British Museum shows there's more than you thought to those Celts

Two shows at the British Museum are worthy of your attention if your New Year's resolution includes incorporating a bit more culture into your life. And they both close soon, so hop to it.

Celts: Art and Identity is the current blockbuster in the main exhibition space, and the last to be produced under the inspiring leadership of departing director Neil MacGregor.  It's everything we've come to expect of the museum under his capable hands: blockbuster artefacts, beautifully displayed, but always in the service of a much bigger story. In this case, that's the story of what "celtic" means, how the meaning shifted radically, and why.

It's a show of two parts. The first two thirds introduces you to the ancient Celts, a label Greeks used to define all Europeans outside their Greco-Roman world. The Romans dismissed them as barbarians, held borders against them or did their best to turn them into faithful provincial subjects, but the tribes grouped under the Celtic banner always remained culturally distinct. The show does a fine job of demonstrating the variety of cultures occupying a crescent from what's now Eastern Europe through modern Germany, Denmark, France and Spain. Their written records were sparse, so we understand them through the impressive artefacts they left behind. Torques, drinking horns, jewelled cloak clasps, caldrons, weapons and ceremonial vessels. It's a treat for any fan of jewellery or design. The sinuous lines and abstract animal forms we associate with the term "Celtic" start early and are constantly beguiling. Origins of Anglo-Saxon and Viking cultures are obvious. It's actually a shame this show came after the British Museum's impressive Viking retrospective, as they would have told an even better story had they been staged back-to-back, in historical order.

Many may be surprised at the origins of the artefacts in the early parts of the show. What we now think of as the Celtic nations are mostly absent. That's because "Celtic" in its modern sense is a political and artistic construct of the 19th century. The last third of the show explores this curious evolution.

We pass from the Roman world into a gallery showing off some of the medieval glories of Celtic inspiration, as Irish monks borrowed the curvilinear design ethos to illustrate their bibles and crosses. Then the Celtic world goes silent until the 18th century, when the European romantic movement and patriotic stirrings within the UK's home nations triggered a search for identity.  The Scots, Welsh and Irish started celebrating their ancient past and resurrecting their own languages, even if they had to make things up. Prints, paintings and books here show us how Sir Walter Scott brought back the kilt and the clans while James Macpherson created an epic poet called Ossian, meant to be the Scottish Homer. The Welsh whipped up eisteddfod festivals and a chief druid to oversee things. His regalia ... designed in the 19th century to look as if the pieces had been unearthed from Merlin's pre-medieval cache ... forms one of the highlights of the show. Across the Irish sea, other new-model Celts were rediscovering ancient myths and inventing a new, "old" folk culture. Artists across the UK embraced Celtic design, driving a rage for the look in the early 19th-century that lives on.

Much of what the world now thinks of as ancient Welsh, Irish and Scottish tradition is a fairly modern creation, its look heavily drawn from roots in what's now Germany, France and Denmark. That's the fascinating reveal at the end of this show.

The show's biggest challenge is its size. By the time people hit the modern third, most will be reaching cultural overload. The narrative might have been better had the scope been trimmed. As a museum member, I popped in twice, spending the first visit concentrating on the ancient Celts and the second on the modern. This is the ideal way to go, but if you don't have the luxury, then keep the total story in mind and resist the temptation to linger too much in the early bits.

Upstairs in the secondary exhibition area, the appeal of Egypt: Faith After the Pharaohs is probably In the Shadow of the Sword (one of my favourite books of recent times), you'll find this a worthy illustration of much explored in that history of the development of Islam and its debt to the other monotheists. In a world where differences between major religions are making news for all the wrong reasons, it's useful ... and inspiring ... to take a look at their shared origins.
more niche, but tells a story far more relevant to the modern world. Egypt was a crucible for the formation of the three great monotheistic religions. The show opens with the stark beauty of a torah, a gospel and a koran side-by-side, exquisite calligraphy shining forth under spotlights in a pool of darkness. The galleries that follow use more documents, religious artefacts, grave goods and bits of architecture to illustrate how the three religions often co-existed peacefully. Christianity owed a debt to Judaism, Islam to Christianity, while all borrowed elements from the ancient Egyptians and Romans. The items on display here are less beguiling than all that Celtic treasure, since the most significant artefacts are documents. But the story is intriguing. If you've read Tom Holland's

Celts: Art and Identity runs until 31 January
Egypt: Faith After the Pharaohs closes 7 February

The holiday roundup

As ever with this time of year, my ratio of bloggable activities to spare time to write about them skews wildly out of balance.  The waistline grows, the liver weakens, sleep deprivation booms and work stresses grow as everyone pushes to complete year-end deadlines. The compensation? A long parade of evenings and lunches catching up with people I like, often taking place at special events concocted to make the season special.  Here's a roundup.

Berry's Champagne & Sparkling Wine Tasting
A bargain at £25 a ticket, Berry Brothers' Warehouse Shop laid on three Champagne houses, three English sparkling producers and a range of gourmet food producers for a bit of palate cleansing. Given that every winery was offering their whole range for tasting, anyone not driving easily drank more than the value of their admission fee. Of the French houses: Michel Roux may love Gosset but we were lukewarm; Pol Roger was instantly the most classic and familiar of tastes; Bollinger was our favourite but the £85 per bottle price on our favoured 2005 Grand Annee Rose is a bit rich for our tastes. Even if it is £15 off list price at the Warehouse Shop!

Of the English producers, Hattingley Valley was interesting for being remarkably local, but tasted more like a mid-price Prosecco than a fine sparkling wine. Gusbourne had an interesting marketing approach, making all their wines reflect single years rather than taking the blending approach most sparkling producers use. Our favourite in taste and price was Hambledon, a small and relatively new Hampshire producer that's gathering in the awards. They have workshops at their winery where you get to bottle your own wine, dictating how much "dosage" you want to put in to take your creation along the dry to sweet scale. I suspect a visit will be in our future.

Also on  the workshop list for 2016 is Parsonage Farm, showing off their Hampshire-made charcuterie on the night. These lovely farmers have not only diversified into charcuterie to get more profit out of their pigs, they'll welcome you onto their farm to learn how to do it yourself.  (Pictured above.) Artisan Dairy impressed with local cheeses, and Kokoh Chocolates (a regular favourite of ours) showed off exciting flavours like Himalayan sea salt and wattleseed and coffee.

Coq d'Argent
I was shocked to realise I've never mentioned this restaurant in my blog; a clear case of familiarity breeding contempt. Or, at least, a genial disregard. The Coq sits atop a modern office building above Bank tube station, the building's triangular front pointing towards the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England like the prow of some fantastical striped ship.  Denizens of the offices nearby (and I was one for 12 years) know the Coq's rooftop gardens as one of the best places in The City for al fresco drinks in the summer time. The restaurant has outdoor dining areas on each side of an elegant, modern dining room serving updated French classics.  It's a dependable place for business lunches: upscale but not profligate, tasty but not trying too hard. I've hosted major events here and have found myself dining here two or three times a year, though always in a work-related context. So it was this holiday season, when it served as the venue for a team Christmas lunch.

They do a magnificent job decorating for the season; all the outdoor areas decked out with fur throws, fake snow, frost-covered branches and alpine backdrops to give the place the feel of an Alpine ski lodge. Indoors, every table was booked for the set holiday menu, where £45 got you classics like foie gras, duck breast in a rich sauce and a delicate take on a bouche de Noel. I'm still not sure I'd choose it for a purely social date; the crowd is so assertively professional it can be a little hard to relax. But as a business venue that's been delivering without disappointment for more than a decade, it's a safe bet.

Winchester Cathedral Christmas Market and Concert
In this fifth year of attending this market, familiarity is breeding a bit of dissatisfaction. The vendors Annecy. Sadly, that's not happening. The result? Winchester paled in comparison to the other markets I attended this season. I won't bother next year unless we return for the Cathedral Carol Concert, which was the highlight of this outing. The cathedral choir, plus a cappella group Blake, spiced with seasonal readings from a local BBC presenter ... all in a spectacular setting.
don't change much, and the action is still confined to the picturesque but cramped confines of the cathedral close. With the crowds this event now regularly attracts, I want it to grow, with new and interesting vendors setting up shop in booths throughout the town centre. As in

Beach Blanket Babylon
It's official: I'm old. Used to be that communications industry parties were always dependably in the West End. Now, all the hipsters want to be in Shoreditch. This was the second time in a month I had to schlepp across town to that inconvenient, unattractive, once-dangerous-now-edgy nether corner of London. I hate the whole graceless, soulless, cement-drenched area with a passion, and this venue did nothing to restore my faith. Given the name, I was hoping for some ironic take on '60s spring break films or Tiki bars. I saw nothing in the characterless warehouse to explain the name. Just multiple stories of featureless venue packed with braying, heavily-drinking 30-somethings having a fabulous time.  Presenters at our afternoon meetings had to compete with the cacophony floating up from the ground floor; once we shifted to pure socialising the service was slow and piped music was a
t a level that made conversation challenging. Canapés at cocktail hour featured one savoury and three sweets. Dinner was pots of comfort food like shepherd's pie, macaroni and cheese or chicken curry, all lacking in anything resembling flavour or seasoning.  Service had been so bad that, by the time the food finally came from the kitchen, a crowd had gathered around the service door eager to grab anything that appeared. Two other "mature" colleagues joined me in slipping away as soon as we felt we could.

All that said ... it's been many years since I've worked for a company that funded a proper departmental Christmas party. The simple delight of being there trumped the venue choice. It was organised by the youngsters, of whom there are many. They are delightful, clever and inspiring. And they were having a fabulous time. So if you're a 27-year-old planning an office bash, ignore my contempt for Beach Blanket Babylon and check it out. If you're over 40, trust me. Avoid at all costs.

The Force Awakens
I couldn't resist: we saw it on its opening day. No spoilers ... I'll just say that for me, for the first time since the original film, this captured the magic, awe and delight I felt watching the original as an 11-year-old. There's humour, action, tears, drama and completely believable special effects. I could have happily watched it a second time with only a small break. A return viewing is definitely on the cards for the holiday break.

Light Up Sherfield Park
Seeing how my housing estate embraced Halloween, I thought I'd propose another venerable American tradition: the holiday lights competition. Co-sponsored by the parish council and our community association, we managed to pull together an impressive list of prizes for those who decorated, and for those who voted. While the official number of entrants was lower than hoped, the neighbourhood looked good and I'd guess that about 15% of houses decorated for the holidays. Considering that almost nobody lit up their homes when I first moved to the UK, this is progress. I have high hopes for the future.

Nothing like Alps and fondue to make it feel like Christmas

Restaurant Review: Le Vieux Logis, St. Jorioz, France

Given this year's unseasonably warm winter, a weekend jaunt to Annecy to celebrate an ea
rly Christmas with extended family is likely to be as close as we get to holiday snow. Even there, the snow is only dusting mountain tops. On the valley floor you needed little more than a light jacket to be comfortable.

Whatever the weather, wandering around Annecy's holiday market makes you feel like you've dropped into a Christmas card. Traditional wooden chalet spread across several streets in the picturesque old town, offering a pleasing variety of craft items and luxury foodstuffs that are just that little bit nicer than the typical British market. The lake glistens at the edge of town, castle and church towers loom above you, mountain peaks rim the horizon, Christmas music (ironically, mostly American stuff from the '50s) streams over a sound system. It's everything you want from a Christmas market. But since Annecy isn't particularly known for its market, it's mostly locals thronging the streets.  Even without people to visit, I'd recommend this as a charming pre-Christmas shopping getaway. (Fly via Geneva; Annecy is about 40 minutes from the airport.)

Besides drinking up the atmosphere in the picture-postcard town centre, we have only one "must-do" when we visit friends here: Eating at Le Vieux Logis in the lakeside village of St. Jorioz that our friends now call home. I've mentioned this place briefly here before, but after three visits of reliable quality and family fun, it deserves another mention.

I'm not a skier, but I've seen enough films to have an idea of the idyllic place you want to settle into after a day on the slopes. Stone walled, peak-roofed Alpine architecture, heavy beams, open fire, traditional embroidery on the sheer linen window coverings. It's all here at Le Vieux Logis, without the indignities of gangs of foreigners drinking themselves silly, or the outrageous prices concocted to fleece the tourists. This is an extremely local place: our friends are on first-name basis with the owners and I suspect we were the only ones from beyond the valley dining there than night. Certainly the only English speakers. The food is beautifully simple, because you probably only want one thing when you're in the Alps, right?

Fondue.

Fondue was briefly trendy in the States in the late '70s and early '80s. I remember thinking we were terribly fashionable going to a place called The Melting Pot before senior prom. (I've just looked them up and am amazed to find they still exist.) But the fashion was all about the cooking method rather than the food. Here in the Alps, there's nothing trendy about it. It's just tradition. And they do it well. If there are four of you, as we were, you can have one cheese fondue and one meat, eliminating the need to make a painful choice. The family team running the place brings out the bases, scrambles around to plug you in, then emerge from the kitchen with their pots of steaming joy.  The cheese here has a depth of flavour that is both nutty and grassy; as if you were eating the valley floor itself. Between the groaning platter of bread for dipping in the cheese, and the pile of beef chunks to cook to your taste in  the simmering oil, nobody is going hungry here.  There's a generous mound of salad to complement the main attraction, which works well as a palate cleanser after all those rich flavours. Match that all with jugs of local white wine, and life gets even better.

Le Vieux Logis is also known for their pizza. A traditional wood-fired oven greets you as you walk in the door, and if you can tear yourself away from the fondue you'll be rewarded with a thin and crispy delight that's actually the more delicate dining choice here.

I'd guess that in high skiing season this place is a little less local. Surely, the thousands of skiers who descend upon Annecy's slopes each year must know this place? We're always there out of season, however, so I'll continue to think of it as our little, local secret. Now you know, too.

The Lansdowne, L'Ortolan kick off the feasting season with flair

Over two decades in England, Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the Fourth of July are holidays that ... with the exception of one office-based emergency ... I've always taken off to celebrate the traditions of my homeland. This year, however, is my first as an independent contractor. And in my new world of you-don't-work-you-don't-get-paid, taking a four-day weekend seemed excessive. So I hit the office on Thursday, lined up a celebratory dinner, then took off Black Friday to start the Christmas decorating and indulged in a spectacular feast that night.

I have certainly squeezed in the appropriate American essentials of shopping, holiday decorating and eating yourself silly ... though that last bit was a good deal more elegant than your average family feast, and didn't quite hit the traditional buttons. Though the chef tried.

We had our Thanksgiving Dinner at the Landsdowne Club in London. Thanks to its American heritage (built by the prime minister that settled the American Revolution, later home to department-store magnate Selfridge), the club has always prided itself in hosting Thanksgiving dinner. As we were both up in London, we gave it a try.

It was delicious, though a bit off piste for what most Americans would recognise as traditional Thanksgiving. Posh plating (see turkey, left). No green been casserole. Bread sauce with turkey? Most Americans don't know what bread sauce is, and when you explain it to them they can't wrap their heads around the concept. Most amusing was American pancakes for dessert. Putting pancakes in the meal-finishing slot is a typical European mistake; wildly puzzling to Americans who see this dish solidly in the breakfast category. Meanwhile, there was no pecan pie. But the turkey was delicious, as was my smoked haddock and clam chowder that preceded it. They managed the best pumpkin pie I've had in Europe. Light, airy and a long gourmet mile from the Libby Pumpkin original ... but probably better. The revelation of the night was an Austrian Pinot Noir that was the wine discovery of the month.

This was just the warm up, however. Friday's dinner made your average Thanksgiving meal look like a humble snack.

We've been using L'Ortolan, the only Michelin-starred establishment in our neighbourhood, as our special occasion restaurant since we moved to our current house. A couple years ago I heard people raving about how incredible the chef's table was there, and it's been on my bucket list ever since. We finally took the plunge, booking about five months ago for this exclusive 4-seater table in the heart of the kitchen.

It's a measure of just how much food culture has changed in England that sitting in the kitchen, watching chefs work their magic and having the chance to chat with the staff throughout the evening has become the hottest option in any top restaurant.  It must be a delight for the restaurant owners, who are charging premium prices to squeeze people into unloved, undecorated nooks in their kitchens, then charge them for the most extravagant meal the place is able to deliver.   But if you're seriously into your food, it's worth it.

There is only one chef's table here, seating just four people a night, thus it must be booked many months in advance.

We've never had a bad meal at L'Ortolan, which always delivers the exceptional tastes, beautiful presentations and intriguing wine matches you expect from a Michelin star restaurant. The chef's table is more of the same. MUCH more. It's as if they want to show off everything they are capable of producing. Even though they're small plates, it can be a bit of a trial by the time you get to your fourth dessert.

Yes. FOURTH. That is excessive, even for me.

But before you get to those sweets, you'll start with canapés followed by four fish courses. Then a
foie gras course. Then, for some odd reason, another fish course. Then comes the venison. Then the cheese. And after the aforementioned desserts there are, of course, petit fours to go with the coffee.  Counting every plate with food that passes before you, that's fourteen courses. And eleven of them each come with their own carefully matched glass of wine.

It's four times more expensive than your average dinner out. But since you're eating and drinking four times as much, it's hard to quibble with the value for money.  Of course, you don't weigh up value in a place like this by quantity. It's about quality and ... for the kind of people who'll fork over the cash for a chef's table ... unique tastes and experiences combined with a highly individualised experience.

The dish of the night for me was, rather predictably, the foie gras. The new twist? Pan-fried fresh liver served atop a gingerbread puree (we'd discovered that flavour pairing in Gascony, but this refined preparation kicked things up) with blueberries. A novel combination for me, and magnificent. Even more unusual was pairing it with red wine. Logic and tradition says it shouldn't work, but the Barbera d'Alba actually balanced with the fruit and cut some of the fat with its acidity.

Nipping at that course's heels was an extraordinary venison, served on a white plate painted with a slash of chocolate, dotted with spheres of roasted beetroot, blackberries, deep-fried crispy kale and a quenelle of purple mashed potato. A few years ago, dark purples, blacks and browns were all the rage at the Chelsea Flower Show; this was that trend on a plate. And it tasted as good as it looked.

Other noteworthy entries in this parade were: salmon that was both cured and cooked in a sous vide, for delicate flavour and texture; a crab salad with watermelon and tempura; and a forest floor-inspired dessert with a mushroom carefully constructed out of dark and white chocolate ganaches. The wines were uniformly excellent, though relatively traditional with the exception of that foie gras match.

The most outstanding element, as you would expect, is being in the kitchen. L'Ortolan's chef's table is exactly across from the pass, where all the savoury courses are plated up and sent into the dining room.  The four of us sat along one side, theatre style, to watch the show. And what a show it was. If you're as big a fan of Masterchef as we are, you could sit there for three hours watching plates come together and never be bored. We saw the mood move from enthusiastic "game on" energy to diligent delivery up to high pressure as 9pm, a full dining room and two private parties crushed into a peak of demand. (The action came with equivalent language; this is not a place for the meek hearted.) And then we watched as service wound down, the team spirit reappeared and jollity took over as they cleaned the kitchen and prepared for the next day. Most of the team lives in adjacent staff accommodation, and the camaraderie reminds you of a tightly knit college fraternity.

Though everyone was polite and some section heads engaged more than others, I sense the head chef would have been more relieved if he hadn't had to deal with us that night.  It certainly wasn't the chatty, interactive experience we had at the chef's table at Niche in St. Louis, but L'Ortolan has at least twice the covers and a Michelin star to defend. So I'll forgive them for paying a bit less attention to us, and a bit more to running their business. Still, once they realised how interested we were, everyone did their best to answer questions and give us detail on dishes. In what's famously a male-dominated profession, I found it interesting that it was the women ... sous and pastry chefs ... who were the stars of the evening.

My night reached its zenith when the latter invited me onto her station to check out her sourdough starter and gave me tips for improving my own.  Sure enough, Sunday's loaf was much improved. If I could charge £20 a loaf, I might be on the path to paying for a return visit...

Forget the Vikings; For more remarkable Danish bling, go further back

I have seen a lot of magnificent cultural sights in previous trips to Copenhagen, but it was on this

third visit that I finally got around to what instantly became my favourite: The National Museum of Denmark's headquarters in Central Copenhagen. And it wasn't even for the reason I anticipated.

Most people instantly associate Denmark with Vikings. If you're off to the National Museum, you'd
be forgiven for anticipating a treasure hoard from that blockbuster age to delight your eyes. You'll get some. But it's what comes before that really bowls you over. This collection ... liberally studded with jaw-droppers, items inventively displayed, helpful guides in English as well as Danish ... demonstrates that life here was sophisticated, intriguing and at times remarkably beautiful for several thousand years before those famous marauders burst into our history books.

I wasn't entirely taken by surprise. Twice in recent years I've been to major exhibitions in London in which I found an object from pre-Viking Denmark to be amongst the most memorable. A 3,400-year-old sun chariot grabbed a lion's share of the attention at the Royal Academy's Bronze show in 2012 (I wrote about it here). A copy of the Gundestrup cauldron is one of the best bits of the British Museum's current Celts exhibit. (I owe you a blog entry on that one.) But they're both better here, set in a time frame, surrounded by companion objects and displayed in prominent, awe-inspiring isolation.

The cauldron (above) is beaten silver. It's so big you'd probably need another six inches on each side to wrap your arms around it, and deep enough that a three-year-old could easily use it for a bath. The exterior is dominated by enigmatic faces, the interior by action scenes with humans and animals. At the bottom, a three dimensional cow and several other animals recline, a bit like those comedy mugs that reveal frogs hiding at the bottom when you finish your tea. Having studied the copy at the British Museum just two weeks before, I was amazed at how much richer the detail on the original was. And rather than jockeying in a queue for a glimpse, I was alone to contemplate at my leisure. It's worth dropping by this museum (entry is free) if only to see this magnificent object. And it's unique ... the largest known example of Iron Age silver work.

But there's so much more.

You'll start back in the dawn of human history, and marvel at the decorations on the stone age axe heads. Three thousand years before the advent of anything we'd call "celtic", four thousand before the Vikings, five before anyone ever uttered the words "Scandinavian design", and here are the basic shapes and decorative forms. I can't remember ever seeing such a striking example of a culture's aesthetic principles stretching from foundations right through to the modern age.  Nearby there's an enormous display of amber turned up from Stone Age graves, displayed in a three-level glass cube to drive the abundance home.

On to the Danish equivalent of mummies: bodies inside their dugout canoe coffins, eerily well-preserved by the peat bogs in which they were laid to rest. In one room, cleverly, the museum has created an exact replica of the clothing on the girl now laid to rest here, down to the pleated mini-skirt. A hipster in modern Copenhagen could probably wear it today without comment.

The sun chariot dominates a room on Bronze Age religion, where you see that even though it's the most spectacular example, it's far from alone. Intricately worked gold sun discs in ceremonial settings were clearly a must-have item in 1400 bc. There are weapons and ornaments of spectacular beauty throughout the pre-historic ages, but things really start getting spectacular when you hit the Danes who were contemporaries of the Greeks and Romans ... an age that kicks off with that spectacular cauldron.

The Romans may have dismissed these people as barbarians, but it only takes a few galleries to convince you of their cultural sophistication. Another name is Celts, and their art has permeated our own age. Today, we associate the word with the Welsh, Irish or Scottish, but the term started as a generic description for Northern Europeans who were not part of the Roman empire. Amongst the treasures here, there's a reconstructed chariot, demonstrating how the original ornate metalwork would have adorned a vehicle of phenomenal bling. There's impressive golden jewellery, including distinctive torques and fierce warriors arm cuffs.  A floor-to-ceiling glass case encloses a collection of the spiralling horns called Lurs, suspended on clear wire at varying heights so that the installation itself becomes a work of art. The sinuously-curving, animal-infused designs throughout this section make it clear that we're on the brink of the Viking age.

A magnificent room filled with megalithic rune stones marks the divide. Then it's on to more galleries of treasures, from the domestic niceties of horse collars, storage chests and drinking horns to the darkly beautiful swords and axes that helped win the booty that bought all this lavish excess. The remnants of a small raiding ship sit in a dimly lit room.  across from an impressive collection of shields arranged in a defensive wall. They, like the lurs, hang on almost invisible wire, giving the impression that a ghost army has invaded the gallery in formation.

By the time Christianity appeared and put an end to the Viking era, I was exhausted. I'd just wandered through roughly 4,000 years of history, after all. The upper floor of the museum, picking up with the Middle Ages, will have to wait for another trip. Besides, I had shopping to do.

In addition to a fabulous collection, the National Museum has an excellent gift shop. At Christmas
time, it spills out into the building atrium with a seasonal emporium of festive items. I shopped my way through the city centre on Monday, specifically looking for holiday decorations, but nothing topped the assortment I found here. Good thing I decided to buy when I saw things, rather than waiting. I might not have come home with a sun chariot or a cauldron, but the straw goats, blown glass Viking drinking horns and paper cones for holding treats are going to add their own bit of Danish history to our mantlepiece. this Christmas.

Lingering lunch can offer foreigners a taste of Danish hygge

I think it takes five days of proper sightseeing, on average, to get really comfortable in a city. To navigate without a map, have an understanding of the most famous sites, establish some favourite places to relax and get some feel for the elements that make it unique. I hit that milestone with this, my third trip to Copenhagen.

Getting to really understand the people takes much longer. In some places, you never get more insight than the foreign visitor. Being related to locals, of course, puts you on the fast track. The paternal side of my husband's family is Danish, and it was his aunt's 75th birthday that formed the centrepiece of this trip.

We spent Sunday ensconced at Rødvig Kro, a waterfront restaurant and inn in the town closest to the Bencard farm where the current generation originated. The view of the bay (above), its cliffs and lighthouse glimmering gold in the twilight, was spectacular. The long hall-house was decorated in pale, elegant Scandinavian country style, fires blazing and candles bathing everyone in an attractive glow. And the company was spectacular. Four tables packed with my husband's aunts, uncles, cousins and their progeny. My sister-in-law and I were the only people in the room without Danish blood, and that was painfully obvious. (Even before our pitiful attempts to pronounce any of their baffling language.) Lots of tall people with piercing blue eyes, fair features, broad shoulders, a confident grace and a swaggeringly cheerful way with a toast. 

Generations past, all the alcohol might have prompted them toward the harbour to climb into their longboat and invade England. (Leaving Jane and I, no doubt, as the captured slaves cleaning up after the feast.) These days, they've given up the pillage and conquest and embraced the hygge.  Pronounced, more or less, like huu-guh.

There's no direct translation of this term into English. It's bigger than a single word. It's a concept and a feeling, embracing an ideal state of comfortable, homey conviviality. While you can achieve hygge at any time, it really comes into its own in the winter. I think it's something about snuggling in to your safe place with the people you love while the world outside is dark, cold and miserable. Candles are essential; the Danes use more of them per capita than any other nation. In my observation, alcohol and comfort food play a key role. (And if you find yourself in Rødvig, go to the Kro for their hot-smoked salmon and their wafer-thin slices of venison beef with a raspberry sauce.) But you can't achieve hygge alone. Good company is the essential ingredient in holding back the darkness, and the Bencards had that in abundance on Sunday.

If you don't have a Danish family to bunker down with, try a long, traditional lunch on a gloomy winter afternoon. Pick a long-established restaurant like Cafe Petersborg, candles flickering beneath the low wooden ceilings and tables filled with locals, and you've snatched a shortcut to hygge.

The name and founding myth is Russian, though the food is resolutely Danish. In the middle of the 18th century, this building was the Russian consulate. Just a stone's throw from the harbour, it dished out hospitality to visiting Russian sailors ... many from St. Petersburg. The Russians moved on, but the tradition of hospitality on the ground floor continued. The menu might have changed, but I suspect those first diners would find the interior familiar. It's a warren of 18th century rooms with small windows and low, beamed ceilings.  Most of the wooden tables are long, catering to large groups. The menu follows that style of eating, with many options served family style or in big sharing platters. If there aren't so many of you, or if you want to get specific items, there's a tick list to order individual small plates ... rather like a sushi bar.

The format here, if you go for the platters, is two courses: first fish, then meat and cheese. Bread ... both white and dark, seed-strewn rye ... is on hand and regularly refilled to accompany both. Fish in Denmark, of course, means pickled herring. Done properly, as it most certainly is here, it's neither fishy nor overwhelming. It's meaty, subtle, and finely balanced between sweet and savoury. Laid upon thin slices of rye bread spread with lard, topped with fine slices of red onion, it's a treat. While we often re-create this at home, spearing fish out of jars ordered from Danish Food Direct, Petersborg's herring made those attempts look like pale imitation.

The first course was generous and we could have easily stopped at that point, but that wouldn't be
tradition. And you're settled in for three or four hours, so you can spread your appetite by grazing. Round two brings specialities like grilled pork, warm liver pate, cooked beetroot and wedges of pungent Danish cheeses.

The classic accompaniment is beer rather than wine. This time of year that means Tuborg's Julebryg. It's darker and stronger than regular lager, with a satisfying creaminess. The annual release date is a big deal in Denmark, and given its pervasive availability, I'd guess everyone drinks a lot of it in the run up to Christmas. We certainly did. If you're drinking "properly", you'll also get a bottle of snaps for the table, glasses of which you raise in frequent toasts to others. This is the Danish take on aquavit, less sugary and far more sophisticated than the Germanic schnapps varieties most people know. There's wide variation in that simple description, though, running from throat-burning stuff sure to put hair on a Viking chest through to milder, slightly sweet varieties. You can try different types by the glass, or order a bottle for the table. If you do the latter, they'll charge you for what you drink.

Our discovery this meal: dill-flavoured snaps. The alcoholic kick is hidden beneath a smooth, slightly sweet palate with just a hint of the herb. Enough to remind you that dill is a cousin to the much stronger fennel, a liquorice flavour which works in both sweet and savoury dishes. This snaps went beautifully with all of the herring varieties, but continued happily with everything else. Unsurprisingly, two bottles came home with us.

Copenhagen is famous for its hip, modern restaurants. We've dined in a couple of them. But none are as soul satisfying as the Cafe Petersborg. And that's what hygge is all about.

If you want to learn more about hygge, and what makes the Danes tick overall, look up Helen Russell's The Year of Living Danishly. In it, an English journalist who accompanies her husband on assignment to Denmark spends a year trying to understand why the country regularly tops surveys of the happiest places on earth. It's funny, fact-filled and does a great job of capturing the subtleties that make this little country so special.

Too much of everything bar time and money: holiday season begins

Despite the unseasonably warm weather that still has autumnal blooms going in my garden, it is definitely that time of year. There are no unscheduled weekends between now and the big holiday, and the number of people with whom I'm having the "we really must get together before things shut down" is greater than our list of free evenings. We'll do our best.

Cards have been purchased, lists polished, my godson's annual themed box with related custom-written storybook (it's dinosaur year) is taking shape. I'm helping to organise the local holiday home decorating contest. I'm back at Weight Watchers and the gym less in hope of losing weight than in a defensive play to limit the damage of three to five meals out a week.  My husband is reviewing which fine wines are ready to drink, how much foie gras we still have in store and whether goose or duck would be better for dinner on the 25th.

God, I love Christmas.

Though each year, I worry a little more that the excess-fuelled run-up to those few restful, quiet days at the turn of the year is going to kill me. Let it try. I'm carpe-ing the diem.

The season gets off to its official start, at least in the Bencard family diary, with the Lansdowne Club's annual ball. As a newcomer to England I remember thumbing through the pages of Hello magazine, agog at how well Brits seemed to do themed parties and wishing I would be invited to one. Now that I've gone native ... and have a club membership ... I can attest that the parties are just as good as they look.

This year's theme: Arabian Nights. The same team that helped me plan my wedding turned our club's Georgian, two-story entry hall into a Bedouin tent, complete with flickering lanterns, piles of cushions and rugs and a wonderfully improbable topiary camel. The courtyard became a souk, while the staff looked like they'd knocked over a costume warehouse for a decade's worth of pantomime productions of Aladdin. Disguising the towering Georgian lines of the ballroom would have been a bit much, but the food and entertainment carried on the theme. The chef wove Turkish flavours through his usual haut European cuisine, and the sommelier wheeled out some worthy Lebanese wines. Of course, their were belly dancers. And far too much topping up of glasses to be either safe or healthy. Thank god I'd booked a room, so we only had to stumble to the lift and down a hall.

The next morning, after a constitutionally-settling fry up, it was off to meet the Northwestern Girls for the Spirit of Christmas fair at Olympia. How have we missed this in years past? This is, by a vast margin, the best Christmas shopping experience ever. In fact, with several hundred exhibitors, it's less a Christmas Fair and more a pop up mall filled with the kind of tasteful, unique boutiques that were kicked off the high street years ago by the big chains. Jewellery, custom-designed clothing, homewares, toys, indulgences for your pets, quirky shoe brands, custom-printed stationary, and loads more. Most of the upper balcony that runs around the exhibition hall is filled with luxury food and drink items.

Ironically, the thing you won't find much of is Christmas decorations. This is not some cutesy take on a German Christmas market. Rather, it's mostly craftspeople and designers who market themselves through an annual rota of fairs rather than shops. It's quite possible to do all of your shopping here, for everyone on your list. If you can keep your energy levels up. There are two champagne bars within the show to help with that. We've sworn that it's going to become an annual outing, and we'll be better prepared next year. (Less hung over, for example.)

Then the girls followed me to Hampshire for a mini-break. There was no way our diaries were going to allow a weekend away, so we opted for Saturday night at my house followed by Sunday at the spa. My husband, who'd gone directly home from the club when I went off to the fair, had offered to cook for us if we allowed him to dine with us. A good deal. Lisa and Hillary brought the wine, mostly liberated from stocks bought during our Burgundian wine tasting trip in 2008. (Start here and read the four entries that follow for coverage of that trip.) Then on to the first Christmas gift exchange of the year, since the likelihood of us all being together again in the next six weeks is slim.

A celebratory dinner needs to be rather extraordinary, of course, and my husband delivered the goods. First, we liberated some of the foie gras we made in Gascony earlier this year and matched it with spelt biscuits and dollops of quince jam. Served with the Chapel Down "Nectar" we discovered on our tour of the Kentish vineyard in August. Next, the husband's lobster, avocado and orange salad. It sounds odd, but he'd do well rolling this out as a signature dish at his Masterchef introduction. Was the 2004 Chablis Grand Cru worthy of the dish, or the dish worthy of the wine? Hard to tell. The man moved us on to roast haunch of venison with a chili chocolate sauce he'd been slaving over all afternoon, starting from the bag of venison bones ... cracked to release their marrow ... I'd picked up along with the meat from Newlyn's earlier in the week. Time and care make a difference; the sauce was extraordinary. As was the 2005 Pomerol that moved to centre stage. Possibly upstaged by the "mystery Burgundy", another bottle from that trip that had lost its label. We'll never know its precise details, but it was fabulous. Lemon souffle to wind down. Giving the man a break (he neither likes to eat, or cook, desserts) these were cheats from Iceland. Good enough to make me think I need to write an entry on my recent revelation that there are some amazing things to be unearthed at the so-called "discounters".

Having proved that we can do luxury almost as well at home as we can in a fine dining establishment (I hope), Sunday was all about recovery at Nirvana Spa. Much lap swimming, napping on heated loungers and a healthy vegetarian lunch.  Now back to work, the gym, and a few days back at the grindstone before we're off to Copenhagen next weekend for a family birthday.

Laissez les bon temps roulez.

Clarke's is a bastion of elegance against the bling

Given the BBC's abundant foodie programming, you'd be forgiving for thinking that every top-ranked fine dining establishment in London is run by a TV celebrity. Fact is, there are plenty of places perennially on the top restaurant lists with people who just ... shock! ... cook.

Exhibit A: Sally Clarke and her eponymous restaurant on Kensington Church Street.

I'd never heard of her, or of Clarke's, before meeting friends there for dinner last night. Which is probably something I should be embarrassed to admit, because Clarke has been cooking for the great and the good in this oh-so-posh part of London for more than 30 years. It was artist Lucian Freud's favourite restaurant and his art hangs on the walls; his colleague David Hockney was hosting some friends at the table next to us. Our other fellow diners were exquisitely-dressed, mature types who probably ran FTSE 500 companies before downshifting to manage their investment portfolios. And yet, this isn't a flashy place. None of the stomach-churning show offs that so tarnished our dinner at Zuma earlier this year. Clarke's has the feel of an elegant, quiet neighbourhood bistro. Albeit one with museum-quality art on the walls and seasonal white truffles (£1,500 a kilo) on display under a glass dome near the front door.

Clarke shocked the London dining scene, and made her reputation, back when I was a student tourist who could only afford burger vans and cheap chippies. She had the audacity to only offer a set menu. Eat was she was cooking, or go home. She was also an early proponent of the whole seasonal, farm-to-table concept we now take for granted. It was properly revolutionary in the '80s.

These days Clarke has expanded to a more traditional menu with multiple offerings, but she's still
front of house at the start of service welcoming diners and explaining the specials. It's a nice touch, and delightful to see someone who's still so enthusiastic about her restaurant 30 years after getting started.

For a place that started out resolutely British, the current menu is heavily Italian in flavour. It's peppered with words like porcini, radicchio tardivo and bresaola. The maitre d' brings around those fresh, seasonal truffles to give you a sniff, and provides a beguiling description of how they'd adorn scrambled eggs as a starter. Honestly, £60 a serving is a bit rich for my blood, though I suspect many of the locals would take that in their stride.

I opted to start with the burrata with fresh figs. This is a classic and simple salad, entirely dependant on the quality of its ingredients. Clearly, after three decades in business Sally has her suppliers sorted; this was as good as any version you'd have in a Southern Italian farm kitchen.

It's rare that I'm so torn on my decision for the main course. Sicilian tuna with bergamot and ginger, herbed fregola and baked Florence fennel sounded magnificent, but once my favourite fruit ... fig ... had wormed its way into my head, I decided to continue it through my night. Thus it was duck breast with baked purple figs and sage, accompanied by baked pumpkin, beetroots and carrot that appeared before me. It was delicious, but fairly standard duck breast I'd expect in any fine restaurant. I suspect I should have gone with the fish.

Four of us shared two desserts: apple, prune and bitter almond crumble with cinnamon ice cream, and baked quince in a vanilla pancake with ice cream. I far preferred the latter. The crumble was so sharp it only really worked alongside a sweet dessert wine (fortunately, I was drinking one) and the cinnamon in the ice cream was so subtle I didn't realise it was supposed to be in there until I referred to the menu after getting home. The quince, however, did an excellent job of shaking up a traditional dessert with the introduction of an under-used flavour.

Clarke's ticks plenty of London's fine dining boxes. Exquisite ingredients, sourced responsibly. Beautiful presentation. Sophisticated wine list. (My hostess selected, but the Champagne and Chablis we drank ... followed by a short but interesting list of digestifs ... indicated a fine sommelier.) Attentive staff, including the chef patron. Elegant dining room. The quiet, intimate atmosphere is perfect for a romantic evening or a catch-up with friends, but carries this off without feeling stuffy or formal.

There's a down-side, however. Clarke's is priced to match its neighbourhood. You'll need £50 just to cover your three basic courses, and that's before you add any drinks or side dishes. And I'm not sure it was exceptional enough to merit £80 or £100 per person. You can find similar food for less. But not in this neighbourhood. The last meal we had in this part of town was about the same price, and deeply average. I would have been delighted to nip around the corner to let Sally take care of us.

Increasingly the province of super-rich, showy foreigners, today's Kensington and Knightsbridge seems too often to be a triumph of conspicuous consumption over good taste. Clarke's seems to have hung on to the best of the traditional aspects of this neighbourhood. It's good to know that if I ever win a mega lottery and join the billionaire club, Sally Clarke will probably still be there, providing a local bistro that's a refuge of quality and understated elegance amongst the bling.

Welsh baritone invites a few special guests ... and us ... to his 50th

Every so often in the arts, you get lucky enough to be in the presence of greatness. To see or to hear people so remarkable it's simply an honour to share the same air and get to experience whatever it is they do.

Such it was last night with Bryn Terfel.

The world-famous Welsh bass-baritone is the aural equivalent of being bathed in warm honey. His voice seems to resonate within your body itself; I swear my veins were trembling to his thrilling low notes. Don't believe me? Take whatever opportunity presents itself and see him live. The you'll understand.

But Bryn himself was only half the pleasure of the evening. You see, we were guests at his 50th birthday party. Alongside the actor Michael Sheen and Sting. Oh, and 5,000 other punters who thought to book early enough to snag one of the seats in the Royal Albert Hall before it became a sell out.

It was a delightful evening very obviously crafted with enormous input from Terfel himself. His repertoire went from the expected operatic arias to American spirituals to Welsh hymns to show tunes to pop anthems. Terfel is well known for his range of interests, so if you've read anything about him this is no surprise.  He's also regularly lauded for supporting young artists, and he balanced his performances with up-and-comers like the men's a cappella group Only Men Aloud and the Welsh Folk band Calan.  (The last are the ones who have earned my next iTunes download. Toe-tapping delight.) A host of fellow opera professionals brought favourite tenor and soprano arias into the mix. It was all hosted by Sheen (another proud Welshman) with a humour and intimacy that made it feel like we really were friends at a medium-sized do rather than paying guests.

The most amazing part of the whole night, however, was the addition of another legend. It turns out Sting had asked Terfel to sing at his 50th, and now the Welshman was returning the favour. Those two stars doing an improvisational riff on Roxanne was one of the most astonishing things I've ever heard in a theatre.

They were filming and I expect that somewhere, sometime soon, this will turn up on TV. Don't miss it. Terfel's voice doesn't quite wrap itself around your heart over the screen as it does live (I know ... we've watched him in a lot of Wagner) but it will still be remarkable.

And a reminder for next time: You should ALWAYS book into one of the restaurants inside the Royal Albert Hall at the same time you book the tickets. This is a rare venue in that it's NOT surrounded by dining options; you really are stranded if you want to get something within a stone's throw. I thought we'd be clever and pick up something light at one of the bars that didn't require booking. There are few seats, the pre-packaged fare is indifferent and we still spent £68. (Half of that on wine, admittedly.) For perhaps £20 more we would have had proper food and civilised seating.

Austrian hotelier saves the day, and has best place, in our mostly Bavarian holiday

If your ideal hotel is all about old-world charm and traditional interiors, you're going to have a challenge in Bavaria. I find it ironic that a people who insisted on re-constructing their war-bombed cities back to renaissance, baroque and neo-classical are all about stripped-back modernity in their guest accommodation.  Whether reasonably priced or high
end, you'll probably find a similar style wherever you go:  lots of simple pedestal beds with a duvet-topped mattress upon them, wooden floors and unadorned furniture with sleek lines.

Bloberger Hof

The good news: the Germans and Austrians take their bedding very seriously. We didn't have a bad night's sleep.  This was the main reason we avoided the airbnb/apartment rental option; especially in Munich where our eight-night stay would have made it cost effective. The beds have let us down on a few of our past holidays, and we didn't want to risk it.  We chose well. The quality of mattresses, sheets, pillows and duvets was consistently excellent.

I'd happily return to -- and recommend -- four of our five hotels, though without the significant discount we enjoyed thanks to my husband's frequent guest programme with the Accor chain I think we'd probably question such a big expenditure in Munich.

Here, in order of preference from best to worst, is a roundup of hotels from our trip through southern Bavaria, Salzburg and Munich.

Bloberger Hof (Salzburg)
The gem of the trip, this family-owned Alpine chalet on the outskirts of Salzburg combines classic Tyrolean architecture with a superb location, mountain views, a great restaurant and staff who bent over backwards to make our visit wonderful. By the end of dinner the first night, we discovered that Bloberger Hof is a top pick in Rick Steve's guide to the region, and most guests had found the place through that dependable source.  We'd picked it based on location. Of three days in the area, we planned two to the west of Salzburg, making this better than a town centre location. Turns out the bus at the end of the lane ran right into central Salzburg in about 20 minutes. There are no restaurants or services within walking distance, but that really doesn't matter because the restaurant here is so good. (You'll also be treated to a hearty breakfast every morning.)

Just about everyone eats in here. Between two meals a day, a relatively small dining room and a mostly British or American clientele, you inevitably end up chatting. Our two nights dining in (theatre on a third made returning for food impossible) felt a bit like a big dinner party, with everyone sharing tips on local sightseeing.  This genial atmosphere was one of many reasons I could have very happily stayed for more nights.

The lovely Sylvia earned our affection early on by upgrading us to one of their apartments on the top floor, complete with a kitchen, a second bedroom and a geranium-lined balcony with views to Hohensalzburg Castle. It was far more space than we needed, and we never touched the kitchen, but I immediately put it on possible return list for a future girls' trip. Five days later she saved our whole holiday, when she rescued the passports we'd left behind and sent them to Munich by registered mail. Due to the immigration crisis the government had resumed passport checks at the border just after we crossed back into Germany, so we couldn't have returned to get them ourselves even if we'd wanted to take the time.  Sylvia and the Austrian Postal Service were the heroes of our holiday.

Sofitel Munich Bayerpost (Munich)
Within the neo-classical exterior of the old central post office you'll find a ruthlessly modern hotel clearly striving for a hip boutique appeal. Despite the fact its cost and chain affiliation put it clearly in the high-end business hotel category.  The lobby was probably a bit too austere, black and night-clubish for me ... I detested the celebrities as cartoons modern art ... and the public spaces were given over to corporate events for many evenings.   the rooms were marvellously luxurious and the ridiculously oversized bed a miracle of comfort.  This is one of those rooms designed so the bathroom and sleeping area flow as one space, with only a glass wall separating the large tub, and shower and toilet beyond, from the bedroom.  You can slide glass doors and lower blinds to create bathroom privacy.  It's a good thing the rooms are so great, because all that sharp modernity means there are no comfortable, cozy places to relax outside your room.  The notable exception is the pool; one of the best I've been to in a hotel.  It has a grotto feel about it, lined in black tiles and illuminated with blue light from beneath the water.  There's rectangular pool on one side and a watery passageway on the other that spirals into an oval pool with jacuzzi jets. King Ludwig would have approved.

The Sofitel Munich's grotto-like pool

We ate at the restaurant the first night, when we were too exhausted to wander out, but never repeated that choice. Food and drink here is clearly priced for people on expense accounts; service was great, food good but unexceptional. Breakfast was extra and a shocking fee; we brought stuff in or headed to nearby Starbucks and the like (the in-room Nespresso machine helped on that front.). These days I realise that one of the things you're paying for at his end of the cost spectrum is the concierge team, and they did a fabulous job. They magically procured a Michelin star restaurant table for our anniversary at limited notice, gave great advice on where to catch the Oktoberfest parade and were at the receiving end of our passport adventure, ready to help us work with the British consulate if the documents hadn't arrived.

The location next to the train station has its pros and cons.  Great for day trips, hopping on public transport and getting to the train station. A 15-minute walk got us to the city centre, about the same to the Oktoberfest grounds. But train stations are never the most salubrious places.  While the government was doing a great job whisking the Syrian refugees through, immigrants from earlier arrivals ... primarily packs of young men ... congregate on streets throughout the area, and there's a fair representation of homeless people. All are more noticeable at night when the commuters have ceased to flow. I was fine walking through the area with my husband but would have been jittery at night if a woman alone.

Stadthotel und Restaurant Convikt Dillingen an der Donau
In the unlikely event you find yourself a tourist here, this is a fine option.  This historic building was once part of one of the many religious communities that congregated here in the Jesuit heyday.  It's just one block over from the cathedral, two from the main street, so ideal for sightseeing. Perhaps evoking monastic traditions a bit too much ... I found the rooms a bit too sparse and lacking in comfortable chairs. There wasn't a lounge downstairs, either, so definitely not a place to do much more than sleep. I would not have wanted to spend more than our one night here.

Great restaurant, though. Best schnitzel of the trip, a beautiful desert, good advice on German wines and a nice touch with presentation that dressed up traditional fair and pushed it to a more gourmet place. While not worth a special trip to dine here, the quality of the restaurant was definitely the best feature of the hotel.

Novotel Munich Airport (Munich)
In order to maximise our holiday time, we flew out after work on Friday so we'd be on the ground and ready for action first thing Saturday. An airport hotel makes that strategy easy; we were checked in, hire car parked in the secure lot and settled at the bar for a late dinner within 90 minutes of touching down. There's German efficiency for you!

Purpose-built and modern, it's a typical airport hotel ... the only truly exceptional feature being a more complicated than usual security key system in the lift that made getting to our room the first couple of times a bit of a challenge.  Another upgrade here and free drinks upon arrival thanks to my husband's Club Accor status. Of the hotel programmes I'm familiar with, this one is a stand-out.

Hotel-Pension Neuschwanstein (Schwangau)
The hotel was cheap (in comparison to other places we stayed on the trip), clean and located just a five-minute drive from the No. 1 tourist attraction in Germany: Neuschwanstein. We booked well in advance and got a room with a substantial balcony and views direct to the castle.  But the decor was tired and the rooms furnished with little thought. I'd hoped for the personal touch which often comes with small hotels, but staff was curiously absent.  We only ever saw a rather dour older man and a maid who ducked into rooms whenever we came across her.  Nobody engaged us in conversation or offered any help. I assumed this was because our host couldn't speak much English, but that would be a rare thing in the tourist industry here.

There's no real lobby or welcoming public spaces. Breakfast the first morning was in a curiously silent, characterless room straight out of the 1970s. Unlike Bloberger Hof, there were few guests and people didn't talk to each other.  It was all a bit creepy.  The second morning they served breakfast in a beautiful dining room with expansive windows looking over the valley to Neuschwanstein.  Why this room wasn't used for breakfast every morning, and opened to guests regularly ... much less why they didn't offer dinners here ... is a mystery.  Overall, a place with great potential, but desperately in need of a makeover and friendlier management. In a region swamped with hotels, I felt I should have worked harder, or paid a little more, to find something nicer.

The beer drinkers' guide to Munich and Bavaria

For this entry I've given over the writing duties to my husband, Piers. He was the one who chose Bavaria for his birthday trip, and his taste for beer is a lot stronger than mine.  In fact, his taste in beer is sensitive enough to yield some excellent tasting notes for all the local variations we tried.  It was only fair to insist he shared them with you.

So, as a direct result of my demanding to go to Bavaria in search of my roots – and, I might add, to open Ellen’s eyes more to the wonders of Germanic culture – I fear, dear reader, that I have been imposed on your again.

A lot has been written about Bavaria and beer, so I shall only tell some of the history of weissbier, how it got around the German beer purity law and then move on to concentrate on the beers and our experiences of them. If I miss something out that you believe is important, please forgive me.

I hope that you know about how beer is made, as I won’t be covering that here. 

The Rheinheitsgebot (or German beer purity law) is over 500 years old and famously demanded that beer was made using barley, water and hops only. So what of weissbiers, I hear you cry? Aha! That is the point. Weissbiers are wheat beers and the Rehinheitsgebot was designed to restrict the use of wheat for bread -- not beer. A series of wheat harvest failures triggered legislation to ensure that the precious grain was saved for food rather than drink.

Now, by this time we have all heard of the Wittelsbach family (whaddya-mean-you-haven’t? You obviously need to read Ellen’s earlier Bavarian blogs). These glorious rulers of Bavaria were not just extravagant builders but also not beyond monopolising trade. In 1520, four years after the extension of the Rheinheitsgebot to all of Bavaria by the Wittelsbachs, they granted the sole right to brew Weissbier in Bavaria to a vassal family called the Degenbergs. For a significant sum. In 1602, the Duke of Degenberg died without heir and the title and all assets (including the right to brew weissbier) reverted to the Wittelsbachs. Duke Maximillian I, the then suzerain, kept the monopoly, extended his new right to all of his land and summoned the Degenbergs' master weissbier brewer to Munich to become his own. The brewer built a brewery in Munich on the site where the Hofbrauhaus now stands and got to work. Weissbier was as popular as ever and the profits went straight to the government (as the Hofbrauhaus profits still do today). They alone paid for the Bavarian army during the thirty years war against the Swedish, just 11 years later.

So, eventually, every town and village had its own Wittelsbach weissbier brewery. But even in conservative Bavaria, tastes eventually change. In the 18th Century drinking weissbier went out of fashion. As the value of the monopoly declined, from providing a third of all state revenue, the crown began to lease its breweries out to the locals. In 1798 it even decreed that any nobleman or monastery could brew weissbier. The decline lasted for about 160 years (have we mentioned how conservative the Bavarians are?), when it got a revival in the 1960s ... not just in Germany, but in the rest of the world as well.

“But enough about history, what about beer?” I hear you demand. Well, in our traipsing around Bavaria (and Austria) we drank more than a few pints (litres?) a day.  All in the name of research for you, dear reader. (It’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.)

Of the six major breweries in Munich, we drank at five of them. We missed Spaten, but few people remember them as a major brewery and neither did we. (Always leave something to go back for.) We also drank four of the five major varieties: Helles, Dunkel, Helles Weissbier and Dunkel Weissbier; we didn’t drink any Bock, but then I can’t remember having seen that on any menus. We did try the Oktoberfestbier or Marzen, unsurprising given the timing of our trip. We also tried the two varieties of shandy: Radler (Lemonade mixed with Helles) and Rus’n (Lemonade mixed with Weissbier) – more of which later.

Lowenbrau Original

This is supposed, by some, to have tobacco and smoke aromas and have a sweet, grassy, vanilla and metallic taste. It may have been the temperature that it was served at, but if there were smoke aromas, it was a dry smoke and the vanilla was swallowed by the metal. I found it thin, clean (ie: with little taste) and somewhat reminiscent of what could be called “euro fizz” or generic lager. In short, nothing to write home about, certainly compared to other beers drunk.

Franziskaner Hefe-Weissbier

‘The Franziskaner of my youth’: memories of the Franziskaner merry-go-round are raised by the reminders of my previous trip, the two quarter litre beer glasses on my shelf at home (it was all they served on the merry-go-round in 2004 on the Wieszen). One of my tasks, this year, was to find and have a drink on that Franziskaner merry-go-round. I have to report, dear reader, that I failed – not because it was lunchtime on the opening day and we had no chance of a drink on the Wieszen, it was more fundamental than that: they obviously rotate who gets to serve on the merry-go-round as this year it was HofBrau and not Franziskaner whose Weissbier was served there. Have no fear, Mike and crew, we raised a glass to you elsewhere.

But memories don’t get to tell you about this delightful brew. It is round and creamy, with a ‘tropical and grainy texture’ (according to one tasting note). I don’t know about tropical, I certainly got a bready flavour, but then it’s wheat beer so you would, wouldn’t you. I also got a taste of vanilla and lemon curd and a hint of warmth/spiciness.

Franziskaner Dunkels Weissbier

Don’t mistake this for a dark barley based beer; so far as we could see, Franziskaner only brews weissbier. This has a lovely round, malty, toffee and coffee flavour as well as the ‘normal’ creaminess of weissbier. It doesn’t really have that much bitterness, just enough to cut through the rest of the flavours. It was probably the most drunk beer of the trip (at least by me).

Hofbräu Munchener Sommer

I honestly didn’t think that Germans brewed Bluemoon, or drank it, yet this is the most similar taste that I could think of. Whilst it had more hoppy bitterness at the fore in the taste, I definitely got a deal of orange rather than a sharper citric taste of lemon (as in a Franziskaner Weissbier for example). This is still a barley based beer but it had a lot more roundness than the Lowenbrau Original.

Hofbräu Dunkel

This is a dark lager. It is supposed to have a toasty, malty and caramel flavour with the crispness of a lager. I found it to have the maltiness and toastiness described, but I didn’t find the caramel (or maybe the caramel had gone over). Having identified the tastes mentioned above, I found it to be thin and bitter – not something I would normally go towards just for drinking, but it may be better with food (possibly a curry?).

Hofbräu Rus’n

So to the first of the shandies, I had never tried weissbier shandy before. If this is indeed named after Russian emigres, I would suggest that it shows the disdain that Bavarians have for Russians. I found it to be incredibly sweet thick and almost like liquid honey, mass produced rather than a lavender or acacia honey. I wondered if this is what mead tastes like (and have yet to find out – so little time, so much to do).

Augustiner Brau Munchen Oktoberfestbier

Let this brewery not be mistaken for the Salzburg variant of the Augustinian brewers. We had several of the Munich variant’s excellent beers, stumbling upon a street party for the release of this beer, a day or so before the opening of the Oktoberfest proper.

This beer is medium weight, heavier and more rounded than a Helles lager but not as creamy as a weissbier. Not really that bitter, just enough to remind you that you are drinking a lager, it was also light but hoppy in taste. Whereas some Helles beers reminded me of the clean, metallic taste of many northern German lagers, this reminded me more of Czech lagers like Pilsner Urquell or Budvar (the lagers I would normally drink at home). In short, very nice indeed.

Augustiner Munchen Dunkel

A dark barley beer, which has the characteristic caramel hoppiness and burnt flavour of a Dunkel Helles beer, it was somewhat more rounded than many other Dunkels we tasted on the tour.

Tucher Helles Hefe Weizen

Just to prove that we didn’t just drink beer in Munich, this weissbier is from Nurnberg. Ellen though that this had a heavier weight in the mouth than other weissbiers and she noted a smoky bacon taste; I thought that this might have been there as an after taste, but I couldn’t find it in the body of the beer. I tasted a bitterish lemony flavour, which to me brought the hoppiness more to the fore than is usual in weissbiers.

König Ludwig Dunkels Wiessbier

We had this beer in the valley between Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein castles, rather appropriate really as the beer is actually brewed by the current Prince Luitpold and is also known as Prinzregent Luitpold Weissbier Dunkel. It has less of the creaminess of many weissbiers, tasting slightly drier and with a coffee taste coming through.

If I were to pick just one of the above to drink from now on, I would be caught in a cleft stick between the Franziskaner Dunkels Weissbier and the Augustiner Oktoberfestbier; I would probably have to come down on the side of the Franziskaner in the end, but it would be a struggle. The final argument would be down to volume, can I get it all year around and the Augustiner is only available as a seasonal beer.

I have come from this experience with the intention of trying other beers, possibly even ales and bitters which I have previously dismissed as I have always considered myself a lager drinker. Naturally, the above are only personal tasting notes on some of the beers we drank. Others may taste banana, cloves, coriander and other flavours. I hope that it has given you an idea of the ‘sheer hell’ we went through on your behalf and given you thoughts of trying some of them for yourself.

Go on, prove me wrong – although tasting is on the tongue and nose of the ‘beholder'.

Parade beats beer in our Oktoberfest initiation

Opinion amongst my Munich insiders was fairly consistent: Oktoberfest, unless you can score some corporate hospitality, is over-rated.

It's a magnet for foreigners to descend upon Munich to drink themselves silly; like an American college Spring Break, but with an international crowd in Bavarian costume.  It's so packed that the main beer tents are almost impossible to get inside after 10 am, thus you probably can't experience more than one a day, if you get in any at all. The city is stuffed to bursting, everyone raises the prices of everything and hotels book up a year in advance. It's not, the locals sighed, what it used to be.

Thus we scheduled our holiday to end on the day Oktoberfest opened. We broke out the dirndl and lederhosen, saw the opening parade and drank in the atmosphere of the fairground before heading to the airport ... avoiding the price crunch and the worst of the crowds.  This was generally a good solution, though it meant we didn't get into any of the beer tents.  Since they only serve beer to people seated at tables, it means that, ironically, we went to Oktoberfest but didn't get a drink. Despite the fact that the main pavilions seat almost 100,000 people. But we tasted the atmosphere, and decamped to the nearby Hacker Pschorr beer garden for refreshments.

The mobile beer ban was just one of many surprises that made me realise that I actually didn't know that much about the mother of all Oktoberfests. Here are some key points, for others amongst the uninitiated.

• The festival has a rich historical legacy.  It started as a wedding celebration in 1810 when the prince who would become King Ludwig I and his bride Princess Therese decided to include the people in their festivities. The merriment took place in fields outside of the city centre, renamed Theresa's Meadow in the princess' honour. The area is still officially known as Theresienwiese, though almost everyone shortens it to the Wiesn. I found a pleasant continuity in the fact that the man who left the most enduring architectural legacy on the city was also the one responsible for starting its greatest festival.

• Oktoberfest feels a lot like an American state fair.  The Wiesn is a big fairground set aside specifically for the purpose, there's an enormous strip of carnival rides (akin to an American fair midway) and loads of traditional food. The beer tents are fabulous temporary constructions, rising like a stage-set city for the duration of the event.

• Pretty much everyone comes in costume. You'd think you'd feel a bit odd, being a foreigner putting on a local costume ... but you'd feel a lot stranger in regular street clothes. Everyone dresses up, adding to the magic of the scene. The shopkeepers of Munich know this, and make it easy for you. Whether it's a cheap, Chinese-made Holloween costume purchased from a stall outside the train station, a basic outfit from a department store, mix and match from a traditional clothing warehouse or high-end pieces from specialist shops, there are options for every taste and budget.

• Locals have a different experience, and you can spot them easily. Evidently, most of the seats inside the tents can be reserved, and these reservations belong to either corporate hospitality or private clubs and organisations. As with most big events, there's a separate track for well-connected locals, who weave through the Wiesn crowds to take their rightful places.  Their clothing is exquisite. The great and the good's lederhosen might be accented with embroidery and tends to be longer; outfits are  accessorised with knives, badges, boar bristles and other bits and pieces that look like they've been passed down for generations. Women's dirndls are exquisitely tailored with fine detailing, probably from the posh department store Loden Frey. (Even if you have no intention of buying anything, it's great fun to wander through the traditional clothing section here to see what's possible.)

The parade's a big deal for the local kids

• There are two blockbuster parades worth making an effort to see. The first, on the opening Saturday, is a procession of beer wagons heading towards each tent, interspersed with marching bands. Coaches and more wagons filled with well-dressed locals follow the beer wagons; presumably more of the great and the good on their way to those reserved tables.  Getting to the route near the Wiesn entrance about an hour before starting time meant that we had a front row view as the spectacle unfurled. For more than two hours. It was glorious. And it's supposedly the inferior parade.  Sunday's, which is longer and has more than 8,000 marchers, is devoted to celebrating the identity of regions throughout Bavaria, celebrating variations of local costume. The problem with the parades, of course, is that if you stay on the street to watch them you give up your chance of nabbing a seat in any of the beer tents. After the Rose Bowl Parade, the opening day of Oktoberfest was the best parade I've ever seen. I think we made the right choice.

• Talk to people. The festival brings the ethos of the beer gardens to the streets. There are no strangers, only friends you haven't met yet. We struck up a conversation with the American couple we stood next to at the parade, and ended up spending the rest of the day with them. We had a blast, and the company made the day even better.

I liked our Oktoberfest approach, but if I had it to do again, I'd vary our schedule slightly.  I'd put Munich in the centre of our holiday, and I'd stay through the first Monday night of the festival.  I'd go to both parades, decamping to beer gardens off the Wiesn afterwards for lunch and celebration. On Monday, I'd get to the Wiesn early so I could get into a tent. And, maybe, try for two.  Then I'd head down to Schwangau, where the Bavarian Palace Department takes advantage of the influx of tourists to run a short season of concerts in the minstrel's hall at Neuschwanstein. 

Sounds heavenly. That's the plan for next time.