2011 Christmas Market Roundup

My dad at the Strasbourg Marché de Noël

I’m just going to come right out and admit it. I’m a Christmas market junkie. I love the wooden chalets, I love the lights, the festive tunes, the holiday bustle, the treats and of course, the glühwein (or vin chaud, depending on where you’re sipping it).

Last year, in addition to Luxembourg Ville, we enjoyed visiting the markets in Trier, Kassel, Bad Hersfeld, Strasbourg, Maastricht, Valkenburg, and (pausing for a breath) Montreux. If you’re heading to any of those for the first time, I’m happy to share thoughts or recommendations for all of them if you e-mail me at luxemblogger@gmail.com.

On tap for us this December: Köln, Brussels, small towns in Alsace and the Black Forest, Stockholm, Paris and Besançon – whew! (Something tells me that I’m going to need to borrow a pair of pants from Santa Claus himself by the time this month is over…)

If you have nearby markets to add to the list or any tips, recommendations or maybe a glühwein recipe to share, please contribute to the comments section below!

Joyeux Noël!

Vacationing with Vauban

Cancale oysters, fresh from the ocean.

Three weeks ago, Nick and I were on the Brittany coast of France, in the town of Cancale, sitting in the sunshine on concrete steps and slurping raw oysters pulled fresh from the ocean, pried open by women who spend their entire day shucking oysters of all sizes and shapes for locals and tourists who visit their stands. There are normal-looking oysters for the ridiculously inexpensive price of 5€ to 8€ a dozen, and there are also oysters for sale as large as your hand that you’ll wonder how in the world people eat without dripping oyster liquor all over themselves. Then there are the briny Plate-Belons, les plates, the flat regional specialties that the women will tell you to eat as they are; you won’t even be allowed to buy a lemon to take away with your douziane. And no matter which stand you buy your huîtres, you’ll hear the same advice: when you’re finished eating, oyster shells get tossed into the sea; lemon rinds and plastic plates and knives go back to the stand.

What a lineup!

When the tide is high, those concrete steps disappear into the ocean. When the tide is out, sailboats sink lazily into the muddy floor of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel. Nearby, men in waterproof bucket pants work the oyster beds on foot or by tractor, meters from where the fruits of their labor are distributed to happy stomachs. All day long, the silhouette of Mont-Saint-Michel sits on the horizon, an especially breathtaking sight against the tangerine glow of sunrise.

Even though it ends in an “r” – as the best oyster-eating months do – October is the off season in Cancale. Which is why we love it there. It’s the only place we’ve been to twice on vacation while living in Europe. I mean, let’s face it: fall colors + quiet seaside town + cheap, fresh oysters + the most unreal deep turquoise ocean you’ve ever seen, well, that all adds up to a pretty stellar vacation for this household.

Oyster beds in Cancale

Lest you think I’m in cahoots with the Cancale Tourism Office by using fancy phrases like “tangerine glow” to describe the sunrise, this post isn’t actually about my vacation. It’s actually about something interesting I learned while on vacation that ties back to Luxembourg.

(But I’m including a few more Cancale tidbits at the end of the post, in case you want to go.)

Fête de la Mirabelle (August 27 & 28)

Adding to the list of delicious things to discover in this part of the world is the colorful assortment of fruit available this time of year. Take the plum, for instance. Red and black plums are nothing new to me, but when I shop here, these old standards are part of a rainbow of selection of more colors and varieties of plum than I ever even knew existed: like yellow plums, the green Reine Claude, smoky purple quetsch and, of course, the golden mirabelle.

Mirabelles are the tiniest plums I’ve ever seen, about the size of a shooter marble. They taste plummy, but not as tart; they’re a much more mellow, sort of sugary sweet. You’ll find them in countless ways; cooked into tartes and tartelettes, preserved in syrup, made into confiture, and perhaps most popularly, turned into eau de vie, the fiery, alcoholic after-dinner digestif created to burn a hole through the large dinner you’ve just eaten.

This weekend in Metz, you’ll have a chance to find mirabelles in all of these forms and more, at the 61st annual Fête de la Mirabelle.

Wine Tasting in Provence…by Public Bus

I try to make it a rule to never turn down the chance to go to Provence. And a little over a month ago, I had the opportunity to spend exactly one day there.

Nick was headed to a work site near Provence on business, and then on to the Loire Valley area before heading back to Luxembourg. He would be gone for a few days, and, once he realized that he’d be in a car by himself for 20+ hours, decided that it might be a good idea to invite his charming, intellectually stimulating and always entertaining wife to join him for the ride. Oh, okay, fine: he really just wanted a co-pilot along to help keep him awake and to plug addresses into the GPS.

Figuring that four days in France would more than make up for the week of French classes I’d be skipping, I went along for the ride…with an ulterior motive, naturally. Hey, someone in this household has to build our French wine collection while Nick works, right?

User's Guide: Getting to Paris (and the rest of France) on the Cheap

What do Big Foot, Sasquatch, the Loch Ness monster and the 25€ Luxembourg to Paris TGV special have in common? You’ve got it: none of them actually exist.

At least, that’s what I thought. But then I spent an afternoon clicking around the web site of France’s national train service, SNCF, and made a life-changing discovery: even though the 25€ Lux to Paris special never, ever appears when you try to book a ticket, there actually are ways to get to Paris on the cheap, for very close to 25€.

In addition to that, if you’re willing to make a few extra clicks on the SNCF web site, there are ways to get to other places in France for much less than you’d expect. And there are other inexpensive ways to explore places in France that are a little closer to home, too.

So, Francophiles: read on for my roundup of cheap ways to get to France:

Village Hopping in Alsace

Ribeauvillé

There are several problems with the Alsatian region of France.

First and foremost, Alsace is so close to Luxembourg – less than 3 hours – that it’s a perfect weekend destination; the problem is, when you get there, you’re going to want to stay longer than a weekend.

Second, once you do get there for a weekend or otherwise, you’re going to have to make some critical decisions. Should you follow la route des vins, la route de la choucroute, la route du chocolat, or la route du fromage? (I’m only listing half of the suggested routes here, but rest assured: all roads lead to your stomach.)

Then there’s the problem of where to stay. You see, there are scores of tiny timbered towns that make up Alsace and each and every one of them is charming and unique in its own way. Some towns sit beneath ruins of centuries old castles, others have been singled out by the Conseil National des Villes et Villages Fleuris for their town’s collectively dazzling, colorful displays of flowers and landscaping.

Finally, there’s the problem of what to eat. Alsatian cuisine is a perfect blend of German heartiness and French finesse. But with only a few precious meals to enjoy during a weekend stay, how does one choose between the choucroute garnie, the baeckeoffe, or anything that involves Muenster cheese (invented here)? And will there still be room for kugelhopf the next morning?

And most importantly: how many orders of tarte flambée are appropriate to share in one day?

I Heart N(anc)Y

Nancy, France is a stone's throw away from Luxembourg in the car or on the train, and has been on our list of day trips for a while. The city is the capital of the Lorraine region of France (you've had quiche Lorraine, right?) and has its own special flair, but if you blink twice you might think you've stepped into a tiny version of Paris. At least that's how we felt when we stepped off the train in Nancy on a recent weekend.