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Showing posts with label Showplace of the Lorraine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Showplace of the Lorraine. Show all posts

Sunday, October 7, 2018

Touring Downtown Metz (France): Visiting the Showplace of the Lorraine by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring Downtown Metz (France):  Visiting the Showplace of the Lorraine by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget


A tour of Metz, the showplace of the Lorraine in Eastern France, awaited us the next day.  How do you do justice to a town like this in a few paragraphs?

Metz is 3,000 years old according to one of the guidebooks I bought (Metz: Découverte) and merits just as much of a visit as the towns in Provence I thought.  Metz is famous for its merchants, bankers, and warriors.

The guide went on to say that Metz tried to profit from its proximity to Luxembourg, Belgium, and Germany in the modern era with its university and hi-tech companies.

I felt that the town was more Europe-oriented than Paris, because of the willingness of its inhabitants to speak foreign languages. 

The people of Metz do remember that the European Union was formed by European steel manufacturers, who needed to sell cars, trains, buses, planes, ships, submarines, and weather satellites.  All of these items needed to be sold to decision-makers, who preferred to speak in their own language.

We began our tour at the Place de la Comédie and walked to Saint Etienne Cathedral.  The Cathedral was being restored to its lovely ochre color again.  The construction began in the 13th century on this Cathedral.

The vaulting inspires vertigo.  The city had not begun restoring the interior, so it had black soot and mold everywhere.  Archaeology involved a lot of sooty scraping I decided.  Mass was in session, so I did not tour the Cathedral.

Outside everyone was selling Lilies of the Valley for May 1st.  We walked to the Place Saint Louis, which was originally the Place de la Change.  It was built in the 13th and 14th centuries.

The Place St. Louis is a series of connected buildings with arcades on the ground floor.  The supporting pillar between each arch ballooned out a bit.  During the Middle Ages, this was the fief of Jewish and Lombard bankers.  The Milanese bankers of Northern Italy were called “Lombards.”

The day we visited, old paintings were being displayed along the arcades.  We walked around town enjoying the sights until noon when we went back to the apartment to meet Laurent’s cousins.  We set out for a little restaurant outside town called Chez Yvette.

We started with Kir – a sweet, white wine made with blackberry liqueur.  We ate white asparagus from Hoerdt in Alsace.  Laurent’s cousin told us that Hoerdt is a small village near Strasbourg, which is the asparagus capital of Eastern France.

The asparagus were served with homemade mayonnaise or vinaigrette.  White asparagus has a milder taste than its green cousin, but I like them both.  We drank a dry Alsatian Pinot Noir (Gaston Lorentz 1992) with the asparagus.

Then, we ate magret de canard, which is the fat line from the breast that comes from ducks and geese.  We drank a Côtes de Beaune from Burgundy with this dish.

As the cheese course, we ate Alsace’s only cheese that is also superlative – Muenster.  It has a stinky aroma, but I like it on pumpernickel bread with caraway seeds.  It actually tastes better with beer than wine I think.

We drank our coffee on the restaurant terrace and watched the children play on the swing set that the restaurant had for children outside.  I went out and pushed the kids in my heels and dress and did a few “underdog” pushes much to the delight of the children, who wanted to swing higher and higher.

I could have stayed there all night, but we had to go back to Paris.


By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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