Heidelberg Part 2: Coffee, Castles and Kirsch

Saturday morning, we trooped downstairs to the hotel dining room for the traditional Euro Breakfast (soft-boiled eggs, breads, pastries, a plethora of sausages, cured meats, meusli, yogurt, cheeses, juice and coffee). Thus fortified, we headed out ready for adventure. And maybe for another cup of coffee along the way. 

Our hotel was only a couple blocks from Hauptgasse, the main shopping street wihch is about a mile long. We walked past the Heidelberg University Library, an impressive-looking red stone building on Plock Street. With over three million volumes, it’s even more impressive on the inside. Despite its humble beginnings, it is now one of the largest libraries in Europe. It got its start in the 1300s and has continued to grow over the centuries, despite several setbacks. It had to start over after the Vatican stole all its books in 1622. Then after a catastrophic fire in 1693 destroyed everything, they had to start anew. Finally about 40,000 books were lost during World War II.    

Charmingly, Hauptgasse was a cobblestoned pedestrian-only boulevard, featuring both old and new storefronts. And the occasional car driving through the strolling crowds at about 10 miles per hour. Don’t ask me why. Maybe they were allowed. Maybe they weren’t and were still just trying to find their hotel. 

There were the usual buskers (a jovial group of guys calling themselves Pirat Abend, or Pirate Evening). They were quite good, and had the crowd clapping in no time. I looked for a CD, but they hadn’t got that far in their career yet. There were also the unusual buskers: a woman dressed as a tree, just standing there very very still. And another man with his head sticking up through a hole in a table. On the table was a still life with vases and fruit. His head was painted like a bright red apple. And yes, he was also very very still. If you stared at him long enough, he would say hello. Both the tree and the still life featured a small basket in front to put coins into. There wasn’t much action in the baskets, either. 

Heidelberg is like Pittsburgh in at least two ways: a love of bratwurst and a funicular railway.  Shortly we found ourselves at our first event of the day--the funicular mountain railway up to Heidelbergh Castle. Pittsburgh’s Duqesne Incline is a 30% incline railroad to the top of Mount Washington, a 400-foot high view of the city. Heidelberg’s Bergbahn heads up a steep incline 1,700 feet to the top of the Königstuhl. There are three stops, the first of which is Heidelberg Castle, 262 feet above the city. Since we had two small children with us and more things to do that day, we chose to skip the 90-minute ride to the top, and just go to the castle.   

Heidelberg castle is made of beautiful red stone. Some of it is dressed in neat squares, some of it is rough field stone that is mortered in place more haphazardly. Everywhere we looked we could see wonderful stone carvings. And rubble. The castle has been destroyed a few times over the centuries, and is in the process of being restored. 

Honestly, we didn’t see a lot of Heidelberg beside the castle, the zoo and the shopping district. Our time and energy were limited. I didn’t get a chance to explore certain important cultural parts of Heidelberg. For instance, it was the city closest to Colonel Hogan and his comrades in Stalag 13. (Who knew?) Nor did I get to search for the clubhouse of the Heidelberg Harriers, the professional Quidditch team described in the Goblet of Fire. (It might have been a lost cause anyway. Despite a year of sleuthing, I have yet to find the clubhouse of the professional Quidditch team based in Luxembourg). 

One Heidelberg highlight was locating Starbucks. One was closed for renovation, but unlike the A8 freeway, there were workmen swarming all over the place. It is probably open by now. The other one had Sumatra on tap, and I luxuriated in its warm embrace. I found decent espresso here and there, but Heidelberg’s drip coffee was not as pleasant, due to the the usual culprit--light roasted coffee. But millions of Europeans love it,so maybe it’s a character fault of mine, and the tastebuds of all of Europe are in the right. Who knows? 

Another highlight was liquor store called Alte Brennerei on the Hauptstrasse. It’s niche was the dozens of brandies and other liquors that they made in the back room. You could wander among the many glass jugs and ask to sample various concoctions. If you liked it, they sold it already bottled in several sizes. Most were brandies of 80 proof. I bought a bottle of particlularly lovely Sour Cherry Kirsch. I also tried their 110 proof Absinthe. It was slightly sweet, with an anise and herbal flavor. I am by no means an absinthe connoisseur, so I can’t vouch for its authenticity. But this neophyte found it smooth and pleasant, though not pleasant enough to buy a bottle. 

Saturday night we headed to Steingasse, at the end of the old bridge, for a memorable meal. It was memorable both due to the quality of the food and sitting at an outdoor table in the street. This street is Heidelberg’s Restaurant Row, so it’s hard to go wrong here. We were very pleased with our meal at Hackteufel, at #7 Steingasse. There was a wide choice of traditional German dishes as well as more normal food such as good steaks and pasta. 

We drove home a different way than we came. I couldn’t face any more jaunts into the boonies. One memorable moment came when we were driving by the US Air Force Base in Ramstein, where the A6 meets highway 62. The end of the runway begins at the edge of  the freeway. A US Air Force C-5 Galaxy cargo jet flew right over us and landed. That is one huge gray airplane, especially when it descends a few hundred feet above you. 

In retrospect, Heidelberg was worth visiting for a weekend, and might have been good for about a week. It is pretty and cultured, and seems to be a cool university town. With so many other places in Central Europe to visit, I don’t know if we’ll make it back. It’s too bad, for Heidelberg deserves more than we’re prepared to give it.  

Heidelberg Part 1: The Road To Heidelberg Is Paved With Good Intentions

The Chastain family just returned from a weekend in Heidelberg, Germany. We determined a while back that we needed to do two kinds of traveling in Europe: elaborate multi-day holiday visits, and fast weekend visits. Otherwise there would be a lot of Europe that we would just miss. Heidelberg was a short two-and-a-half hour drive, according to the map. At least that was the plan. 

We headed east from Luxembourg Cityat around 5:30 PM toward Remich, a town on the German border River just this side of the Moselle River. When we got there, the bridge across the river was closed for renovation. Taking this sign as merely a minor setback and not a looming  omen, we followed the river south to the next crossing, at Schengen in the southeast corner of Luxembourg. From there we successfully made into Germany. Things were still looking good. Our trip would likely only be three hours.  

For those of you who haven’t driven in Europe, the major freeways are designated with the letter “A”. Hence, having made it onto the A8 freeway, we thought our detours were behind us. As Peter Pan might have directed us, “Second star to the right and straight on till morning.” Or at least straight on till Heidelberg. 

We were flying along at the 130 kph speed limit for only a few minutes when the freeway ended. Actually, that isn’t quite true. ALL lanes in both directions were blockaded, for no visible reason. Since our only alternative was to sit on the A8 until hell froze over (or the German highway workers showed up to finish the construction job), we opted to follow the other cars up the exit ramp and into an involuntary tour of the German countryside.   

Copilot Cammy whipped out the Deutschland road map. Thank goodness we had that, or we wouldn’t know where we weren’t or where we couldn’t get to. I was doing 90 down the country roads, calling out village names as we flew past them. Cammy finally said, “I found where we are, but you don’t want to know that. You REALLY don’t want to know how far we have to go to get back to the freeway, and how long it’s going to take.” 

I took her word for it. The countryside was beautiful and we weren’t in that great of a hurry. In most of the fields farmers were busy with hay bailers, getting ready for autumn. The setting sun cast a gorgeous golden glow on everything. We still had plenty of time to get to our hotel in Heidelberg. Then it happened. I was approaching the Merzig village limit, where the speed drops from 90 kph to 50 kph, so I took my foot off the gas and started coasting. As I passed the town limits, there was a bright red flash from the roadside. Seconds later, around a sharp curve, a handful of police officers motioned me to pull over. 

The kind (and thankfully fluent in English) officer told me that I was doing 59 in a 50. It was hard to argue against his logic (and his presumed evidence). I’ve had worse tickets. This one set me back 15 Euros, and maybe a red mark against my European driving record somewhere. Maybe. I hope that is the only shoe to fall. Our two-and-a-half hours was now looking like four.  

We finally made it back to the A8 after our pastoral detour. We saw scenery that we would have missed had we not gone through the rabbit hole, or through the back door. And it only cost us 15 Euros. Eat your heart out, Rick Steves. 

We finally pulled into Heidelberg. As is par for the course, we didn’t have a city map yet, and only the vaguest online directions. It didn’t take long for us to fall back on our strategy of circling vainly through town, looking for landmarks or familiar sounding streets. We hadn’t found our hotel yet, but I was tempted to pull over at a restaurant called “Hemingway’s”. It wasn’t so much that I was hungry or needing a break, but that I had a hunch that I might never find it again. (And that turned out to be true). The real draw was that Hemingway’s address was #1 Fahrtgasse. That’s right, readers: it was number one on Fahrtgasse Street. That’s a lot to be proud of, and I wanted to share in that pride. Or at least to get a picture of the street sign. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t stop. I just kept driving, giggling strangely. Cammy stared at me strangely. Eventually I stopped to ask two idle taxi drivers where we were and where our hotel was.  One of them told me to go left, left, and right all the way to the end of that street, then up a hill and around the castle and there I would be. I couldn’t miss it. The other driver said that when we had done that, we could then drive back around and ask them again. All three of us got a hearty laugh at that. If I’d only thought to stow a sixpack of beer in the car, we could have become great friends. (Men, see how asking directions is not so bad? It lets you bond with strangers. Give it a try some time).

We found the hotel, mostly by accident, after we had gone left, right, right, left and to the end, around what might have been a castle (who could tell in the gathering dark?), down a steep twisty road, through a tunnel, left and finally another right. It is almost a miracle we found the hotel. It was after nine, and long past the time the kids needed to be in bed. 

Mirabelle Plum Eau-de-vie: A Reflection of Beauty

It’s harvest time for mirabelle plums. For a brief moment of time, dainty little yellow plums hold center stage in Luxembourg’s supermarkets. Being a longtime fan of roadside stands and farmers’ markets, I can’t resist fresh local fruits that are in season. After scooping up a bagful, I head over to the liquor aisle. (Unlike the nanny state of Washington, the Luxembourg government is not afraid of their citizens buying liquor along with their pork chops). In the brandy section, elegantly colorful labels featuring a familiar yellow fruit jumped out at me--mirabelle plum eau-de-vie. At only twelve Euros for a bottle of locally distilled brandy, it seemed a worthy investment. 

Eau-de-vie is a French word meaning “water of life”, similar to the Scottish phrase uisge beatha from which we get the word whiskey. Eau-de-vie is a clear, colorless brandy made from fruit. Unlike some fruit “brandies”, which are often cheap grape brandy with fruit syrup added to it, eau-de-vie doesn’t have any added coloring or sugar. It is made by pressing the actual fruit for its juice, letting that juice ferment into a base wine and then distilling it a least two times. After distillation eau-de-vie is immediately bottled so that the purity of the captured flavors is preserved. It doesn’t spend any time mellowing in wooden barrels. It is the pure, fragrant essence of the mirabelle plum captured in a bottle. Taken literally, “mira belle” means a reflection of beauty. It’s an apt description.

Just south of Luxembourg is the Lorraine region of France. Together, Luxembourg and Lorraine produce about 80% of the world’s mirabelle plum harvest, about 15,000 tons. The harvest lasts for a couple months, usually in July and August, and the fruit is only around for a couple weeks in stores. That is one reason that the vast majority of mirabelle plums, over 90%,  are turned into preserves or eau-de-vie. It’s a good way of storing a large crop that doesn’t have much of a shelf life. 

A better reason for turning plums into eau-de-vie is that it is perhaps the highest, noblest use of the plum. What else can one do with a plum? Plum tarts are nice (and seemingly everywhere right now), but one can only eat so many plum tarts. Put up plum preserves? Dry prunes? 

Taking my catch home, I sit out on the balcony with a bowl of mirabelle plums and a glass of mirabelle eau-de-vie. Mirabelle plums are not as interesting eaten out of hand, compared to Italian blue plums or red plums. Other plums are a little more tart, eventually becoming even sweeter in time. The mirabelles are pleasantly sweet though lacking in acidity. But what makes a slightly insipid raw fruit blossoms into a stellar distilled liquor. The softness becomes a wonderfully luscious liquor with a sweet, almost honey-like aroma. The flavor is soft, barely sweet and slightly floral. All this in a 90 proof liquor. Most whiskies are less potent than this. Yet mirabelle slides down like a much lower proof brandy. In contrast is slivovitz--blue plum brandy--which can be enjoyable, though it has some harsh undertones. Perhaps the acidity of the blue plums contributes to the resultant roughness. 

Mirabelle plum eau-de-vie has now taken an honored position in the permanent collection of the Chastain liquor cabinet, alongside eau-de-vies of Kirsch and Douglas Fir.  You may not be able to find Luxembourgish or Lorraine mirabelle plum eau-de-vie in your stores. However, Clear Creek Distillery of Portland makes a lovely bottle of it, and it is available at finer liquor stores and at www.clearcreekdistillery.com. As they say here, “Prost!”