Alsatian Wanderings

A square in Strasbourg where I had foie gras for lunch!

We left Switzerland and headed for the Alsace region of France.  This whole region has changed hands between Germany and France several times over the centuries so we saw signs in both French and German and many of the town names sound more German than French.  The food has both French and German influences so you’ll see spatzle and choucroute (French for sauerkraut) on the menu along with Coq au Riesling. 

Turckheim

Our campsite was closest to the small town of Turckheim and had a large nest full of storks that visited our campsite and made beak-clattering noises all the time. After a quick load of laundry, we hurried into town to watch the World Cup Final with the locals. Of course, France won and place went crazy! There were fireworks and people running around in red, white and blue wigs and driving down the very tiny streets in their cars and honking their horns. After enjoying the revelry for a while, we headed back to the campsite where we continued to hear the celebrations for hours. This town is no slouch when it comes to history.  It has many historical buildings, is known for its wine and has a town crier walking tour each evening during high season.

Colmar

The following day we took the train in to Colmar - called the “Little Venice.”  Sound familiar? Annecy was called “the French Venice.”  When we got to Strasbourg, (which also has canals) there’s an area called “Little France”  Really though, they were all lovely and had their own brand of charm. 

We strolled through the streets, followed Rick Steves’ walking tour which pointed out many interesting things about the buildings and history of this town. The architecture was completely different from Switzerland just a few hours away. The half-timbered houses had steeply pitched roofs and shutters giving it a unique feel.  This was another place that seemed not too big and not too small - just right.  I stayed away from the real estate offices so as not to be tempted. The day was warm and we ate lunch in a square shaded by umbrellas.

Macaroons!

We returned another day to visit the covered market (which was closed during our first visit) and to tour the Unterlinden Museum which houses many masterpieces in what was a 13th-century convent cloisters and chapel. My favorite thing about this museum was the wonderful mix of historical pieces (like a mosaic from a house during its Roman era) and art ranging from the Middle Ages all the way up to modern art. There was one space that have been converted from a pool/bath area to house modern art. We spent longer than expected  - Dermot and I both seem to linger in museums. I spend longer with art but he spends longer in the historical pieces.

Eguisheim

This town was named France’s favorite town in 2013 and its easy to see why.  Its a small, circular town with some of the cutest houses you’ve ever seen.  Everywhere you look along its narrow streets, there are interesting windows, hatches, and doorways with carved lintel stones indicating the year and, often, the occupation of the original owner.  There were also signs along the way indicating points of interest and explaining their history or interpretation. There was also lovely Romanesque Chapel with a painted interior dedicated to their hometown saint - St. Leo IX complete with a piece of his jawbone.  

Click here for photos.

Strasbourg

This is another picturesque area. Much like Colmar only bigger, yet it still doesn’t feel overwhelming or overwhelmed. It’s very pedestrian-friendly and many people ride bikes here. We walked the two kilometers from and to the campground each day and racked up far more than our 10,000 steps each day.  All the better to work off the lunches of spatzle and duck breast with sauce!  The cathedral was so large we couldn’t get it into a single picture.



The picture on the right is not a weird fish-eye lens effect.
That's the actual curve of the roof line!

We toured the Strasbourg Historical Museum and tried on the armor. This museum also featured the fact that Gutenberg (of moveable type printing press fame) started here.  

This picture is of a plaque under his statue in a square as an homage to him. It features how the printing press revolutionized the spread of information - notice Benjamin Franklin and the Native Americans kneeling. 

We got to see a demonstration of traditional Alsatian dancing complete with a man wearing a flowery hat with lots of long ribbons and women wearing hats reminiscent of The Handmaid's Tale. One other thing we noticed on our walks was the prevalence of urban family gardens. Large sections of land near parks were fenced and partitioned into plots so each family could grow their own produce and/or flowers. 

Gengenbach, Germany

We took a quick side trip into Germany at the request of Dermot’s sister Mary, who had attended school there many years ago. It was a nice town with more half-timbered houses, a town wall and a jester’s museum. We bought a lunch of “Farmer’s Bratwurst” and homemade potato salad at market day stall and ate standing while listening to the local speak in German.  We drew curious sidelong glances when we spoke English. 

Switzerland - At the top of Europe.

On the top of Europe

We headed for cooler temperatures since the weather had been heating up. So we set our sights on the Swiss Alps and booked a campsite just outside of Interlaken. Switzerland is reputed to be expensive and a perusal of the Our tour blog yielded a great idea - to stock up on food and gas before heading there.  We had been shopping often so we had to think about what would keep for awhile and loaded up our tiny kitchen shelves.  But the Swiss are sharp and they still got us for a toll vignette to the tune of 40 Swiss francs at the border.  We had been doing okay with my limited French but we really don't know German.

The drive to Interlaken was very pretty as we went north of Lake Leman. Once we arrived at the campsite, I realized I no longer had our ACSI discount card and spent a fair amount of time searching for it. The campsite owner wasn't moved by our story and charged us full price - 59 Swiss francs per night. Welcome to Switzerland. We were given passes for the local bus system and Dermot grilled seasoned duck breast skewers for dinner.  As we were eating, we heard voices overhead and watched as paragliders floated above with the Alps as a backdrop.  This has to be our best campground view yet.  Later I spent a good part of the night reading up on Rick Steves' recommendations for the area, deciphering the bus schedule and trying to find that card while Dermot watched Croatia beat England in the world cup semi-final.  

Since clear weather makes a huge difference in visibility in the Alps and the weather forecast was best on Thursday and Friday, I had prepped for a fast breakfast and departure but we didn't exactly get off to an early start the next morning.  We took the bus to the station to buy train tickets and gulped at the price of the transportation to Jungfraujoch.  Since we were staying four nights, we got three day passes and that set us back over 500 Swiss francs (very close to the same in dollars). 

It took three different trains - some of which were very slow, to reach Jungfraujoch - billed "Top of Europe." We were very lucky to have good weather and clear skies the whole way up and we passed cute villages, rushing alpine streams, and grazing cows that were completely unfazed by the tremendous mountains jutting up all around us.  We, along with all the other tourists couldn't wait to get to the top level to see the peaks and they were spectacular. 

There's a metal grid platform that circles the top of the building where everyone goes to take photos. When you look down it's a loooong way to solid ground.  Dermot doesn't like heights and his reaction was visceral.  Heights don't bother me as much but it made me woozy as well.  After much Alps admiration and picture taking, we ate the picnic lunch and toured the rest of the facility which included an ice palace (think ice cave with ice sculptures) and walked outside in the snow for more pictures.  

I decided I needed hot chocolate so we returned inside to warm up and check the map to see if we could  hike anywhere nearby.  As we walked up the stairs it quickly dawned on us that we had some altitude sickness and hiking in freezing temperatures (yes, even in July) wasn't in the cards for the day.

Friday we decided to go to Schlithorn. This was a different experience in that the Jungfraujost was higher and the peaks still surrounded you but at the Schlithorn you had a 360 panorama and could see the Alps stretching into other countries as pointed out by the plates on the platform.  You could see Mont Blanc in France as well as peaks in Italy and Germany's Black Forest.  I couldn't help but be saddened though that there was much less snow and fewer glaciers that when my family visited 15 years ago. 

We'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

This place really makes the most of its claim to fame as the location of the filming of the movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" - the 1969 Bond 007 movie. We ate lunch then descended to the station below where they had more places to stand on a see through platform, experience vertigo and take more pictures. 

We then descended to the lovely small town of Murren and we followed Rick Steves walk and took many pictures.  Great views!

When we got back to camp without any word from the campsite we contacted the day before, we quickly contacted places in the next two towns and made reservations for four nights in each place.  Ten nights planned is a record for us!

Saturday 

We set out for Trummelbach Falls walking from the Lauterbrunnen train station.  On the way, Dermot heard a strange sound overhead and we witnessed people jumping from a cliff in flying squirrel suits whizzing towards the ground. They let out a tiny parachute followed by a bigger one. We had never seen that in person and I can't imagine what it would be like.

At the falls, there was an elevator that took us halfway up the falls and thereafter it was a chilly and wet climb - mostly on stairs so it wasn't slippery.  We were both surprised at how much water there was and also noticed how the falls are obviously much bigger at other times of the year since they have carved huge passages through the rock.

We had lunch in a restaurant in Lauterbrunnen to try traditional Swiss cooking.  Dermot had a Farmer's Roti (shredded potatoes with cheese,   ham mushrooms onions).  Mine was a small salad and raclette which turns out to be small potatoes in a bowl of more melted Swiss cheese than any one person should eat in a sitting.  We were so stuffed we spent the afternoon riding the trains going back up for one more glimpse of the snow covered peaks and the small villages tucked into valleys. We'll miss the views in the Alps, but not the high prices!

Awesome Annecy

I had read that the town of Annecy was the Venice of France. Our first impression of Annecy arriving on a Saturday was of the traffic. It was pretty slow-going and the drivers were not at their most helpful. But then we saw the lake. First of all, I had assumed the photos of the lake were photoshopped - the turquoise blue was something I had only seen in the Caribbean. Nope, it’s real and it’s breath-taking. Once you can take that in, you’re stunned by the gorgeous mountains ringing the lake. Then you spot the boats and para-gliders and the many other ways to enjoy this place. After a long drive in, we spent the first night settling into the campsite in the town of Doussard (which is at the south end of the lake) so Dermot could see a World Cup match.

Having experienced the crowds of summer, we decided to avoid the town on Sunday and drove far up into the mountains of Le Semnoz to see a panorama of the mountains including Mont Blanc. It was a steep climb and it had Dermot worrying we were asking too much of our transmission on these mountains. Once parked, we climbed up onto a ski-lift area to see the mountains and they were incredible. 

Monday is usually a quiet day in French towns so we made the long drive north along the lake to Annecy. Yes, there are canals and historic houses with waterfront entrances - this place has been inhabited for over 5,000 years. Everywhere you looked there was character and beauty.  

Click here for photos.

I’ve never thought I’d like to live in Venice. It feels like you’d need the have a lot of very old money and connections to live there.  But Annecy feels more real, more welcoming and I really think I could live here!  Since seeing it, I have tried, unsuccessfully, to think of a place that has more going for it.  After leaving, we spent the rest of the day shopping outside the area and returned to the campsite wiped out. This isn’t like vacation - you still have to do everyday things and they take longer because you don’t know the language and you don’t know the rules. Not complaining, it's just true.

Tuesday we rented bicycles and went for a ride on the wide trails that are set sometimes fairly close and, more often, too far away to see the lake. We stopped for lunch in the town of St. Jorioz along the trail. Our rented bikes were uncomfortable and by the time we arrived at the campsite, I was saddle sore and wiped out but we still took care of a problem with the van and researched our next move before Dermot settled in to watch the semi-final in which France are playing Belgium. We had toyed with the idea of staying to see the Tour de France that was scheduled to cycle through this area on the 17th, but I can’t even imagine what the traffic would be like with the main road closed!

That is the downfall of this place - with so much going for it, it is too well-loved. Still, I can see myself here . . .

Reunion in Lyon

When I was in high school, my parents agreed to host exchange students from other countries for three years in a row. Laure came from France to live with us for 11 months - spending her senior year in high school. I was only in my junior year and really looked up to her. I thought she was so brave to leave her home, to attend school in a foreign language, and to live with strangers. She was lively and fun and she became like a sister to me. 

After she left, we wrote letters and my mother and I visited her family in France for a week when I was 19. Her whole family was very warm and welcoming. Laure and I continued to write letters after that but eventually lost touch. I tried to find her a few times, but wasn’t successful until the age of Facebook. Though her last name had changed when she married, her brother’s had not and eventually we reconnected despite her not being on Facebook. 

Since then, we’ve had a few conversations but my French skills are weak.  This week I finally got to see her again and meet her family. She and her family went above and beyond to make us feel welcome in their lovely home. Since my French is rudimentary at best, and Dermot knows less, they usually switched to English for our benefit. I got to meet her husband, some of her family and friends and see pictures of the life she had lived since I had seen her last. It's hard to describe, so I’ll just say that it was like they were a long-lost part of my family.  Dermot and I got to attend a dinner party she had with friends, had many meals with her family, and they even got us tickets to a concert. 

This week was more about a reunion than sightseeing, but here are some pictures of Lyon, Laure, and her wonderful family:

Click here for photos.

Provence: Arles, Avignon, Hill towns, Orange, Lavender, oh-la-la!

Sur le pont d'Avignon, on y danse, on y danse

Arles:

We traveled the rugged territory from Carcassone to Arles and set up camp near Arles. The following day we parked far outside town where the camper-car lot is.  It was only five euros per day (a bargain in tourist areas) and it looked like quite a few people were staying there overnight. We first visited the ruins of the roman arena (Amphitheatre). We climbed to the top of one of three remaining towers and took pictures of the town and Rhone river from those heights. You could see so much of the city from there and down the crooked streets that rim the amphitheater. It was an amazing feat of engineering considering it was built nearly 2000 years ago. It, like most other large Roman spaces, was designed to keep the population happy with “bread and circuses.” It also ensured that none of the different classes of people ever had to rub shoulders with each other. However, even the “lowest” classes (read beggars and prostitutes) had seating areas for the events - even if they were in the nose-bleed sections. The design also allowed everyone to exit quickly after a full day of entertainment watching gladiators fight bears and bulls and each other. They had to make sure the crowd could exit quickly because fights would break out among the people if they were all packed together. Sounds like rush-hour traffic to me. They still have bullfights here but mostly of the much less bloody kind.

Next we visited the ruins of the roman theater.  Most of it had been disassembled after the Romans left. In fact, much of the St. Trophime Church was, ahem, repurposed theater rubble. In fact, the cloisters (check out the picture) had many carved stone columns and capitals taken from the roman theater. St. Trophime Church has what Rick Steves describes as “the finest Romanesque main entrance” he’s seen anywhere.  We’ve included a picture of the entryway with gorgeous carvings in stone all around the doors depicting Adam and Eve, Jesus and the Apostles, judgment day, the devil, etc. 

One of the things I most love about this area is that it is the land that Vincent Van Gogh (originally from the gray, flat, north) fell in love with. He painted feverishly in Arles. It is here that he lived with and eventually scared off another artist who would become well known - Paul Gauguin. It was here that Van Gogh cut off a piece of his ear after a fight with Gauguin. I  really admire these artists who made major contributions to the evolution of art and find it tragic that neither was recognized in their own time. The citizenry of Arles knew him then as a crazy man.  Now Arles has “Public Easels” which include a photograph of a famous Van Gogh painting set where he might been when he sketched or painted it.  Check out the picture of the cafe that he painted. The café was just limestone in Van Gogh’s time but he painted it in yellow candle light.  Now the owners have painted it yellow so it looks “right” in the daylight.  Click here for more about this.

The campsite in Arles was too light on amenities so we decided to leave after two nights and checked into a site in Avignon.  I was awestruck that we saw a huge field of sunflowers (a Van Gogh favorite) for the first time just as we were leaving Arles. These are the moments, like bright pearls, that warm your heart and glow among your travel memories. 

Avignon:

We settled into a campsite across the river from Avignon that was nicer and had what has become a necessity in this hot weather - a swimming pool!  While Dermot watches the World Cup matches, I take a dip and lounge by the pool.  The first day was laundry soccer/pool time.  The next day we visited the sights of Avignon. First was the Palace of the Popes. When Italy became too dangerous for the Catholic Popes in the 12th century, they basically bought the then small town of Avignon and built structures and infrastructure appropriate for the Papacy. Subsequent popes resided here until 1403.  It was a large, impressive building but we were getting little used to large, even older impressive buildings so it wasn’t a stand-out for me.  

Next we went to the famous “Pont d’Avignon.”  I realized I had been singing the song “Sur le Pont d’Avignon, on y danse, on y danse . . .”  incorrectly for years. There are many many versions of that song.  There was a good audio guide here too.  The picture of us together was taken on the bridge with the Palace of the Popes in the background.  

Lavender and Food:

What comes to mind when you imagine Provence? Is it sun-drenched vineyards and huge fields of lavender like the picture postcards?  I’ve often wanted to see those purple fields myself but never made it here in the right season.  Maybe you think of great food and wine and it certainly has that. Friday we followed directions gathered from person on trip advisor from three years ago to see lavender fields off the beaten tourist track. After many miles, mountainous areas, and hilltop towns, I was thinking I had fallen for an internet hoax, but then some lovely lavender fields came into view.  Then there were more. Unfortunately, we were visiting in late June and peak season is mid-July so many the fields were still more green than purple but we really enjoyed what we saw and smelled.  This is also the land reputed to have fantastic food but most of our meals were self-served. We did take full advantage of the grocery stores. One of the specialities of the area is bull meat. We got some prepared in a bull stew with carrots, onions, and a rich meaty sauce. I liked it except for a few pieces that were too tough but Dermot thought the sauce was too rich.

Orange

They say that many of the best preserved Roman sites are not in Italy, but in France.  The Roman Theater in Orange is an excellent example of this as it’s one of only three such Roman theaters with its acoustic wall still standing in the entire world. Check out the picture of both of us standing with a huge stone backdrop with a statue in the background.  It had a great audioguide and even a virtual guide.  We spent a wonderful day climbing throughout it, trying to stay in the shade, and visiting the accompanying films of event that had been held here over the years.  One was of Elvis Costello playing here the year before I graduated from high school!

Click here for our photos.

Campsite meetings:

On the ferry trip back to the campsite I noticed that a couple had on wrist bands from our campgrounds that are used for the pool.  I tried to start a conversation with them in French but that wasn’t working very well. It turned out they were from Germany and spoke perfect English!  We met at the pool and later they invited us for drinks and conversation at their campsite just steps away from ours. We really enjoyed talking about a wide range of subjects. We traded contact information and they even invited us to stay at their home in Germany! 

Another night, a young woman in her twenties came over and started a conversation in French. She was working the lighting at special events in the Avignon area for the next few weeks and was traveling alone. Unlike most people, she didn’t change to English when she heard my French.  We offered her wine, which she declined, but her face lit up when we pulled an ice cream bar out of the tiny freezer on this scorcher of a day.

Stepping up our navigation game:

Avignon was the land that finally convinced us to buy a better navigation system.  We had been making do with Google maps but there was no way to customize it for our purposes.  Road work caused excessive traffic; criss-crossing flyovers and bridge entranceways; frighteningly low overpasses and tight alleyways; and aggressive drivers who won’t let you change lanes finally put us over the edge.

Connectivity still bedevils us:

We had our bright, shiny Garmin - answer to all our navigation prayers (we hoped) and I spent the night trying to upload the map updates.  No joy. The camp internet even with mi-fi was too weak even to contact customer support or see the trouble-shooting info.  Also not able to upload photos for a blogpost. Sigh.