Art and Wine

Alsace, July 16-17, and Burgundy, July 18-20

Returning once again to France, we stayed two nights between Mulhouse and Colmar in Baldersheim, an Alsatian village that clearly lusted after the region’s “Ville Fleurie” title as the following picture of our hotel suggests. Unlike Luxembourg, we neither saw nor heard German (except for tourists) in our village or elsewhere in Alsace, despite the short distance to the Rhine and the Germanic heritage reflected in the place names.


Au Cheval Blanc, Baldersheim

Our sightseeing focused on Colmar, especially the Unterlinden Museum with its wonderful collection of 15th-16th Century art, in particular the renowned Isenheim Altarpiece, which unfolds to reveal a series of paintings on multiple panels. Outside the museum is an early sculpture by Frederic Bartholdi, a native son of Colmar, who later undertook a much larger project for the New York harbor. However, we also found time for a picnic in the Alsatian vineyards, whose products we enjoyed at our hotel’s restaurant, and a drive through the Vosges foothills.


Unterlinden Museum, Colmar


Isenheim Altarpiece, Unterlinden Museum


Bartholdi sculpture, Colmar


Pique-nique in Alsace vineyards

We pushed on to Burgundy the next day to rendezvous in Dijon with son Fritz, who came from a tutoring gig in Switzerland, and our good friends Phyllis Bonanno and Evan Berlack, who interrupted a business trip to join us. Local temperatures approached 40 degrees, the highest we had experienced since Spain, but we fortunately had reservations south of town in a converted 17th Century chateau with a swimming pool and lush park. We made good use of the pool the first afternoon before dinner in the garden with some wonderful Burgundy.


Château de Saulon, our hotel outside Dijon

The next morning the five of us braved the heat and drove to Beaune to visit the Hotel-Dieu, the beautiful hospice built in the 15th Century by the chancellor of Duke Philip the Good as an act of charity. (“A lawyer who did good!” said attorney Evan.) Part palace and part hospital, it was designed with the belief that the sick in body and spirit would benefit from outstanding art. Its most famous piece is Roger van der Weyden’s polyptych of the Last Judgment, among the finest works we have seen on our trip. Medical activities were transferred in 1971 to a modern hospital, where they receive continued support from a world renowned annual auction of wine from the vineyards left by the chancellor and others as an endowment for the Hotel-Dieu.


With Phyllis, Evan, and Fritz at Hôtel-Dieu, Beaune

All this talk of wine led us from Beaune to Volnay, a village with some 30 vintners on the Cote-d’Or. We wanted to linger in the cave we visited, as much for the cool temperature as for the outstanding wine, but the arrival of further customers led us to make our selections and find shade in the village square with a fine view of the vineyareds—the perfect end to a great reunion. We were obliged to return to Dijon at that point to put Fritz, Phyllis and Evan on their trains.


With Fritz in Volnay (Burgundy)

Alone for our final day in Burgundy, we toured the Ducal Palace, which was designed by Frederic Mansart of Mansart roof fame and searched out a wifi hotspot to post these latest chapters on our blog.


Palais des Ducs, Dijon

Old Friends--and Some New Ones

Germany, July 11-15

“You can’t make old friends,” someone said, and we certainly agree. This led us to embark on a five-day detour to Bonn and Stuttgart, stopping first at Aachen to see Charlamagne’s cathedral, whose Byzantine core is still impressive despite the many Gothic accretions—and to find a barber for Todd.


Aachen cathedral

In Bonn we enjoyed the generous hospitality of Christoph Hinz, the retired head of the shipping bureau of Germany’s Transport Ministry and a close and highly valued colleague of Todd’s at many OECD and UNCTAD meetings. To use NASCAR language, Chris was the crew chief for what turned out to be a major pit stop on our ramble, for he took Georgia to a magnificent laundromat (all Miele machines!) and arranged an appointment at the local VW dealer for Valeriu, whose dashboard had been blinking “SERVICE JETZT” since the Netherlands. Needless to say, the shop’s diagnostic equipment found a mechanical problem that needed repair so Valeriu emerged two days later, presumably healthier, while we were definitely poorer.

These demands did not, thank heavens, prevent us from enjoying Bonn and the adjoining Rhine Valley. The highlights were dinner at Rolandsbogen, a restaurant above the Rhine, where we were joined by old friend Klaus Groeger and his wife Ullla, and a trip down the valley to the Romanesque monastery at Maria Laach and the fascinating town of Bacharach, which epitomizes a Rhenish village. Driving back up the Rhine past the famous landmarks, Todd periodically—but briefly at popular request--broke into “Die Lorelei,” learned in high school German class. We were accompanied on these excursions by Roswitha Schmitt, Chris’s delightful companion, with whom we enjoyed a final dinner at her home.


Maria Laach Abbey


With Christoph and Roswitha at Maria Laach Abbey


Bacharach


Rhine Valley

From Bonn it was on to Stuttgart to celebrate the birthday of Jenny Bergsten, one half of the couple who introduced us. Her husband Fred is the director (and Todd’s former boss) at the Institute for International Economics. We stayed at the US Army’s Patch Barracks with Amb. Mary Yates, the State Department’s political adviser (“POLAD”) at the European Command (“EUCOM”), and her husband Amb. John Yates. Jenny, Fred and Georgia were together at Central Methodist College, while John, Fred and Todd were classmates at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

The first evening the Lord Mayor of Stuttgart, Dr. Schuster, a good contact of both Fred’s and Mary’s, had given us six tickets to “Madame Butterfly,” a superb production of the Stuttgart Opera, which has been ranked Number One in the German-speaking countries for more than five years. We returned to the barracks late that evening but were up early the next morning to drive to Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber, an imperial free city that plummeted in importance after the Thirty Years’ War and thereby retained its architectural integrity since little new building took place. “Scenic” would be a mild adjective for this wonderful town on the “Romantische Strasse.”


Rothenburg city gate


Rothenburg


Jenny's birthday celebration in Rothenburg (with John, Mary, Fred and Jenny)


Uh, oh--in trouble again!

We returned to Stuttgart in time to prepare ourselves for the birthday dinner at the Hotel “Graf Zeppelin,” where the mayor and his charming wife joined us. After a fine meal His Honor invited us for a drink (a Brazilian rum punch) on the “Sky Beach,” a rooftop terrace with sand and deck chairs atop a leading department store. We were about 45 years older than the Sky Beach crowd—and certainly dressed differently with our jackets and ties—but they took us in stride and appeared delighted to find that the mayor was joining them.


On Sky Beach with Lord Mayor Schuster and Fred

Heading for Alsace the next day, we stopped in Freiburg, another old imperial free city, which underscored the common experience of such communities in the Middle Ages, regardless of national identity (if any),


Freiburg cathedral

Through the Heart of (Old) Europe

Belgium, July 6-8, and Luxembourg, July 9-10

On Thursday we drove directly from the northern Netherlands to Brussels, where Todd had a meeting late that afternoon with Ambassador Adriaan Jacobovits, the European Union’s Special Representative for the Transnistrian problem in Moldova. Our Hotel Noga was only a few minutes’ walk from the Grand Place in a surprisingly quiet street in a restaurant-rich neighborhood, where we ate every night. The hotel’s most memorable features were its décor, with faded pictures of the Belgian royal family from 1830 on, and a private garage for Valeriu for the incredible sum of 10 euros a night. (Cf. Amsterdam, where we spent 36 euros to park for nine hours in a municipal garage.)


Rue du Commerce near our hotel in Brussels

While Todd went to his meeting, Georgia visited the Grand Place and, of course, the Manneken Pis. We later observed to our bemusement that while a small boy urinating is placed on a pedestal, the dogs of Brussels are accorded a measure of privacy when relieving themselves.


Grand Place, Brussels


Manneken Pis


Canine pissoir, Brussels

On Friday Todd had more Moldova-related meetings, kindly organized by Viorel Ursu of the Open Society Institute, so Georgia took the train for a day in Bruges. She had a charming introduction to the city by taking a boat trip along the city’s canals and then wound her way through the historic center, finding yet another Begijnhof where today there are Benedictine nuns rather than lay sisters. Bruges’s premier museum, the Groeninge, provided a wonderful array of early Flemish and Dutch masters, and the Basilica of the Holy Blood was a treat not to be missed--highly decorated and home to one of the most sacred relics in Europe (they even have a “sentry” guarding it at all times). The highlight, however, was Michelangelo’s “Madonna and Child” at the Church of Our Lady--one of the few Michelangelo sculptures outside of Italy.


The Belfort, Bruges


Old Recorder's House, Bruges


Band concert in Markt, Bruges


Michelangelo's Madonna and Child

Saturday was devoted to shopping and sightseeing in Brussels. Georgia got a running start on the Avenue Louise while Todd put the finishing touches on his written testimony in the Valeriu Pasat case (see our blog posting of April 17, "Arrived in Europe!"). When her spirits began to flag, Todd came to the rescue and we soldiered on through more boutiques until Georgia found the perfect jacket to wear to the Stuttgart opera. Then we walked on to the center of town for total immersion in Brueghel, Rubens and other Flemish masters at the Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts before visiting the Parc du Cinquantenaire near the EU headquarters and finally heading home by subway.


Palais Royal, Brussels


Parc du Cinquantenaire, Brussels


We were tempted, but . .

Todd had toured the Duke of Wellington’s mansion in London so it seemed reasonable to stop at Waterloo, the field that sealed his fame, on our way out of Brussels on Sunday. The lion monument is well commercialized, but we visited several touching cenotaphs, especially one memorializing Wellington’s aide de camp, killed in the battle, whose Scottish family described this young lieutenant colonel in most affectionate terms.


Waterloo

In mid-afternoon we crossed into Luxembourg. We had made reservations at the Hotel Gruber in Steinheim, a village outside the town of Echternach, both of which are located on a beautiful river that forms the border with Germany. All of these names sound very Germanic, but as we discovered, language in Luxembourg is not a simple matter. The official tongue is French, but the guidebooks say that German is widely used for social interaction. Yet, as we soon discovered, Luxemburgerisch, a German-based dialect, is at least an equal partner in the country’s linguistic triumvirate. Commercial signs appear in one or another of the three languages, and on the bulletin board of our village we saw official notices in all three.

Our stay in Luxembourg could not have been more pleasant. We rode bikes along the river to visit Echternach’s abbey, which had housed a scriptorium founded in the 8th Century by a missionary from Northumbria who taught his newly recruited monks how to copy holy texts. The next day we drove into Luxembourg City, a capital in miniature, where we watched respectfully as the Grand Duchess was driven off from the Palace. After an excellent dinner at our hotel, we strolled across a footbridge into Germany, reflecting on how closed this border was in the late 1930’s and how much destruction was wrought here in 1945, when the Echternach basilica was badly damaged as the retreating Germans defended the border against Patton’s advancing army.


Echternach


Palais Grand Ducal, Luxembourg City