) marble statues with richly colored walls:


   Later, we took the ill-timed but still fun boat cruise around the city harbor, followed by an amazing dinner in a cellar restaurant in what used to be a monastery.  The next day we had brunch with Erika's grandfather and he departed for the coast of Norway.  We spent the rest of the day at various hotdog stands and cafés, watching the insane antics of the recent Danish high school graduates, which include, but are not limited to: driving around the city in giant trucks while drinking beer, blowing whistles, singing songs, clapping, imploring you to honk if you're horny (which, apparently, most Danish drivers are), randomly and spontaneously pouring out from the truck to dance in circles around and then climb on giant statues of varying Danish importance, running through the streets with above mentioned whistles and bullhorns(!), stripping off their clothes and jumping into the canal, singing more songs, and basically just reminding everyone that they are 19 and you are not.  


     The trucks were everywhere in the city and the kids were having an absolute blast.  They would scream/cheer at everyone they passed and almost everyone would holler back.  The trucks have to do with a tradition of traveling to each student's house for a celebratory drink.  Not a bad tradition, huh?  

     It was a very cool trip- the city was great, but more importantly we got to hang out with some family.  Plus, hotdogs.  Look for a few more pictures on Flickr soon!
      

Amsterdam Cleans Up

Well, maybe not.  The Red Light District is bustling, the dozens of 'coffeeshops' are still packed, and you're still very likely to find (or step in) dog droppings on the sidewalk, but, more importantly, today is the first day of the ban on smoking in restaurants.  The Netherlands is one of the last countries in Europe to adopt the ban and it's been a red-letter day on everyone's calendar since we moved here.  Everyone's a bit curious to see how much the ban is enforced, this is Amsterdam, but if Ireland, France, and Italy can manage, the Dutch should be able to follow suit.