Weekend in London

On Friday we left Crystal Serenity behind for a slightly more relaxed weekend in London before heading home. After a very comfortable and uneventful drive from Southampton, we arrived at the Hyatt Churchill before noon.

Being somewhat hungry (after all, we'd been cruise ship passengers for 12 days, and used to regular meals) our first stop after checking in was the hotel restaurant. The fish and chips were a little fancier than you might find in a pub, but just as good...

Larry's appetizer - A pork and apple 'pie' with crusty bread
and chutney

Anybody hungry?

Our afternoon stroll took us to one place we hadn't been before - the world renowned Fortnum & Mason's. When we were here last year, we were a little too late to go in and browse, so we thought that would be a good destination this time. It certainly is an impressive store, especially the food floors, for which Fortnum's is best known. They have a wine and spirits department that includes their own brands of Bordeaux wines and a selection of whiskies that could rival the LCBO; the chocolates, candy and biscuits seem to be everywhere, and of course the selection of teas is absolutely unrivalled. Rather than further description, we'll use a couple of photos:

Jam anybody? Yes, they have THAT many kinds!

More kinds of honey than you can count, even
actual honeycomb honey in those long blue boxes

The cake counter

Once we had wandered back up Bond Street and across Oxford Street (BTW for anyone who followed last year's London blog where Selfridge's was lit up in blue for Prince George, the regular lighting is, in fact, white) we were tuckered out and spent the evening with our books, getting that R&R we needed after a busy cruise.

Saturday morning we met our Buckingham Palace tour across the street from Big Ben, at the Westminster Tube station.

Our itinerary, according to tour guide Kieran, was to follow the history of the monarchy from the riverside to Buckingham Palace. He was an extremely knowledgeable and entertaining guide and, from a few years' experience, managed to show us things we would not have looked for in the changing of the guard ceremony. Such as:

Horse guard guarding the Horse Guards

Ready for the changing of the mounted guards

The band and off-guard portion of the on duty regiment coming
from St. James Palace

Marching up the Mall with the off-guard regiment

We stayed well back once we reached Buckingham Palace, but that was so we could get a really good view of the off-duty guards marching out.

The highlight of the day came up next - visiting the State Rooms of Buckingham Palace. The palace is opened to visitors from the end of July to the end of September every year when Her Majesty is in residence at Balmoral in Scotland or at Windsor Castle. Of course, there are no photos allowed inside of the palace, but the rooms are quite beautiful, not as opulent as the more historic palaces like Versailles in Paris or Schönbrunn in Vienna, but even though the walls are hung with silk and there are some priceless pieces on display, the rooms seem quite comfortable. It is easy to see Her Majesty and the extended family, even the little kids, enjoying living there. Even though these were for the most part the state rooms, there were photos of various members of the royal family using them as living space. There is one in particular of Prince Charles and Princess Anne as children, sitting on the floor in the Picture Gallery reading their books. The Picture Gallery holds some beautiful paintings by Rubens, Rembrandt and many others, and it was nice to see that the room and its contents are not just opened up for special occasions, but appreciated every day.

Well, the only different and interesting photos we were allowed to take were in the garden afterward. And it certainly is a lovely garden, complete with a large pond.

Buckingham Palace from the garden

The pond

A last view

And, finally, after all that walking, we were taken to the St. Ermin's Hotel for afternoon tea. As we got closer to it, we started to recognize the streets from our first trip to London in 1996. And it turned out that our tea was at the same hotel we stayed in for those few days. What goes around comes around???

Another leisurely stroll took us all the way back to the hotel - according to our Fitbits, we walked about 14,000 steps that day - and to our dinner.

We hadn't figured out what to do with our Sunday before we got there, but in the end decided to buy Hop On - Hop Off Bus tickets to check out parts of the city we hadn't seen before. It turned out to be a great idea. The weather, although a bit overcast, was perfect for sitting on top of a double-decker bus, and the grand tour took us all over the place.

Restaurant 'Le Gavroche', a French cuisine fixture
in London for many a year

Berkeley Square - far too early for the nightingales, though

There were even more flowers around the pub
on the ground floor!

Trafalgar Square with Nelson's Column

This shop has been here in the City of London since the late 1600s.
Much of what we now call London is actually the City of
Westminster

St. Paul's Cathedral

The Tower Bridge from another angle

The Tower of London with the ever-growing poppy installation.
Ultimately, there will be one poppy for each person killed
in World War I. This is only a part of what is already in place

The residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury

The garden at the Gardening Museum

Westminster Cathedral

Not having taken a hop-off break during the tour, we found one of the local pubs for a relatively small lunch on the way back to the hotel.

No,she didn't eat all that alone. It was a
sharing platter...good thing!!

To finish off our trip, we had made a reservation at Maze Gordon Ramsay, which was only a 10 minute walk from the hotel. Just so we would know where we were going, we walked down there after lunch. Grosvenor Square has something of a history from WW II, which is partly why there are statues of both Eisenhower and FD Roosevelt in the park. Not to mention that the US and Canadian embassies face each other across the green space.

Maze is in a pretty plain red brick building on the north side, and is actually two restaurants - one for modern cuisine and the other a grill. We ate at the grill and had excellent steak and interesting desserts.

Delicious!

Dessert -  Knickerbocker's Glory

As a final nod to London, to England, and to our hotel's namesake, Larry finally got his picture taken with Winston, sitting in the terrace of Churchill's Bar.

Another really interesting trip to some places we've never visited before. The obvious history all over Europe is such a foil for the newness of everything at home that we always enjoy and appreciate our visits. We will be back later in the year to visit the Rhine and Mosel valleys in Germany on a river cruise. See you then!

An Education in Bordeaux

Our last stop before Southampton was Bordeaux, France, where we had an overnight stay. This is THE premier wine country and we were looking forward to the highlight tour - a dinner at Chateau Haut-Bailly. It turned out that we got the immersion course on Bordeaux winemaking by visiting a total of 4 wineries in the two days.

But first, our sail in to the city of Bordeaux began at about 4:30 in the morning when the pilot was dropped from the sky - literally - at the mouth of the Gironde River. The city is actually a two-hour sail up river and since the pilots all come from there, it is faster and easier for them to travel by helicopter, a 10 minute ride, than it is to take a pilot boat all the way back. One would think that we'd have heard the helicopter at that time of the morning, but it was extremely quiet and we didn't talk to anyone who had been aware of it.

The other thing about the Gironde River is that it is VERY heavily influenced by a tidal current.  In the spring it is possible to surf an extra-high wave caused by this current for about 20 miles up the river, and people from all around come to do it. Bordeaux is actually on the Garonne River, which, along with the Dordogne, flow together to make up the Gironde. This tidal surge that causes the wave also runs into the Garonne and can be up to 10 metres, or over 30 feet! That's why the large ships going into Bordeaux need to time their arrival and departure very specifically.

Fishing hut on the river's edge. Most of the fish caught
are lamprey and eel

The ship's shadow on the river, but take a look at the other
bank and just how low it gets at low tide

We arrived at Bassens at 10:30 in the morning. This is the closest port for ships that can't get under the bridges. The first bridge might be high enough, but there is also a new lift bridge that Serenity is too high to fit. Crystal Symphony, though, being a bit smaller, did fit and sailed past us at about 1:00 the next morning on her way into the city. We even managed to snap a quick photo as we crossed a bridge on our tour the next morning.

Our first tour was to the Chateau Carbonnieux in the Graves region of Bordeaux, and we were given our introduction to the specifics of French winemaking. It isn't just the process and art of making wine, but in France each region and the appellations, or named areas, have certain requirements that MUST be met or they can't include the appellation or the region on their labels.

The winery was run by Benedictine monks on two occasions
in its history

The short and sweet (or dry, if that's your preference) explanation of winemaking goes like this:

In Bordeaux, your vineyard must be planted with a combination of: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot. These are the varieties blended to create wines in this area. You can throw in some Malbec if you like, but France isn't the prime growing area for this variety so it isn't used much.

When it gets close to the expected harvest time, your vineyard will be visited by what may as well be called the 'wine police'. There is a government agency that tests the grapes for the sugar levels, the tannin levels and skin thickness and then tells the winery when they can start harvesting. Now we know where the 'controllée' in 'appellation controllée' comes from!

Once the harvest starts, the pickers will pick the prime grapes, those that will be used for the 'grand cru', by hand. Even beforehand, a lot of the leaves will be picked off to allow the sun to reach the grapes more easily and help to ripen them before the skins get too thick. Some large wineries will machine harvest their second and third quality grapes. The grapes varieties are kept separate through the entire harvesting, fermentation and aging processes, and will only be blended just before bottling.

Once through the de-stemming, sorting and crushing processes, the juice, skin and seeds are pumped into huge stainless steel vats. It is here that the initial fermentation happens over a period of a week to 10 days. The skins and seeds float on top of the juice, so the juice is regularly pumped back to the top of the vat to percolate through, picking up more colour and tannins as it goes. This part of the process is only used for red wines - for white, the skins are removed immediately and the juice goes directly to fermentation. What many people forget is that white wines are often made from grapes with red skins; rosé wines are the product of leaving the skins in the vat for a very short period and letting the juice take on a little colour.

After the initial fermentation, the juices are placed into the oak barrels for the extended fermentation. In Bordeaux, the wineries all use French Oak barrels, and replace a specific percentage of barrels every year, usually just  over half. That's quite an investment since each barrel costs around 750 Euros to buy new, and they will only be used for a maximum of about 6 years before being sold off, usually to whiskey distilleries in Scotland. The fermentation period is about 16 to 18 months.

During the fermentation period, the barrels are racked every few months. This process removes the sediment from the wine. The good clear wine is put into another barrel, the original barrel is emptied and cleaned, then the wine is returned to the barrel to continue fermentation. Doesn't sound like much, but some of the larger wineries have in the range of 700 barrels of wine fermenting at any given time, so it is quite the job.

Once the winemaker decides that the individual wines are at their peak, they go through what is called a fining process. Red wines are 'fined' with egg white. The proteins in egg white have a positive charge (okay, everybody remember their chemistry??) and the sediments in the wine are negatively charged. The egg whites attract the sediments and pull them out of the wine. White wines use an inert chemical for this process.

Finally, the wines will be blended with a specific minimum amount of the base wine - in Bordeaux this means at least 60% Cabernet Sauvignon - and additional varieties in the amounts determined by the winemaker, and then they are bottled. The Grand Cru wines are the best quality and have been given the most care, the second and third quality wines are still good, but not as good.

Wow! That is really a heck of a lot of work, so now we understand why some wines are so expensive. And after learning about the whole process, many of us in the group had a much greater appreciation of the wines we tasted.

Returning to the ship, we had something of a city tour of Bordeaux. It is getting to the point where spending time on an almost constantly moving bus in narrow streets doesn't make for very good photos, but here are a few anyway:

The first bridge built across the Garonne River. It was commissioned
by Napoleon but he didn't see the finished product

Along the riverfront - old buildings and a new
streetcar system

Our first evening included the long anticipated dinner at Chateau Haut-Bailly. It turns out that this chateau is practically right across the street from Chateau Carbonnieux that we had visited in the afternoon. Our evening began with a tour of Haut-Bailly's winemaking operation, which brought us to champagne (Pol Roger) and hors d'oevres on the lawn. Duck breast, seared ahi tuna, caviar, all in such a gorgeous setting...

Then we were ushered into a beautiful room, unfortunately not inside the chateau itself because our group of 19 was a little too large, but very beautifully appointed nonetheless. 

Our four course dinner was delicious and accompanied by the Chateau's excellent Grand Cru wines from two different years. It is amazing just how the growing conditions, what the French call the 'terroir' - everything from the amount of gravel in the soil to the age of the vines and depth of their roots to rainfall, sunshine and temperature - from one year to the next can change the resulting wine. We compared the 2002 and 2003 vintages and could really taste and smell a difference. This is what we had for dinner:

Lobster with Brunoise Vegetables and a Rosemary Emulsion

Filet of Beef with Bigorre Bacon, Zucchini, Basil
and Butter

A Cheese Plate with figs and dried fruit

Vanilla Parfait (underneath) with Red Berries and
Caramel Wine SAuce

It was a great experience and a wonderful evening.

The next morning we headed into the Médoc area to visit two other wineries and do a drive-by of some of the best-known names in Bordeaux wine.

Our first visit was to Chateau Giscours in the Margaux region, where our winery tour was conducted by none other than the Managing Director of the winery, a very knowledgeable and friendly Dutchman named Marc. He explained the whole process in detail (see Winemaking 101 above) and led us in a tasting afterward. Between Marc and our tour guide who was also an educated wine expert, we learned a lot about yet a different part of Bordeaux wine country.

Outside Chateau Giscours. The chateau is currently
empty, but Marc would like to turn it into
a boutique hotel. We'd go there, for sure!

From there, we were travelling to our final stop at Chateau Lagrange in Pauillac but we made a couple of photo stops:

Chateau Margaux

Chateau LaTour

Chateau Lafite-Rothschild

At Chateau Lagrange, instead of another tour of the winemaking operation, our guide asked the winery's guide to show us the garden instead, as the chateau is also known for this in the area.

This barrel has been racked a few times

Sauvignon Blanc Grapes just harvested for white wine

After this tasting, we headed out to meet the ship at Le Verdon, a small town near the mouth of the Gironde River. The ship had left Bordeaux not long after the tours set out. It was really very odd to see, and too bad we didn't get a photo, the smokestack and Crystal logo moving slowly behind a chateau and its vineyard.  It certainly looked out of place since there was no water to be seen anywhere, but it does tell about the general flatness of the land.

The pilot helicopter just leaving Crystal Serenity
after the pickup

All too soon it was packing day and the end of another wonderful cruise. We had renewed acquaintances with some of our favourite officers and crew members, and had some lively discussions with both Lt. Col. Rick Francona (military analyst who appears regularly on CNN and was one of our guest lecturers) and our old friend Mike Goddard, who is a much-loved comedian/entertainer on Crystal. We ran into some people we knew from previous cruises and made some friends of people who were on their first Crystal cruise. Lots of fun as usual, and it left us looking forward to our next visit with Crystal Serenity.

Us with Ross, Rick and Mike

After leaving the ship in Southampton we headed to London for the weekend.