Trier is just as good the second time 'round

When last Ferrara's View visited Trier, it was a cold and gloomy winter weekend enlightened by the city's fantastic Christmas market. (See entry for 2/12/07). It was the highlight of that first trip to Luxembourg and, with apologies to the Grand Duke and the fine people of his Duchy, this charming German town remains my top sightseeing pick in the area.

Trier's main claim to fame is its very long history, particularly as a prosperous Roman town and provincial capital in the late empire. There's a wealth of Roman ruins here, a couple of them on par with anything you can see in Italy. (If you're planning to visit a few, opt for the combined ticket.) A stroll of a couple of miles takes you around the biggest sites.

The blockbuster is the Porta Negra, one of the most intact and monumental Roman city gates left in the world. Certainly the best I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of Roman ruins.

Last winter I'd only circled the outside; this visit we took the time to clamber through it. An interior exploration highlights just how big the structure is. You wander through a substantial hall and climb about three stories of stairs before coming out onto the arched, open galleries above the gate. There are three levels of these, all with great views over the city. The Porta Negra had been turned into a church in the Middle Ages, you can still see the incongruous carvings of saints and baroque garlands in between the austere Romanesque columns. Thankfully, some clever locals in the 19th century realised that a Roman gate was far more interesting, and a more unique draw to their city, than yet another German baroque church. So they ripped out the Christian additions and restored the gate, as best they could, to its original state.

Equally impressive, and intact, is Constantine's basilica. Basilicas were massive halls, initially created by the Romans as a centre for administrative and judicial proceedings, then adopted by Christians as a model for churches. Thus there are usually just two options for seeing a basilica these days: massive but incomplete walls in ruins, or a Roman skeleton that's been encrusted with centuries of religious decoration. Though the basilica in Trier is used as a church, it's escaped the encrustations, and stands as a pure, if stripped down, example of what the basilica would have looked like in its profane days. There's a display along one wall that provides the history of the building and offers a view of what it would have looked like in the 4th century. Simple yet monumental, I love this building.

A stroll through some pleasant but unexceptional Baroque gardens brings you from the basilica to the Roman baths. This site could use a bit more interpretation for those unfamiliar with what they're viewing. There are a few substantial walls standing but the site is mostly hints of walls and foundations. About a half mile beyond this, up a steep hill that marks this edge of the Moselle river valley and sports vineyards at its top, is the arena. Again, some imagination is required here, as there are no impressive stoneworks. The wall around the arena is intact, but the rows of seats are now earthworks. You can clamber beneath the arena to see the storage and production areas. This is wonderfully creepy and dank, with wooden walkways laid over flooded areas. They lay on gladiatorial contests here for the kids on summer weekends, which would be worth checking out.

Another echo of Rome is the way Trier's antiquities sit amongst a wealth of baroque buildings. One particularly amusing example is the pink and white elector's palace, an edifice that looks more like it was piped from icing sugar than built with bricks and mortar. Originally the archbishop's palace, it was built next to the basilica. The mix is so odd, it's as if the two buildings were floating at sea and rammed into each other. The palace is now a government building but is open on occasion. For a euro it's probably worth going inside to see the large courtyard reflecting the many centuries of building and the outrageously over the top main staircase, awash with fat putti gamboling in a pink and blue heaven. Anyone familiar with "Precious Moments" figurines from the States will wonder if their creator was the reincarnation of the man who did this room. (I thought my resolutely male traveling companion was going to break into hives if we didn't clear out quickly.)

We returned to the Cathedral, which I'd visited briefly in the winter. This time flooded with light, it was exposed as an even more spectacular building, with layers of decoration spanning several hundred years. The woodwork in the choir alcove at the back of the building is worth taking some time to study. Not to be missed is a trip up to the lofty altar, where a separate chapel holds a rock crystal casket the size of a tomb holding ... they say ... the robe Christ wore on his walk to execution. (Or, as the man dubbed it, "God's tee shirt".) This relic only gets an airing every few decades. It left me thinking that, in both relics and wine, German marketeers are just not rising to the challenge. Surely this should be just as famous as the Shroud of Turin? Whether or not you believe in such things, it's fascinating to see the effort and art that went into preserving it.

There are other churches, Marx's birthplace and some museums to see. But after ticking off the main sights, my recommendation is simply to stroll around and take in the architecture, much of which is of the storybook Germanic type that always seems to illustrate fairy tales. The main square is particularly pleasant with its romantic architecture, ornate fountain and sprinkling of market stalls. We ate lunch there, outside in the sunshine, complementing the atmosphere with sausage, sauerkraut and mustard and watching the world go by. Another fine day.

The best inspiration for peace in our time

The pastoral prosperity of Luxembourg, Belgium, Northern France and Southern Germany fills the observer with a sense of peace. It's hard to imagine anything violent, or even particularly energetic, taking place within these gentle valleys, wooded hills and winding rivers.

Of course, that couldn't be further from the truth. For both World Wars, most especially the first, this region saw horrific fighting, death and destruction. And that was just the culmination of centuries of petty princelings and power-hungry kings arranging borders with the blood of their people.

The memories are all around you. Motorway exits all along the route between Calais and Luxembourg are a list of past horrors: Ypres, Verdun, the Somme. Evidently farmers still plough up the detrius of the trenches. It seemed almost inevitable that one evening we ended up watching "Paths of Glory", one of Stanley Kubrick's early films featuring Kirk Douglas as a particularly sane leader in the trenches trying to defend his men from the insanity of the generals' orders.
Moving on to the next war, the Maginot Line snakes across the nearby French countryside. Now just a tourist attraction, it was once a wall, punctuated with bunkers, to keep the Germans from attacking. (It worked, sort of. The Nazis went through Belgium instead, avoiding the barrier all together.) Near Luxembourg city you'll find two sprawling military cemeteries from WWII. One for the Germans, one for the Americans. In a perverse reminder of how close the fighting was, the burial grounds are barely a mile from each other, and easily visited together.

Both are sobering, but in different ways. The American site is vast, with clean lines, bright white crosses, rigidly tidy landscape, a modernist memorial and massive walls with displays carved upon them showing the progress of the war. Amongst the hundreds of graves, one in particular stands out. General Patton, who grew to old age and died at home, wished to be buried here amongst his men. It is poignant, tragic, and causes you to thank the people who made the ultimate sacrafine, whilst contemplating the horror of war. But for oppressive gloom, you have to move to the Germans.

The German cemetery is set within a dark wood. You walk down a quiet wooded path until you're confronted with a door in a dark granite wall. Once inside, more of the requisite lines of crosses commemorating lives too short. But these are all of dark stone, in a heavier, more medieval shape. Combined with the encroaching wood, it's not a place you want to linger. But like the American site, it does its job. You walk away shaken, a bit tearful and deeply appreciative of the peace that now blankets this land.

Really, when you think about it ... how amazing is that? Just 60 years ago the place was a bloodbath, with a multiple-century history of the same. Today, it's a quiet backwater where only a few sites and signs even remind us of past violence. Could things change this fast in the Middle East? Might tourists in some future Iran or Iraq shake their heads in wonder that so much strife once took place across peaceful lands? I doubt the boys in the trenches in 1914 could have imagined today's Luxembourg. So, who knows?

All I can say is that, given these musings, two of the most beautiful sites I saw on my whole holiday were the French and German border stations on the highways in and out of Luxembourg. Both closed. Mouldering. Desolate. Utterly obsolete. Never have rotting, abandoned buildings been so beautiful. For in their abandonment is a celebration of a real peace in our time.

Let's hope it spreads.

A secret culinary hot spot, with a good spa thrown in

People clearly enjoy their food in Luxembourg. I don't know whether it's the natives, the 60% of the population who are expats from other countries, or simply the result of so much affluence, but this is a country awash with fine restaurants and great wine lists, delivering the goods for 30% to 50% less than equivalent places in the UK.

At the top of the week's experiences must come the Restaurant la Distillerie inside the Chateau de Bourglinster, where we threw ourselves with abandon into the chef's nine-course "symphonie culinaire" with matching wines. (11 courses if you include the amuse bouche and the chocolates with coffee.) You will not be surprised that the meal lasted for five glorious hours, delivering taste, artistry and a balance of flavours so exquisite as to put this place on par with the world-ranked Fat Duck, despite holding two fewer Michelin stars. And at half the price for the equivalent experience, it might be worth a trip to the Grand Duchy just for a meal here.

The dining room is a solid, vaulted medieval room on the ground floor of the castle with gothic windows overlooking the small village and forests tucked in between limestone bluffs. There were just 10 tables in the room; this is intimate, almost private dining. The amuse bouche sent out by the chef to accompany our initial glasses of champagne set the standard for what was to come. A flower pot, from which sprung a forest of skewers, each topped with a different morsel to perk up your taste buds. The variety of colours and shapes did indeed make this look like an edible flower arrangement. One bite in particular provided the memory of the meal: fois gras and chocolate, topped with chocolate space dust (the candy that fizzes once it works with the moisture of your mouth). I know it sounds bizarre, but it was one of the most decadent and delicious things I've ever tried.

Another highlight was an artistic turn on "surf and turf": a large marrow bone, hollowed and cleaned. Then filled with an artificial marrow of vegetable paste. Topped with a langoustine claw. Served with a matching "cocktail" ... a highball glass with a couple of inches of langoustine bisque in it, and a sprig of mint emerging from the top that you were supposed to inhale as you sipped the bisque through a straw. As with the fois gras and space dust, the nose full of greenery had us giggling at the same time we appreciated the flavours. Other courses included pigeon, lobster and more fois gras. The cheese course was one of the most beautiful I've ever seen, with four pieces of local cheese each matched with the appropriate biscuit, fruit or chutney, displayed as if tiny works of art. Just when I thought it couldn't get better, dessert arrived. Six tiny pots lined up along a long, rectangular plate, featuring the whole gamut of sweet options (fruits, creams, chocolates) presented in a suggested order so that your taste buds started at mild to and worked up to intense. Every course was matched with the appropriate wines. I wish I could remember details, but suffice it to say that it was all perfect.

The chef here, who kindly signed our menus before allowing us to take our coffee in the sunny, mostly empty castle courtyard, used to be the chef for the Grand Duke of Luxembourg. So if you want to get a taste of what a state banquet with royalty must be like, this is the place to do it. It's a safer bet, I regret to say, than me getting visitors an invite to pop across the river and dine with my royal neighbour in Windsor.

We didn't need to spend big money or go the lavish, nine-course option to find great food elsewhere. The wine town of Remisch dished up two fine lunches. The covered veranda at the Hotel de L'Esplanade served up a classic lunch of pate and l'escargot, consumed at leisure as we watched the Moselle flow by. An even better option was the restaurant about a mile up river at the St. Martin winery, where a sea of crisp white linen dots a lawn overlooking the water. Here we had some extra-ordinary "salads" : the lettuce merely a picturesque green cradle for the abundance of seafood or meat arranged atop it. (Strange thing about this little landlocked country. The seafood was fantastic.) Check out the scallops on the left side of my plate in the picture. I've never seen any that big before.

In Luxembourg city, we had another fine range of seafood at the Maison du Homard (House of Lobster). This place sits on the main square, just a few hundred yards from the Grand Duke's palace, and offers both fine food and great people watching from its outdoor tables. Not being an oyster fan, I can only attest to the quality of the satisfaction on my friends' faces as they dug in to one of the restaurant's specialties. I opted for a seafood pasta so heavily laden with fish that I left much of the pasta behind, unable to push on with the generous servings.

If you're going to go for full on indulgence, then at some point all that food and wine really should be complemented by a spa. So with the boys back at work, Cora and I went for the ultimate girls' treat at the spa in Mondorf. Although this wasn't quite so "girlie" a treat as anticipated. This was my first full-on continental spa, where Germanic types of both sexes come for medical reasons. As opposed to your typical Anglo-Saxon spa, which is all about luxury and beauty treatments and is almost exclusively female.

The architecture here was rather hideous; a brutal concrete spread from the '60s or '70s, clearly meant to evoke its serious medical purpose. (There are lovely examples of art nouveau and French Empire elsewhere in town, but the modern builders ditched those for the main facility.) Even more disturbing were the naked men strolling around the pool and saunas. As with all my (few) experiences with public nakedness, I once again observed that anyone with a body worth exhibiting remained clothed, while those who were ready to reveal everything...

Well, you have to admire their confidence. Cora and I, swimming costumes solidly affixed to bodies, headed to the lower pool where the temperature was higher and clothing required. And here, I found heaven. I should admit here that I'm the kind of person who can easily spend three hours in a bathtub with a good book, topping up the hot water as needed. At Mondorf I found a huge, steamy bathtub, half indoors and half out, dotted with a wide variety of jets, currents, waterfalls and bubbles with which to pummel yourself before swimming over to a submerged bench to lounge. The mineral water flows straight out of the earth at 25 degrees c and has been drawing crowds since 1847. The sensation of lying in that delicious warmth, looking up at the trees swaying above was pure bliss.

I could have stayed in there all day. And almost did, with the exception of a 90-minute facial and a lovely lunch in the restaurant. (Where I was rather miffed to have to put on shoes. I mean, really, if men can expose their private parts in sauna and pool, why did I have to cover my toes in order to grab a bite to eat?) I would not have wanted to try to figure out this place without speaking French, but now that I've been there and navigated the differences I'd happily return. The full day pass to the hot pool was less than £10; the facial was about the same price as ones I've had in London, but of a much better quality and with more services included as part of the base price.

So, another surprising vote for Luxembourg. As a hedonistic retreat, it can hold its own with the best of them.

Oddly American Luxembourg provides a holiday of deep relaxation

Saying you've been on holiday to Luxembourg provokes some very strange reactions. People expect you to be lying on a beach, heading off for culture or even adventure trekking through the developing world. They don't expect you to spend 10 days in a landlocked European backwater that's famous for little more than being tiny and having the world's highest GDP. I wouldn't have been here, of course, had it not been for the temporary residence of my friends Cora and Didier in the Grand Duchy. But I have to tell you: the tail end of Benelux provided a fine and deeply relaxing holiday, awash with wonderful scenery, picturesque outings and stupendous food and wine.

Despite an ancient history, a ruling Grand Duke, a generous sprinkling of castles and natives speaking the remarkably odd Luxembourgish, the place reminds me more of America than anywhere I've been in Europe. Large, well maintained highways lead out of the city centre to a ring of prosperous suburbs filled with generously proportioned houses. The city is about the size of a mid-range Midwestern town, filled with small high tech office buildings. A remarkably prosperous population shops in impressive supermarkets, returning to the big cars they use to go everywhere. Everything seems tidy, well maintained and remarkably modern, even if the skyline is broken by castle towers and church steeples.

Evidently I'm not the first to notice this; many people I spoke to said it was a frequent observation. Perhaps it comes from the heavy post-war American presence, perhaps from the huge expat community living here now. Or maybe I was just getting the lingering influence of the American Womens' Club's Fourth of July Party, at a local park complete with line dancers, Elvis, a mechanical bull and copious amounts of free food and drink given to anyone of any nationality who turned up. God Bless America.

My top impression of Luxembourg is landscape. Not dramatic mountains or seascapes, but lovely, rolling acres of hills, valleys, fields and forests. It's a soothing countryside, filled with simple pastoral pleasures. Golden wheat fields dotted with poppies and cornflowers, patchworks of agricultural abundance stretching to the horizon, the Moselle river meandering lazily through vineyards. It's a great place for aimless walks or slow drives with the top down.

Visiting wineries along the Moselle was probably my favourite excursion; so good I ended up in the riverside town of Remisch three times in the week. First for a post-prandial riverside stroll in golden evening sunshine after a remarkable meal (of which more in another post), second for some vineyard visits and a river excursion, third because I really wanted to get back to that one vineyard that we missed the first time...

We discovered some fantastic wines at reasonable prices, all the more exciting because none of this stuff gets exported. Who's ever heard of Luxembourgish wine? Anyone dining at my place in the next few months, to be sure, since my cellar is now stocked. I was particularly impressed with the region's sparkling whites, similar in taste to fine champagnes (that region is only two hour's drive, after all) but with a bit less sparkle. I also became a big fan of the pinot noirs, especially a lovely light red from St. Martin vineyards that will be great with poultry white meat or fish. It would be fantastic with the Thanksgiving turkey, but I can't imagine the six bottles I brought home lasting that long. My particular recommendation goes to the Caves Wellenstein, which has a modern tasting room staffed by a friendly attendant who offers a huge range. We liked their sparkling wine under the brand name of "Cult" enormously.

Boat rides leave from the town centre at regular intervals. At about £5 for an hour's cruise this seemed a great deal. For an extra Euro you can bring your dog aboard. What a civilised country. The views from the water are as gentle as the wine; a few castles and charming village roofscapes, but mostly just zigs and zags of vineyards stretching up the hills, highlighted by the occasional gash of an exposed limestone bluff.

Luxembourg city centre is the obvious tourist attraction here, and we were in and out of it several times throughout the week. There aren't any real blockbuster sites; the appeal is more in the mix of old and new buildings in a striking setting. The city grew up around a deep valley, really more of a gorge, with fortified buildings at the various high spots. Today the gorge is crossed by a series of dramatic bridges. There's an old town filled with buildings with a vaguely Austrian feel in the valley. (This was, after all, part of the Habsburg empire for a few centuries.) The newer buildings sit above the valley, but they share street space with castle ruins, old churches and the Grand Duke's impressive palace, which looks like it's just dropped in from the Loire Valley for an urban getaway. The polyglot feel to the architecture continues as you wander about the main streets. The main town squares feel defiantly French; some buildings support resolutely Germanic towers; a modern stretch filled with bank offices looks disturbingly like Clayton, Missouri.

Though it's not a top tourist spot, there are sightseeing buses. We hopped on one that looks like a miniature train and provides a one-hour loop through upper and lower towns, complete with town history. And myth. The medieval knight who built the first castle here was supposed to have sold his soul to the devil and started his dynasty after pairing up with a water nymph who was the prevailing spirit of the place. Yes, there's more character here than you'd expect.

I suspect the modern residents of Luxembourg, whether the natives or the 60% who are expats, are just as fond of their pleasures as that first ruler. The streets are remarkably laden with cosmetics and interior decor shops, restaurants are of a lavish quality and we went to a marvelous spa. Of those sybaritic adventures, more tomorrow.

Charlotte Street Hotel and Zilli Fish: Two reliable picks for mid-town catching up

It was a predictably busy pre-holiday week, spent trying to wrap up things at work, sort passports, pack and get the house tidy for departure. Surely I am not the only person whose mother taught her to clean obsessively before leaving on vacation, so that if you died while away people would not think you were a bad housekeeper? I was a bit more worried about my staff feeling that I'd abandoned them with a disorganised pile of problems. I got both handover notes and house in a tidy order, so it was victory on all fronts.

I even managed to squeeze in a couple of long-planned and much needed catch ups with people in London, with generous lashings of fine food and conversation that got me in the mood for the upcoming holiday.

First to the Charlotte Street Hotel for lunch. This is a trendy staple in North Soho, always popular with the media and creative communities. It's a boutique hotel with a fashionable bar and an elegant, modern dining room. On a beautiful, sunny day, the doors across the front open to the street, giving the whole place a marvellously Southern, Continental appeal. In addition to a social catch up, this was also a serious business lunch with some conversation that needed to happen. And here Charlotte Street scores particularly high. Tables spread with enough distance to give you a bit of privacy, acoustics that facilitate conversation and a staff that's attentive enough to take care of your needs promptly, then backs off to allow you your space until they're called for.

The menu is your standard continental European mix, with a broad range of meats and vegetables in preparations drawn from France, Italy and further afield. I had a perfectly prepared slice of sea trout, crispy on the outside, delicate and flaky on the inside. Dessert was a wicked triple chocolate pleasure: a white chocolate mousse studded with bits of dark chocolate bownie, decorated with wings of chocolate praline. Absolutely worth the resolution to skip dinner that night in order to allow myself the indulgence.

The next night, on to Zilli Fish for a gossipy dinner with some girls from work. Another Soho staple, this one's a bit further South: just above Piccadilly Circus on Brewer Street, so fantastically located for meeting up with people who commute from a variety of train stations ringing town. Chef Owner Aldo Zilli is one of London's score of culinary TV stars, which did give me some hesitation as I booked the table. He is more famous for being famous than he is for his food.

I needn't have worried. By mid-main course this had landed near the top of my favourite spots for meeting up with friends. The menu is resolutely, authentically Italian and, as the name implies, almost exclusively seafood. The service is just as properly Italian, with a jovial bunch of doe-eyed youths from the old country not only providing service, but recommendations. Steering us to the best bits of the menu, recommending wine, not batting an eyelid when my friend with the curious taste in dessert wine quaffed that tipple throughout her main meal, instantly and without question replacing a main dish deemed too spicy with another option without charge, plying us with copious amounts of complimentary limoncello at the evening's end. Yes, it would have been exactly like an evening in Tuscany if the view out the open French doors had revealed a Renaissance castle and some swaying pines instead of the slightly seedy Georgian townhouses of Soho.

My carpaccio of swordfish with a generous pile of balsamic-dressed rocket was both an excellent recommendation from the waiter and innocent enough to hardly count on Weight Watchers. Which was my excuse for diving in to the house special: spaghetti with lobster. This is a simple, classic dish. And as so many are, it's often done badly. This was absolutely perfect. Spaghetti exactly al dente, a light sauce the perfect distillation of high summer tomatoes, the acidic sharpness of which meant that you could consume all those lucious pieces of lobster without feeling that everything was "too rich". The portion size was remarkably abundant for London; a magnificent twirl of pasta, generously studded with seafood in an impressive mound atop half a lobster carcass. At about double the size of what most restaurants would serve, and quadruple an acceptable dieter's portion, I should have felt both ill and wracked with guilt when I consumed the whole thing. Sadly, this was one of those times when the Sicilian DNA overpowered Weight Watchers discipline. All I felt was a remarkable sense of contentment and the need for a double espresso.