Last week, from Sunday to Tuesday (keep reading and I will explain later why I mention this) we made a short trip to France. To be precise, we headed to Lorraine, a part of the old Franconia realm we skilfully ignored so far.
Afterwards, it felt right doing so. Maybe we’re not doing the region favour, but in contrast to other parts of France, like Brittany, the Alsace or Provence, Lorraine is quite lame.
Especially Nancy couldn’t have been deader. If someone had told us before, Sundays and Mondays are rest days here for restaurants, we would surely have chosen different days for our trip. Would have, could have, should have. You live and learn.
If all this information doesn’t put you off, you’ll probably have a good time here.
Accommodation in Metz
We stayed in Metz with the gorgeous and helpful Agnes. We booked the apartment via Airbnb. It’s high-value, clean and well located. Walking time along the Mosel River to the city centre is around 15 minutes. If you want to go by car, there’s a quite cheap car park next to the cathedral.
Nancy
There are two sites here worth a visit: One is the Place Stanislas, which is really pompous and impressive. The other one is the Porte de la Craffe, the city gate built in the 14th century. It reminds a little bit of the Holsten Tor in Lübeck, Germany.
Despite that, the rest is quite boring.
This doesn’t mean, it’s not worth coming. One of the very few restaurants that weren’t closed was the Restaurant la Primatiale. A three-course meal for a ridiculous price (which is not unusual in France especially for lunch) brought us some enlightening moments. The Filet Faux couldn’t have been more perfect.
Metz
Metz might be smaller than Nancy. But it’s definitely prettier. It was also livelier here than in Nancy, which is not that hard but we appreciated it.
Metz is located beautifully at the Mosel River and has a cute little Old Town with a few shops. The Metz Cathedral is well-known everywhere and really impressive.
But Temple Neuf was definitely the prettier church. It’s an evangelic church located on a mini island on the Mosel. Google won’t tell me why it’s called Temple Neuf, but I think it makes it somehow mysterious.
Furthermore, there’s the Porte des Allemands, the last preserved city gate of the former city wall of Metz. The train station is also worth seeing.
And last but not least: Centre Pompidou-Metz, where they show thematically changing exhibitions. The current topic is ‘Une Saison Japonaise’. It was a bit crazy and you’ll ask yourself what’s art, what’s not but we liked it. The building itself is really impressive. We can recommend a visit here.
For a short sightseeing trip, everything was ok here. Absolute winner was having lunch in Nancy. For this alone, I would have done the three-hour drive from Frankfurt.
Apart from that, it’s probably better coming in summer. Hopefully, there’s more action in this region.