To Colmar in the Rhine Valley

We left Strasbourg on the 4th of April, drove west a bit and then down the east side of the Vosges Mountains to Colmar for two days. We took the back roads through towns not even on the "never lost" on our car. We got turned around a time or two and had to use it to get us pointed straight again.  It kept putting us on the major roads.  

One reason we wanted to be on the back roads is that the valley between Colmar and Strasbourg is somewhat famous for having lots of castles and I like castles, actually we both like them.  This is the Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle.  Mentioned in history for the first time in the 12th century.  It has changed  ownership, fate and wars until the Thirty Years War when the Swedes captured, looted and burned it.  The Thirty Years War was between 1618-1648, in case you forgot. (it was on the tip of my tongue).

King Wilhelm II of Germany started the restoration in 1908 as part of the "Germanization of this part of France after the Franco -Prussian War.  He did a good job too.  Had archeologists do the whole bit, artifacts, rooms, like a museum.

Such a grand place.  I think Patt and I could make it work as a residence. We would need a staff, but we could do it. We would have room for guests too.

The path up for tourists is a bit of a hike, without it, tough.  I imagine the Swedes in the 1400s were a pretty tough crowd.  

The day was a bit hazy, but at least not rainy, so we could see a bit of the valley toward the Rhine and Germany.

Some of the rooms were well decorated with tapestries suggesting great conquests by Willhiem II, in the late 1800s. And as he was the last person to rebuild it they are still there.  Well actually in 1908,  the Germans attempted to restore it to its full grandeur for him.

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Colmar is as far as we could tell a tourist town.  Picturesque, and small and lots of stores and such catering to tourists.  We were blessed with mostly absolutely miserable weather, cold and rain, some more cold and more rain. We did have great accommodations. Third building from left, third floor, one bedroom, three room apartment!  Patt does just fine picking our location.

And the view from our living room window during one of the brief times with little rain.

One advantage of a rainy day is that it gave me a chance to ask about "seeing a doctor" finding that it was "not difficult" from the pharmacist that had helped me with ear drops. We found the Dr.'s office and I have a very sore throat and am on antibiotics.  The Dr spoke some English, had the right tools, looked in the right places, said my ear hurt because of the pressure from my throat and be sure to finish medicine and if any return of sore throat see a Dr immediately. So I slept a good part of a rainy afternoon.

Near Colmar there is an old Medieval town or town still like it was in Medieval times. In appearance anyway.  Being cold and rainy, we walked around a bit, saw another couple doing like wise and said enough of a good time try again another day.  Bet it is nice.

But the eating, oh the dining, goodness, should have just written about this. Goodness, restaurant  cafe, brassiere, bar, where ever has never disappointed. Some have been better than others and some well some has been whoa Nellie!  

This place, puppets hanging from the ceiling like some macabre cell block on a rainy night was a hoot.  Our waitress a young woman who would make Nurse Ratchet of "One Flew Over the Coo Coo Nest" appear kindly. I was afraid of her. Patt kept telling me she would not hurt us. I was not sure. I had French Onion Soup, very good, decided to go next with the vegetable soup (sore throat and all)  it was green, very green, dark green.  I thought lettuce?  We think it was broccoli, pureed broccoli — needed salt.

To brighten things up, and find Nurse Ratchet's cousins, we drove 25 miles to the east, crossed the Rhine into Germany, little town of Breach-am-Rhein, Germany. Did the "danka, bitte, pointed at the menu and had coffee and would you look at that. Apple strudel and cream. It was good.

Wish we had a better picture of this place —here we had  purred beef wrapped in a pie shell and wrapped and slow cooked for hours and sliced and you just ought to try some, This and several places we ate had only seating for 18-26 customers and would do only a single seating an evening. We have had braised pig knuckle, Rhein salmon, boeuf, and more. We also like Burgundy wine, fruity, dry, and with a bit of tannin. One of the restaurants gave us a couple of samples to help us choose our bottle.  We like this place— meaning France.
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Tomorrow to Jutigny for an overnight at a county chalet. The Le Moulin de Gouaix.

then to Paris by noon on Thursday.

Strasbourg - tourists, day trippers, locals, out-of-town workers, and people who like this place.

Seriously we have happened upon a crowded time here. Local schools are now on holiday, university students are still here, this is a tourist destination and has been for a long time. No surprise the Romans built a city here, then at some point it became an independent city-state even minting its own currency. Apparently there were a lot of city-states across central and northern Europe at one time in the Middle Ages before the development of some of the European nations after the collapse of Rome and the chaos of its downfall.

This is one town that has not suffered too much damage from recent wars. On the various package or self guided tours, the recording always mentions the "customs building is not original as it was destroyed in 1944 by American bombs and rebuilt exactly as it was".

This crowded picture is somewhat but not universally accurate. It is in front of our hotel, yes that hotel sign is the Rohan and the opening down the street is the square where the gigantic and famous cathedral stands. Patt has been fabulous at picking locations for our hotels.

One more good thing about the hotel, while here we got to FaceTime with Stephen and Laura and Matt and family as Stephen is visiting Matt and Laura while on a business trip to Asia. We FaceTimed with Jen and Raleigh too, Clinton was sleeping.

The City is on the Ill River, not pronounced like ill sick, but Ill something else French sounding. And the river actually comes together here and there are many tributaries, canals, locks and such.

Yes, we took the boat tour, where do you think I learned about American bombs?

And it is still dissapointly cold, although yesterday was the first day we could unzip our jackets for a couple of hours in the afternoon. In the shade, a little breeze, sun goes down and dissappointly cold turns just cold. We and everyone else dress for it. French and apparently most of the visitors to Strasbourg wear scarves. We do too and are glad to have them.

Some of these houses are from the 1600 and 1700s. Famous people lived in these or other houses we went by.  Like philosopher Goethe and Mozart performed concerts here.

Albert Schweitzer preached for 10 years at this church, St. Nicolas, and played the organ at the nearby St. Thomas and other churches in the area. Yes, that Albert Schweitzer. He taught at the university here too. Had a strong faculty I reckon.

If you don't recognize Johannes Gutenburg, that's ok, he spent 10 years in exile here working on his movable type printing press. That's him in the center of Gutenberg Square and speaking of results of his printing the Bible, Martin Luther came here too to post his 95 thesis as part of the reformation, the beginning of protestantism.

Just down from our hotel, out into the square, and viola!, or walla!, or something like that and there is one more Notre Dame Cathedral. Intricate? You have not seen intricate.

Imposing on the outside and just fills up the the approach on the streets leading to the square. The bell tower is well endowed and the bell player absolutely loves his job, quarter hour, half hour, hour and just for the heck of it. Bells play, and play loudly too.

Inside is impressive, no surprise here, windows that no photograph can capture, stories of the saints, Mary, Jesus, disciples, popes, crusaders, you name it - awesome windows. Started building one thousand years ago so this building is getting some years on it.

A few of the paintings are looking a bit faded but still glorious and inside on one of the transepts there is a seven layer astronomical clock with moving parts.

Strasbourg visitor, regulars, and natives I guess, eat outside. In the cold, some restaurants even provide lap blankets. Outside they also smoke. Not everyone, but a fair number.

We eat inside, it is warm, and the food, have we mentioned we like the food?  This was the small, L'Epicerie restaurant that specialized in open faced sandwiches, tartines, with a limited array of toppings. I went with a ham pate and vegetable soup. Patt had an eggplant, cheese and marinara tartine. Washed it down with a half bottle of medoc wine. We have also had Alsatian, French, German and Italian food here. Eaten very very well.

As an added bonus while here we got to visit with the daughter, son-in-law and granddaughters of friends of ours (Diane and Dave) from Raleigh.

They gave us great advice on dining, sights to see and future destinations. Though our trip has had a rough outline it has involved a fair amount of making it up as we have gone along and they helped us finalize some of the last days before Paris.

So tomorrow we turn west towards Paris. Not far but taking 3 days to wander in that direction. Looking forward to it.

Verdun

When I think of Verdun, I think of a massive single fort that remained unconquered by the Germans despite four years of almost continuous attack during World War I along the southwestern end of the Western Front. True to our family motto, often wrong, never in doubt — but close!  

According to more than one French person that we have spoken with, "every Frenchman knows Verdun"  "It is a symbol of French strength and sacrifice for France". 

Verdun is a town and outside the northern edge there were / are a series of very large forts. The town was under continuous pressure from the onset WWI with nearly continuous fighting along the railway, rivers, canals and roads leading into this then border town. The forts were always under some sort of pressure but only came under massive attack in 1916 when a major offensive was launched by the Germans. One of the forts, Fort Douaumont, was actually captured by the Germans and held for a considerable amount of time.

For most of theses forts, volume or space was actually underground. Underground cities with power plants, water systems, kitchens, plumbing systems and so on for thousands of men. We visited two of them, Douaumont and de Vaux.  Douaumont endured an especially gruesome siege while under German control. Several large explosions and fires occurred inside the fort during the occupancy and unable to bury the dead, which numbered in the thousands, the Germans cremated some and sealed many others up in the end of one of the tunnels which still exists as a crypt today for the unknown soldiers.

The exposed parts of Duaumont show considerable sign of weather and shock from the shelling. The concrete and steel must have been especially hardened and stronger than what is normally used.

This steel gun emplacement would lower and seal virtually flat to the concrete surface - it took 18 men to raise and lower the turret.  There were several of them across the top of the fort. Both German and French flags now fly on top of the fort. Verdun is now a symbol of French- German peace efforts and there is in town an institute of German -French studies, understanding and so on.

The tops of the fort show continuous shell holes. As is obvious, it was another rainy cold day.

And in the surrounding area there are the preserved remnants of nine abandoned, never rebuilt towns that were destroyed during the war. This is all that is visible in one of the named towns that I could find in my walk over it.

And all through the area it is possible to come upon ruins of gun emplacements or some form of fortifications.

In another abandoned town there was a little bit left of one of the churches, enough to identify it as such. There were actually several destroyed churches like this that we walked through.

In town there were several museums that were extremely well done, with collections of war memorabilia as well as interpretative videos and and replica equipment that a visitor could see.

There were also cemeteries. This one next to the Ossuaries - a huge building with the collected bones of approximately 150,000 dead from the battlefield, from both German and French armies and from the various nationalities that each army had within its ranks.

The is a view of but half the French cemetery, well not quite half, but a good bit of half. Patt and I have tended to walk among these graves reading names and touching headstones. It is quite an experience, just to touch a few and get a feel for the personal nature of what happened.

and to give you an idea of the various nationalities, within the various sections of crosses was this section.

These guys could have been from Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, or some other North African nation that was a French Colony. Note the last line under this man's name.

Total killed at Verdun, something over 500,000. Total wounded 1,500,000. The French Generals set up a system of rotating all French units of the front lines elsewhere and sending them for a period of time to Verdun.  

During the course of the War, Verdun came to stand for the French resistance to Germany.  Other nations awarded the City various honors and declarations of valor.

Then after the failure of the German spring offensive a littler further to the north, another battle took place in 1918, possibly the largest and longest land battle Americans were ever involved in and with the most casualties (according to the on-site American director of the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery. This monument is at Montfaucon, has a replica of the Statue of Liberty on top, and looks out over the battle field.

This is a view of the battlefield from the top of the tower where from September 11 and November 11, 1918, the American 1st Army participated in an offensive, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, that forced a German retreat from the front.

The success was not with out cost. The largest American cemetery outside of the U.S. is here - some 14,246 plots. And of course there are names on the wall in the building across the way of bodies not found.

Verdun is a pretty old city, replete with old walls, churches and gates and such. We enjoyed our time there, staying about 15 kilometers north of town nearer the sites of the war, but coming into town a couple of times. Patt here at one of the old city gates.

Metz from Verdun, in the rain. AND French Restaurant review # 1 Chez Monique

Should have been a one hour ten minute trip, tops, even considering we opted to take back roads again eschewing the toll road. Took us four hours. FOUR hours. The road was in good condition, traffic light, rain light, scenery, just scenery like we have seen before (actually fewer towns).

Did start to pass monuments. So we stopped. I had to get out and read 'em. They were in German. I read even less German than I do French.

German monument — the Iron Cross on top helps too.

French if I remember right, but could have been German, there were a lot of German monuments along the road here. The dates were all either 1870 or 1871, so these were obviously commenting the Franco- Prussian War of that time. I remembered little of that war other than there was one.  

As we left Verdun without breakfast we were looking for food and found it with help from our on-board magic Never Lost find near restaurant in Fresnes-en-Woevere.  That's it, on the left side of the building — with the white door.  Chez Monique                                   

The place was crowded, a few of the customers spoke enough English to help us and all of us had a grand time. The guy to Patt's right did have fun and had a great personality.  He had us greet an old guy who came in by name. It was well received by the whole place.

 The ham and cheese sandwich was very good and a real - almost big cup of coffee good too.

Monique the Chez Monique on the sign outside was a little slow afoot and with the calculator, but enjoyed having us even if she at first thought we were German or Allemande. That is German in French. I corrected her.  

Still raining when we left about an hour later. Actually bought a movie  there - DVD of a movie about the town that the big guy in the photo produced or filmed/directed. The movie is set in the town and is about what happened in 1940 during the German occupation. Several of the people we were having coffee with were in the movie. They were pleased we bought one of the DVDs. I think they are selling slowly.  I will enter it in a foreign film festival or something. We will watch it.

In Gravelotte, we stopped at a rather large new museum about the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. There were exhibits of material and uniforms left from combatants of the battles that were fought in the area. There were several monitors in the museum with movies about why the war was fought, the battles, the outcome, etc - very well done. This was a bitterly fought war between France and Germany as Germany was becoming more powerful and unifying as a nation. 

German leadership saw the Alsace and Lorraine region of France as belonging to Germany and went to war with France to secure the region.  France was not very strong as it was changing governments and though the armies fought fiercely with very high numbers of casualties, over the two years in a number of engagements, the Germans eventually won and occupied this part of France as German States until after World War 1.  

We eventually got to Metz, a beautiful old city with old city gate and bridges and streets.

and just a nice place to visit.

Will get around to posting about our visit to Verdun later.