Slurp and glug

When the feasting had to stop: the Accident & Emergency diet

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I start the year with a cautionary tale.

I am a professional glutton. As a travel writer and serial reviewer of restaurants, I over-eat for a living. And it’s no penance: I love to eat, and most of all I love to eat well, in fine restaurants with starched napery and long and interesting wine lists.

There is one obvious downside to this sybaritic existence: the never-ending struggle between gustatory pleasure and an expanding waistline. I have often promised myself that this year I will only eat half of what is put in front of me, or that only the smallest of glasses of wine, judiciously sipped, will accompany my restaurant meals.

But it never seems to work out that way.

There’s an element of professional pride in all this. Denial in the face of abundance seems akin to dereliction of duty. I’m paid to evaluate plenty, and as a reviewer there is no inspiration to be found in a dessert skipped or an amuse bouche untasted. There have nevertheless been times – as I guzzled my way manfully from foie gras to bavarois – when I wondered if all this over-indulgence is entirely good for me, and if there might, at some stage, be a reckoning.

This month it came to pass. Instead of enjoying New Year’s Eve in the company of an attentive maître d’, I spent it as a guest of the equally diligent National Health Service. I was admitted to hospital on 31st December with horrible abdominal pains caused by diverticulitis, a condition associated with ageing, physical inactivity, lack of dietary fibre, obesity and – oddly – the use of ibuprofen. A sobering list, not least because I am relatively fit and active, visit the gym regularly and haven’t relinquished control of my waistline without a fight.

Diverticular disease is extremely common, but if the condition is mundane the pain certainly wasn’t. The treatment was pure torment. For the first few days I was ‘nil by mouth’ – allowed only sips of water. Repenting of all those four- and five-course dinners yet an epicure to the last, I craved soup – and not just any soup. Miso figured highly in my fevered imaginings, as did the delicious clear broth I had enjoyed with my Hainanese chicken rice in Singapore.   When it came, the hospital’s soup was rather less flavoursome, but after two and a half days of fasting it seemed like a feast.

With diagnosis came an answer to the riddle of why I always felt full, even when I felt hungry. After four nights in hospital on intravenous antibiotics my weight problem began to melt away like so much snow in summer. I lost more than 6kg in a week, making the Accident & Emergency diet an unpleasant but undeniably effective one.

If there’s a moral to my story it’s simply this: don’t ignore symptoms, even if you feel a bit silly going to your doctor with something as vague as ‘feeling bloated’.

And if you’re a food writer or restaurant critic, be kind to your digestive system. It’s one of the tools of your trade; you won’t get another.  Slow down, savour your food; chew. And along with the truffles and petits fours, try to pop something healthy into your mouth now and then.

What is it about French discos?

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The modern discothèque was invented in Paris in the early fifties, when Régine installed coloured lights and twin turntables in a place called Whisky a Go Go.

France’s contribution to dance music did not end there. Daft Punk are French. Voyage were among the classiest Eurodisco acts of the late seventies and they were French, though they recorded their oeuvre in Soho. I’m reasonably certain Amanda Lear is French too, though ‘I’m reasonably certain’ is not a phrase commonly associated with Ms Lear.

Without Ottowan, would we have ever known how to spell D.I.S.C.O?

I’m getting that out of the way now because the rest of this may not be as relentlessly positive as the lovely people at Maison de France would like.

I spent much of the summer on the Riviera researching the upcoming edition of the Rough Guide to Provence and the Côte d’Azur – a hardship posting, to be sure – and once again found myself pondering what it is that makes French nightclubs so very, very odd.

Go anywhere else in the western world and you know pretty much what to expect: a gaunt, slightly tatty vastness in a redundant cinema or factory, ear-splitting volume, iffy loos and a doorman with the physique (and capacity for self-deprecation) of an armoire.

There are individual national characteristics, of course. In San Francisco they loved my accent. In Sydney they regarded drug taking as a competitive sport, and were tireless in their efforts to snort harder, party longer and fly higher. In Germany they take a redundant factory, replace it with a bigger, newer, shinier, more profitable one, then fill the old place with an electronic approximation of men hammering on pipes. In Spain, it’s compulsory to have a skinny tranny dancing on a box. In platform boots.

And then there’s France.

French discos want to be restaurants when they grow up. Most – in the south of France at least – are already more than halfway there, with elegant dining sections in shades of white and more white that are light years from a sweaty German techno hangar. The French seem to believe the perfect preparation for a night of throwing shapes is to wash down three courses of foie gras, truffles and tournedos Rossini with a cheeky bottle of Cheval Blanc ’82.

Why this should be so is not entirely clear.

Dancing and eating are odd bedfellows. Strobe lighting does not flatter your food. And the food in the average discothèque – even the average French discothèque – does not enjoy the best of reputations. Even if Alain Ducasse peeled the potatoes, there’s an obvious mismatch between stuffing your face and strutting your stuff. Does it matter how refined the food is, if you crown your night of Riviera fun by hurling expensively over your shoes?

In part, the intention is surely to intimidate. If you’re worrying about a little thing like the APR on that Cheval Blanc you’re clearly too impecunious for clubbing in Cannes or St Tropez. Spirits are priced by the bottle. It keeps the cheapskates at bay, while promoting the emetic effect of dancing on a full stomach.

Of course, I’m being disingenuous. The ideal customer is not a dancer at all, but a spender. Which explains the roués’ gallery that is the photo section of the club’s Facebook page, full of the sort of men who have known business or creative success, the joys of golf club membership and the tribulations of white loafers without socks. They may not dance ’til dawn, but their credit rating will keep them in €140 bottles of vodka a good deal longer.

I can see the business case for all this; I just can’t see what might make it enjoyable. If I want to eat out, I’ll go to a restaurant. If I want to dance, I’ll skip the foofy gastronomicals. The last people I want to bump into at five in the morning are Bono, Berlusconi or anyone who looks remotely like them in the dim light of a Caves du Roy dawn. And if I want the heady sensation of money sucking out of my account so fast I can hear the sloosh, I will give my bank details to a polite Nigerian businessman who just wants to deposit a few million in my account for a while. Or seek out one of Islington’s excitingly expensive parking spaces.

So sorry, France. I’m sitting this one out.

Belgium. So much more than Death Race 2000

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Belgium requires concentration. I cross it by car four or five times a year, zipping through to Aachen from Calais or Dunkerque, usually on my way to Austria. The Belgians have their own special driving style, which combines a lemming-like fondness for following their neighbour with a carefree approach to pulling out that always ensures a lively, exciting ride. It’s no surprise that the road death statistics are roughly twice as bad as those for the Netherlands, a country with which Belgium shares a language, a border, a landscape and a population density usually found only in flash mobs.

Just across the border from Dunkerque the motorway does a slight kink to avoid the town of Veurne. And perhaps it’s merely the novelty of having to turn the wheel, but Veurne always registers in a way so many of the Belgian towns I speed past fail to. It helps that the traffic isn’t as fearsome as the Death Race 2000 rerun that is the Brussels Ring. Plus, there’s a promising-looking cluster of spires and belfries roughly where the signs suggest Veurne will be.

So this time I gave in to my curiosity and pulled off the motorway for a closer look. And do you know what? Veurne is lovely, with one of those step-gabled Flemish market squares that calls for chips all round and a trappist beer or three. It has a Unesco world heritage site, no less.

So here’s a tip. When you’ve been cut up by an apparently suicidal Fleming in a dented Peugeot for the umpteenth time, do yourself a favour and pull off the motorway.

It may save your life. It’ll certainly transform your impressions of Belgium.

You probably haven’t heard of…Sanary-sur-Mer

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Unless, that is, you’re a fan of Sybille Bedford.

I first came to Sanary in 2004, but it wasn’t until I read Sybille Bedford’s memoir ‘Quicksands’ that I opened my eyes to its literary past. Bedford – who died in 2006 – was, like Patrick Leigh Fermor, one of that vanishing generation of travel writers who lived a remarkable life, wrote beautiful prose and never had to drag a fridge anywhere to please a reluctant publisher. Her chaotic, bohemian childhood saw her wash up in Sanary in the interwar years, just as it became a place of refuge for writers and intellectuals fleeing the rise of fascism. You want names? Sanary’s interwar exiles are names to conjure with: Thomas Mann, his brother Heinrich, Bertolt Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger, Stefan Zweig and Mahler’s window, Alma Mahler-Werfel. Not all the exiles were escaping Hitler: Aldous Huxley produced some of his greatest work while living at the Villa Huley close to La Gorguette beach. Bedford knew the Huxleys, and subsequently became his biographer. The dinner parties must have been intimidating.

War came and scattered the exiles to the four winds. Mann’s house fell victim to the Nazis, who demolished it to make way for coastal defences. But Huxley’s villa is still there, and is marked by a plaque. So too is Bedford’s much more modest house on chemin du Diable. Pick up some information from the tourist office by the port and you can spend an enjoyable afternoon chasing literary ghosts.

In the nicest possible way, Sanary is a little old-fashioned. Its architectural ensemble is unimprovable: there are no filing cabinet apartment blocks to spoil the harbour. Instead, it’s dominated by the church tower, the mairie and the venerable Hôtel de la Tour where Sybille Bedford spent her first night. There are yachts, of course – this is the south of France – but unlike its neighbour Bandol, Sanary doesn’t have a marina so big you can’t actually see the sea. There are foreign visitors, but no braying expats; tempting restaurants, but nothing bling enough to lure a St Tropez celebrity. There’s an old-fashioned bandstand by the port, and a pretty little cinema on the avenue Gallieni, as timeless and unmistakably French as Babar the elephant.

There are beaches: a brace of modest coves west of the port, and Huxley’s beach at La Gorguette, dominated now by a slick new hotel. Longer beaches are found east of town in Six-Fours-les-Plages, and if you’re a seeker after secret coves, the far side of Cap Sicié has some as charming and modest as any in the south of France.

I returned to Sanary this summer on a warm July night to find the harbour in full swing. From a live stage by the tourist office the rhythms of a Latin American band blared. On the quay a night market was busy with visitors, browsing contentedly for crafts.

I browsed too. Not for jewellery, but for dinner: picking my way from one menu to another until I found what I was looking for. I selected a table just back from the quay. The restaurant was tiny – little more than a pop-up, its interior all kitchen and its handful of tables teetering on the kerb, a little too close to the traffic. I didn’t particularly mind; no Mediterranean port is entirely complete without the drone of scooters or the faint threat of motorised death. The meal was simple: soupe de poissons, dark and fishy, served with rouille, croutons and creamy gruyère. A perfect glass of cool rosé. Fresh grilled fish with salt, lemon, a scattering of herbs and a little olive oil. A small salad. It was wonderful. What I paid would have bought no more than a scornful look in London.

Little ports in the south of France just don’t get much better than that.

Oh, I doubt it’ll ever be hot or happening. Sanary is on the ‘wrong’ side of Toulon, which is in turn – and in some respects unfairly – the most unfashionable city in the south of France. It’s not on the travel industry’s radar. But if that’s what it takes to save it from a fate worse than St Tropez, so be it. Perfection beats a glimpse of Simon Cowell any day.

Practicalities
Sanary lies on the coast of the Var département, a little west of Toulon http://www.sanarysurmer.com
Ryanair connects London Stansted with Toulon-Hyères airport in the summer months; otherwise, fly to Marseille and pick up a hire car.

Hôtel de la Tour (sanary-hoteldelatour.com; around €95) is the traditional choice, right on the port and with a good restaurant; Hostellerie La Farandole (hostellerielafarandole.com, from €235) is the luxury choice on Huxley’s beach.

The elusive magic of a French fishing village

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I cut my teeth as a guidebook writer one humid, horizon-expanding summer along the Côte d’Azur. And ever since I have been susceptible to the will o’the wisp charms of the French fishing village. Perfection for me doesn’t involve too much piscine authenticity: I require neither fish processing plants nor rusty Russian factory ships. The stench of rotting fish heads fails to make it onto my ticklist.

What I want is a café-lined harbour, grilled loup or daurade with a glass of rosé, a bit of a beach and enough cultural associations to pass the time while the tan peels off.

Aha, you may think. St Tropez!

Er, no.

Though it’s just about bearable in May and occasionally magical in September (when Les Voiles fills the harbour with beautiful sailing yachts) Saint-Too-Much long ago became de trop, full of needy B-listers silently screaming LOOK AT ME. In high season the harbour is a hell of enormous motor yachts and enormous crowds. On the quayside, pseudo-artists sell execrable paintings of places like St Tropez in the sort of toxic colours that are usually on special offer. Giles the hedge fund manager guns the motors on his yacht to give the people on the café terraces their daily dose of particulates. The yachts berth stern-first; their exhausts point inland. So the espresso-sippers get it with both barrels. They get it in the wallet too, mugged for the audacious price of a cup of coffee. In short, St Tropez is what happens to a fishing village when it has botox and a boob job.

But if not there, where then? Villefranche? Charming, but a bit too sanitised. La Ciotat? Lovely, but the view from the quay is of ships getting their bottoms scraped.

I thought for a long time that it might be Cassis. This little outstation of Marseille really is lovely, sandwiched between the bone-white rocks and turquoise waters of the Calanques and the vertigo-inducing cliffs of the corniche des Crêtes. It has a modest crescent of beach, and a rather more immodest line-up of restaurants on the quayside. But alas, Cassis is these days no undiscovered secret: the property prices climb ever higher, and on summer weekends the village is a traffic jam in search of a parking space.

This summer, however, I think I may have found what I was looking for…

The perfect French fishing harbour…Sanary-sur-Mer

A good place to wave goodbye to beer

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I love beer.

Actually, I really love beer. Dark, malty ales. An occasional Guinness. Crisp chilled pilsner on a warm summer’s day. Elegant Kölsch in piddling little glasses. Belgian beers so strong you fall over after two. Not to forget their lambric beers. Why, I could crack open a kriek right now.

But I had come to the conclusion that the beer didn’t really love me. I have reached that age where calories turn from your friend to your enemy, and even the best of enemies must be fought. I was running faster at the gym but no longer standing still. Each time I weighed myself was another Stalingrad on the way to beery Götterdämmerung – or at least to moobs and elasticated waists. Which was not a prospect I viewed with any enthusiasm.

It had to go.

I wanted to give it a good send-off, so I chose Bamberg for the wake. Quite apart from the fact that it’s one of those stunningly beautiful Ruritanian micro-capitals Germany specialises in (see ‘Beautiful Bamberg’ for details) it’s one of the most interesting beer towns in Germany. More so than Munich as far as I’m concerned, since my tastes tend towards toasty malty amber or dark ales with twigs and bits of beard in them rather than to burp-inducing wheat beers. Bamberg beers are darker and more full-bodied than lagers.

Nine breweries produce 50 varieties of beer within the municipal boundaries. Not bad for a modest-sized cathedral city with a population of 70,000. They’re small family-run businesses rather than big industrial conglomerates, so that – with one notable exception – you really have to travel to Bamberg to sample the product. It’s all brewed according to the age-old Reinheitsgebot – the Bavarian purity law – which means there are no lurking chemical nasties in the beer. And what pubs they have to sup it in: not for Bamberg the vast scale and (occasionally forced) bonhomie of a Munich beer hall, but plain-deal simplicity, sagging beams and a feeling of having been around for centuries. They’re like old British pubs from an age before fruit machines and microwaved ‘gastropub’ meals. The food here is usually pretty good if you like filling, meat-based Germanic winter warmers.

The first pub on any tourist itinerary – and the one that has spread Bamberg’s beery fame beyond Germany’s borders – is Schlenkerla in the Bergstadt, the old ecclesiastical quarter that is nowadays Bamberg’s main bar strip. It’s everything you’d want an old German hostelry to be: half timbered, with low black beams and a history that dates back to 1405. The interior’s only adornment is a big kachelofen (tiled oven) and the staff are suitably – if not invariably – grumpy. I once made the mistake of sitting at the stammtisch – the table reserved for regulars – and was swiftly despatched to a shared table nearby, a happy accident that led to a long and very boozy evening in the company of a cycle-mad teacher and the world’s leading self-appointed expert on grappa. I don’t remember too much of what he said about the stuff, but it seemed prudent to sample a few glasses to test his theories. The rest of that evening is a bit of a blur.

Schlenkerla’s chief claim to fame is its Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier, a dark smoked beer that in bottled form is available outside Germany. I think the draught beer served in the pub lacks some of the bottled variety’s shock factor, though there’s still an element of surprise in the first sip of a beer that has a distinct whiff of Westphalian ham about it. The flavour comes from beech-smoked malt; it’s an acquired taste, but the beer’s underlying mellowness usually wins converts in the end.

From Schlenkerla, a few minutes of drunken wandering is all it takes to reach Klosterbräu, on a peaceful lane lined with magnificent historic town houses. The pub itself is no less historic than its surroundings: it’s the former Prince-Bishops’ brewery, and remained in their hands until 1790. The interior has all the austerity of Schlenkerla but it feels more the haunt of locals than of the tourist hordes, at least in the depths of the Bavarian winter. It’s a wonderful place to eat hearty, unpretentious Franconian food and the malty, amber-coloured Braunbier was the absolute highlight of my beery wake.

It’s a stiff ten minute walk uphill to reach Greifenklau, the last port of call on my miniature pub crawl. But it’s worth the climb: the historic houses just go on and on, diminishing in size as you leave the historic centre until they are pleasingly cottagey in size and general homeliness. The pub couldn’t be more snug, and if the service was gruff upfront it swiftly melted into the friendliest welcome of my brief stay in Bamberg. Lighter and more lager-like than other Bamberg brews, the beer was nevertheless light years from the industrial liquid known in Britain. Different too were the Europhile views of my drinking companions, who professed themselves baffled at Mr Cameron’s EU manoeuvres.

In all, it was a splendid send-off. But it didn’t work out quite as I had planned. Parting from beer in Bamberg was such sweet sorrow that, on reflection, I decided against an absolute ban.

Since my return from Germany I have eschewed British lager altogether. This took care of 95% of my alcohol consumption (and 5kg of excess weight in eight weeks) and was, in practice, no great hardship, since no matter what the fancy foreign label on the tap may say, all lager served in British pubs seems to be weak, fizzy and characterless. Tell Germans about Becks Vier – a weaker version of that German brew conceived specially for the British market – and the reaction is not unlike that of Cadbury’s Smash aliens confronted with a potato peeler. They fall about laughing.

My ‘ban’ may be partial, but I have changed my ways, probably for good. I no longer have a beery nightcap in the pub most days, but the Guinness – which was only ever a once-in-a-while pleasure – is still on the menu if the mood takes me. And the next time I’m in a beer town like Bamberg, I will surely say ‘Prost!’ to a glass of the good stuff.

http://www.bamberg.info
http://www.schlenkerla.de/indexe.html
http://www.klosterbraeu.de
http://www.greifenklau.de

When it comes to Christmas markets, size isn’t everything

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I’m not big on Christmas, but I do like a good Christmas market. There’s something about browsing for baubles in sub-zero temperatures that melts my flinty atheist heart. It’s probably the Glühwein.

Since the Anglo-Saxon idea of what Christmas looks like is for the most part a Teutonic import, it seems logical to make a seasonal pilgrimage to the source. To Germany or Austria.

Not all Christmas markets are created equal, and while some are international travel magnets others are altogether more modest, local affairs. I have concentrated on the latter. Size isn’t everything, and what the following lack in big-city buzz they more than make up in fairytale charm. So here are my hot tips for a cold season.

Instead of Nuremberg, try Rothenburg ob der Tauber: http://www.rothenburg.de/d/ISY/mlib/media/ChristmasMarket2011_engl_web.pdf?mediatrace=.5376.

Nuremberg’s Christkindlesmarkt is as ur and echt as they get, a classic Christmas market in a setting that’s steeped in German history. Including one or two of the more unsavoury bits, but let’s gloss over those for now.

If anywhere can top Nuremberg for atmosphere it’s surely Rothenburg ob der Tauber. You may not have heard of this exquisite little Franconian town but you surely know what it looks like, for it had a starring role in the film version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Perched on a hilltop overlooking the valley of the river Tauber and still defended by its city walls, it’s like something straight from the Middle Ages.

Alas, as magical as it is, Rothenburg is no undiscovered secret, and if anything is likely to mar the lost-in-time charm it’ll be sheer numbers, for this is a regular honeytrap for the bus tours. On the upside, there’s a Christmas museum and a Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas store that’s open all year round, making this the perfect destination for those who – unlike me – wish it could be Christmas every day.

How to get there: Air Berlin (airberlin.co.uk) fly to Nuremberg from a number of UK airports. From there, pick up a hire car – Rothenburg is just off the A7 Würzburg-Ulm autobahn. 

Instead of Munich, try Neuburg an der Donau: http://www.rce-event.de/on_doc/132196284142.pdf

Now this place really is an undiscovered gem: a beautiful historic town on the Danube, between the asparagus-growing country around Schrobenhausen and the Jurassic landscapes of the Naturpark Altmühltal , where there seems to be a castle atop every second crag. The market itself focuses on Schrannenplatz in the lower part of the town, and if it isn’t the biggest or most spectacular in Germany, it nevertheless boasts a free skating rink and offers a wonderful excuse to spend time in a setting so Christmassy you’ll want to wrap it up and take it home with you.

You can’t miss Neuburg’s enormous Renaissance Schloss because it looms over the town in properly feudal fashion, but be sure to see the handsome gabled houses tucked behind it in the patrician upper town. It’s also well worth making a side-trip to Neuburg’s equally picture-postcard neighbour, Eichstätt. Until 23rd December.

How to get there: Easyjet (easyjet.com) fly to Munich from London Gatwick, London Stansted, Manchester or Edinburgh. From Munich it’s about an hour by train via Ingolstadt; from Munich airport to Neuburg takes just under an hour by car.

Instead of Frankfurt, try Marburg: http://www.marburg.de/sixcms/media.php/20/Programmheft%20Weihnachten%202011%20%28Lese-Version%29.pdf

Frankfurt is a veritable superpower among Christmas markets, with a tradition that dates back to the Middle Ages and a hugely successful British offshoot in Birmingham.

Christmas in the university town of Marburg is modest by comparison; even the Riesenrad or ‘big’ wheel is a toytown affair, strictly for the children. The hilly, half-timbered Oberstadt (upper town) is a truly wonderful setting for some seasonal shopping, with the castle of the Hessian Landgraves crowning the skyline. Right on the main square there’s a little museum dedicated to the Marburg Romantic circle, whose members included the Brothers Grimm. You don’t get much more fairytale than that.

Scarcely less appealing is the Unterstadt (lower town), with a second cluster of stalls around the impressive Gothic Elisabethkirche. Some of the best options for eating, drinking and staying are in this part of town, too.

How to get there: Air Berlin (airberlin.co.uk) fly to Frankfurt from several UK airports. From Frankfurt it’s just over an hour by train to Marburg

Instead of Salzburg, try Wolfgangsee: http://www.wolfgangseer-advent.at/

I have to declare an interest here, because my own holiday home is on a hillside overlooking this stunningly beautiful Austrian lake. Close enough to Salzburg to make for a viable two-centre trip and with as many Julie Andrews points as the former when it comes to Sound of Music locations, Wolfgangsee is one of the most beloved of all the lakes in the Salzkammergut region, ringed by mountains and with three villages on its shores. The bus trips tend to go for St Wolfgang, the largest village; if you prefer complete relaxation then Strobl, at the eastern end of the lake, won’t give you sleepless nights. The westernmost of the three is St Gilgen, and it’s a good compromise, with fewer day trippers than St Wolfgang but a lot more life than Strobl at this time of year.

As for the markets, the produce is impeccably local: bath salts made with the pink mineral salt that gives the region its name, sheep’s milk soaps and flavoured schnapps – be sure to try Zirbe, flavoured with Swiss pine and tasting like an alcoholic walk in the woods.

The markets reopen on 25th December and stay open until New Year’s Eve.

How to get there: Easyjet (easyjet.com) fly to Salzburg from Gatwick, Luton, Bristol and Liverpool. From the airport it’s a 45 minute trip by car; the bus from central Salzburg takes around the same time.

Instead of Cologne, try Soest: http://www.soester-weihnachtsmarkt.de/

As wholesome as Westphalian ham and reputedly the place where pumpernickel was invented, Soest is an enchanting place to visit at any time of year, with a backdrop of half-timbered houses and green sandstone churches that makes it a particularly fine setting for a Christmas market.

The attractions include an old-fashioned carousel and the produce ranges from jam and marzipan to Hungarian specialities from Soest’s twin town.

But Soest itself is the real star, with market stalls taking pride of place in the main market square and huddling in the lee of the twin churches of St Petri and St Patrokli.

How to get there: Easyjet (easyjet.com) fly to Dortmund, from where it’s just 40 minutes to Soest by bus and train.