Ornate Ceilings (Fontainebleau et Vaux-le-Vicomte)

On October 15th we ventured outside of Paris by bus to the châteaux of Fontainebleau and Vaux-le-Vicomte. It was our last CUPA excursion organized by CUPA, and I commemorated it for posterity by taking far too many pictures.

But the thing about historic châteaux is that when they're filled with ogling tourists, the rooms - grand as they may be - actually feel quite small. Sometimes the only thing you can get a good picture of is the highly ornate ceilings.

Here are the highlights from Fontainebleau...

(The king of France meant for the ceiling of this chapel to rival that of the Sistine. I've never been there, but what do you think?)

We dined in the town of Fontainebleau, then headed back to the bus for Vaux-le-Vicomte.

Vaux-le-Vicomte inspired such a jealousy in King Louis XIV that it prompted him to build Versailles! Unfortunately, our time there was cut a bit short, but here's what I managed to snap of the ceilings...

But my favorite part of Vaux-le-Vicomte was actually the gardens. I had a sudden urge to run and frolic with Beethoven's 6th symphony playing in the background, as if I were some pastel creature from Disney's "Fantasia." But French people don't really frolic, so I contained myself.

Although, when I saw these stone tigers, I just couldn't resist a pose in honor of my dear

Old Nassau!

Un Week-end en Alsace: Haut-Kœnigsbourg and Obernai

The morning after our Academie des Bières excursion, we awoke painfully early, packed up our things in our surprisingly nice hotel rooms (have I mentioned CUPA spoils us? Because they do), scarfed down one of those typical hotel continental breakfasts, and loaded up into the bus. Where were we off to? Well, at that point we weren't entirely sure, but a quick consultation of our itineraries informed us that we were headed to the château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg and to the town of Obernai.

The Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg - "Bien plus qu'un monument," as its brochure promised - was built in the 12th century, restored under the direction of Emperor Wilhelm II at the beginning of the 20th (obviously before France got Alsace back), and was everything a medieval castle should be!

Here are a few glimpses why, taken as I wandered up and down curving stone steps, long hallways, and peered over turret ledges...

If I had been in the mood, I might have tried to capture these steps in a way that paid homage to Frederick Evans' well-known photograph "A Sea of Steps"...

Medieval Starbucks? Granddad, I thought of you...

Ceiling of the great hall...

Exactly the kind of chandelier you would expect Teutonic knights to eat under...

I named this area off the great hall "the breakfast nook"...

Why, of course I have a large stuffed dragon hanging over my breakfast nook - don't you?

The classic and obligatory wild boar's head:

Trophy wall! It was actually much more extensive than I could even capture with my camera...

View from the top:

Pious, and the perfect shape for shooting arrow without getting hit by incoming ones...

Then it was back to the buses for the last stop on our journey: the town of Obernai, where we would have our dégustation and initiation aux vins d'Alsace (wine tasting and introduction to the wines of Alsace).

Obernai was a quaint French-German mix, like a tiny Strasbourg, but otherwise unremarkable. My stomach growled as we passed countless bakeries tempting me with authentic bretzels, and I hoped I would be able to survive wine tasting on an empty stomach...

Our sommelier for the afternoon was quite the character: well-dressed, fastidious, well-versed in both history and geology, passionate about protecting the authenticity of wines (he's the kind of person you never mention a California champagne to!), and profoundly poetic in his descriptions of the white wines we had the pleasure of encountering that day.

Okay, time to reveal one of my goals for my time here in France: become a wine snob. Since I'm 21 now, I can return to the US and put this newfound knowledge to good use, and forever eschew classless American college-style drinking.

So though I felt rather ridiculous holding my glass by the foot (not the stem), tipping the glass to watch how the legs (larmes, or "tears" in French) dripped, sniffing, swirling, and sucking the wine into my mouth with a strange sound (this is meant to further aerate the wine and bring out more flavors)...I did all those things. And though it may have been totally psychological, I really do think I could taste and differentiate the lemon, grapefruit, passionfruit, pineapple, black tea, jasmine, and sea salt that the sommelier identified in each of the three wines we sampled.

We then proceeded into the restaurant, where a lovely menu awaited us:

Once again, the decision was pretty much made for me (other than dessert), but no complaints here! Still, I snapped a picture of S.'s foie gras with mango chutney for you (since my mesclun salad, though delicious, was less photogenic):

The vegetarian main course at this restaurant was much more normal: a delicate arrangement of vegetables, mushrooms, and potato purée:

(the green vegetable in the middle was like a cross between broccoli and cauliflower - yum!)

Oh, and did I mention that the sommelier personally came around to each table and poured each of us a different wine for each of the three courses? Here's one of them:

When it came to dessert, we were all expecting the kougelhofpf glacé to be a glazed kougelhopf, or a kougelhopf filled with ice cream. What were not expecting was ice cream shaped like a kougelhopf, and filled with rum!

I love ice cream, I love rum, and I love raspberry sauce, but this was not my cup of tea!

Luckily, I had switched orders with someone so that I could get the assiette tout chocolat, which I was expecting to be an assortment of truffles. Once again, we were surprized:

Chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, and chocolate ice cream - now that, I can live with!

We finished off the meal with coffee and a dish of smaller, humbler sweets - including marshmallows and fruit pâté (the gelly, sugar-encrusted squared in the middle).

Then it was back to the bus and back to Strasbourg to catch the train back to Paris. Au revoir, Alsace!

Un Weekend en Alsace : Strasbourg

Thanks to our ever-generous study abroad program, my fellow CUPA students and I spent the weekend in Alsace. Those of you who remember your European history will remember that this region has passed back and forth between French and German hands over the past few centuries. It's a region still known for its white wines (more on that in my next post!), German-sounding Alsatian dialect, and hearty German-influenced food, among other things.

As you stroll through the charming streets of maisons aux colombages under signs with the old names for guilds (corporations in French), you might think you'd crossed the border into Germany...

ESPECIALLY if you wandered into the area known as (somewhat contradictorily) "La Petite France"...

Strudel and pretzels (known as "bretzels" in France) abound - even a bretzel crocodile!

Three of us stopped into a cute little restaurant, tucked away behind a large wooden door on a side street.

We were offered a little appetizer of head cheese (read description at your own discretion!), so I amused myself with spoonfuls of the strong mustard from the little ceramic jar on our table. S. ordered this little fella...

...and ordered this feuilleté with Munster cheese and choucroute (sauerkraut), after double-checking with the waitress that it was vegetarian...

...but S. double-checked the sauce for me and confirmed my fears: the sauce was definitively beef-based! I let the waitress know, but she seemed unconcerned: as long as a sauce doesn't have chunks of meat in it, and just has beef broth à la base, it's considered vegetarian in Alsace! Ça me fait chier!!!

Still, I tried not to let the fact that I had ingested cow distract me from enjoying Strasbourg. We met up with the rest of the group in front of the cathedral - one of the most intricately-decorated Gothic cathedrals I've ever seen!

Lucky puppy - touch his nose!

Astronomical clock! We missed the big show at noon, but we still got to see the 1pm.

We then continued our walking tour out in town...

The skinniest house in all of Strasbourg:

Look what we found: the best of pretzels and donuts, all rolled into one! I'm kind of surprised the Americans didn't think of this one first...

Aaaand...if you're wondering if a Nutella-filled beignet is a good idea, just look at how many were left by the time we got there:

S. tries on some traditional Alsatian garb...well, sort of...

~

Oh hey, it's me in my 10euro hat, checking out vintage cameras at a flea market! [Photo cred. to Miss S.]

Now, my story gets interesting...all of CUPA had reservations for dinner at a highly-recommended restaurant, Au Tire-Bouchon:

Pleasant enough interior, and there was both red and white wine on every table. Our large group was scattered amongst several tables throughout the restaurant, and S. and I just happened to sit with the directrice of our program!

As we were a group of about forty, we had ordered our food beforehand through CUPA. Since there's usually only one vegetarian option on the list, my decisions were quite easy! The first course (for me) was a lovely and typically-French plate of crudités: carrottes rapées (grated carrot salad), beet salad, and celeri remoulade (celery root grated in a creamy mayonnaise-y sauce). Delicious and refreshing.

All I knew about my next course was that it was supposed to be some sort of "assiette de légumes" (vegetable plate) - that's what I had selected from the group menu. But what I got was this:

A tureen (there's never been a more appropriate occasion to use that word) of bibeleskaas (the Alsatian version of fromage blanc - literally "white cheese," is the yogurt-like substance lacking yogurt's bacteria cultures that French eat either savory or sweet), garnished with raw onions, AND an almost-empty plate with four little mounds of parsley, chopped onions, chives, and minced garlic.

WHAT!?

Everyone at my table stared at this strange offering and wondered what I should do with it. Was something else still coming? Was I supposed to add the toppings to the bibeleskaas, or mix them on the plate?

In my head, I was also wondering, Will I be able to digest that amount of un-cultured dairy product without extreme discomfort?

Madame la directrice stopped a passing waiter to ask for an explanation for my bizarre dishes. The waiter assured us that some sautéed potatoes were coming.

While I wasn't exactly keen on the thought of eating simple carbohydrates with a mound of dairy that would surely upset my intestines, I was willing to do it for the sake of the cultural experience...

And so we waited...and waited...and waited.

Finally, it became clear that the kitchen had forgotten about my sautéed potatoes; so I seized the opportunity to order an omelette. This beauty arrived:

A+ for presentation, no?

A lovely omelet aux herbes fines, garnished with purple basil and flanked by some sautéed carrot ribbons in butter.

I thus ended the evening as the very happy envy of every CUPA vegetarian.

~

Four of us spent the later part of the evening at L'Academie des Bières, where we sampled four varieties in 50cl glasses, and enjoyed the cozy pub atmosphere - what more could one want?