Rochefort

Wiggling and weaving we travelled from our wee town of Lompret to our castle in Luxembourg.

First! A stop at our third Trappist beer town..Rochefort. There are 11 places in the world who make Trappist beer, 6 in Belgium and we have hit 3 of them! Such great beer - will be hard to settle with Canadian craft or even Brit beer. Fab lunch on a sunny patio yet again - loved this beer too! Shared amazing charcuterie plates - Mike and Britt with a flight of beer with matching abbey cheeses - cheeses will never taste the same again either!!

Nice short stints between stops - Mike and Britt sharing driving and navigating with R and I - quiet rules evolved from the beginning LOL, those in the backseat stay mainly quiet while others are in charge LOL. It worked.

And so we arrived at The Castle: Temps D'Or....as we stopped at the end of the 2 km drive, pausing to see how we entered, ...the wooden doors slowly opened and out stepped The Count himself...introducing himself as The Count of Ansembourg...and the beginning of enjoying listening to his tales of his background, his heritage, and indeed, his passion for his country and his past. A young 40 years old with 3 children - one his own - Alexander - named before he had read the first line of the "edict" of naming children in his family...oops...however the other Alexander he discovered had passed away and his father was quite ok with our Count using his name. Our Count was educated in Belgium, followed with studying in California (Harvard partner school) then worked in Holland as a strategic partner then formed 5 companies which he 'consulted' in within Luxembourg "if one failed then he could no longer have companies in Luxembourg". A strict upbringing and it sounded like he was doing the same with his Alexander - his other children were from his wife - older than he - 2 girls, one of University age. Alexander already (Iikely 8 -9) studied Russian 3 hours a week, another language and they spoke French to him. Interesting person to say the least, very gracious and keen to have us think well of The Castle.

Strolled the grounds in such lovely weather...very funny to have him say "you didn't go as far as our other castle" making us realize the security cameras were everywhere which I teased him about. Nice to have witty exchanges. So curious about so much about his history - he spoke so highly of his father....sounded like he passed away relatively young and our Count completed the project he had begun in making the castle (where they live - just across a small bridge) into a successful luxury hotel.

First luxury dinner!! At Aal Schoul....the chef won Top Chef in Luxembourg last year - second in Top Chef world wide and oh my.....the dinner was spectacular from the starting Amuse Bouche to every bite being a treasure to the dessert of a lemon shape, coloured white chocolate ball of yogurt/light filling that soothed the palette. Interesting that the server was so adept at being concerned about our Pinot Gris from smelling the cork and sure enough it was "corked" and on to a new bottle. The service was absolutely impeccable with careful, caring attention, English explanations as much as possible...a precious meal - to be remembered for a long time...complete with being entertained by well to do Europeans sitting at a table of 10 or 12 next to us...stories in my mind LOLLeggi altro