All through 2025, Jude of Travel Words fame has invited us to give our Sunday posts over to benches. Benches that are worth sitting on for the rest and comfort they offer, or for the views they preside over. Even though I’ve been an inconsistent post-provider, it would be rude to ignore this final Sunday. And just to be contrary, I’m offering not an actual bench, but a piece of street art in Angers, France, showing a bench – in honour of this song composed for Jeanne Moreau, who sang it in the film Jules et Jim.
This week, it’s my turn to host Leanne’s Monochrome Madness. I decided on Clocks and Timepieces. Easy, I thought. Well, up to a point. There are plenty of clocks in towns, in stations, on churches and on public buildings. But too often they’re bit samey-samey. So I’m starting with one that we came upon by chance on our last day in Alsace, in Munster’s Catholic Church. It’s a modern Horloge de la Création, installed at the behest of André Voegele from Strasbourg, who has made it his ambition to install unusual timepieces. This one is interesting alright. It tells the time: hour by hour, minute by minute. But it also counts the years down, month by month; the days of the week; and the phases of the moon. It’s topped by a splendid cockerel, whom I chopped off a bit in my header photo. So here he is. I’m sure he’s a reliable alarm clock. Cocks usually are.
As to the rest. I have an indifferent photo of a clock that hasn’t functioned since 2007 – the Swiss Glockenspiel Clock in London; a clock outside St. Pancras Station; one from a station waiting room in Keighley; an intriguing one spotted outside an apartment block in Barcelona; the centrepiece of Thirsk’s Market Square; and a clock which is not a clock, but helps to govern the workings of the one high up outside Masham’s Parish Church. Now. Can you tell which is which?
And finally. A clock which is a shadow of its former self. This alarm clock sat in a hedge on a country road which I often passed during Daily Exercise in Lockdown. It stayed there for months after Normal Sevice had been resumed. It was always 8 o’clock. Then one day it disappeared. Life has not been the same since. I offer it to Becky for NovemberShadows.
The lonely alarm clock of Musterfield. Tells the correct time twice daily, but the alarm never rings.
On our recent trip, mainly to Alsace, but with sorties to Germany and the Netherlands, we came across several stories from the past which we’d known nothing about, but found engrossing. For the next few Fridays, I’ll share these stories with you.
Unterlinden, Colmar
Maybe this post will be a bit History-lite, but it’s still a story worth telling. Back in 13th century Alsace, the Dominican order founded a convent, Unterlinden, in the then outskirts of Colmar. The nuns from this contemplative order were woven into the life of the city until the French Revolution, when in 1793 the convent was confiscated. First abandoned, it then became a military barracks.
Henri Lebert Thann 1794-1862 imagined life in the convent in this oil painting.
In 1846, something rather extraordinary happened. Louis Hugot, the archivist-librarian of the City of Colmar set about bringing together fellow intellectuals and enthusiasts with the aim of setting up a print collection and drawing school. They called themselves Societé Schongauer afer an Alsatian engraver and painter, an important influence on Albrecht Dürer. The following year, they bought the now-abandoned convent and bequeathed it to the city.
Its earliest display is still here: a locally-discovered Roman mosaic. Here it is.
Then, the museum made do with plaster casts loaned from the Louvre. Now, it has an impressive collection of sculpture and altarpieces from a variety of churches in the area.
I was quietly impressed by these displays. Simply presented against white-painted walls, these pieces spoke of their spiritual intent, and I spent a long time in their presence, for the most part alone.
These pieces were all acquired in the early 1850s. But the star of the show, then and now, and the reason why most people visit this gallery is to spend time with Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim altarpiece. As I did. But partly because I have no good images of it, and partly because it deserves a long appreciation, I won’t discuss it here. This is a good article from the Guardian –here.
Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim altarpiece.
Then there are the cloisters: just the place for more religious statuary.
By the early 21st century the museum was running out of space. It was making contemporary acquisitions. It needed a refreshment area. Basel architects Herzog & de Meuron thought outside the box. The 1912 Public Baths on the other side of the road were no longer in use.
The 1912 former baths
Why not connect the two buldings with an underpass which could also be a display area?
This is the result.
The result is a gallery where the works on display can breathe. Where the newer parts complement the old and reflect its religious past. It’s an exciting as well as a contemplatve space, and I put this gallery down as possibly among the best viewing spaces that I have ever visited.
A new gallery.
A staircase.
An outside space.
I’ll finish by showcasing two or three of the works which appealed to me.
A detail from a 1480 Nativity recovered from an old Franciscan church in Colmar. The infant Jesus is the only one not old beyond his years.A 1950 Annunciation by Otto Dix. Surely, if there was an Annunciation as described in the Bible, Mary might have been caught not at all in her Sunday best, and just plain embarrassed by the whole thing. What me? Sex before marriage? My mum’d kill me. Me? An unmarried mother? I don’t think so. What would Joseph say?Paul Rebeyrolle, La Souche (the Stump) 2005. A composite of various organic and inorganic materials: wood, vines, straw, vegetable and animal fibres, wire, expanded polyurethane foam, resin, mortar, adhesive, paints.
Just a postscript. Malcolm didn’t come with me. He thought he was too tired to be able to spend a few hours standing before a succession of art works. If only we’d realised. He could have made use, for free, of one of these flâneuses, or leisurely strollers. What a brilliant idea!
Borrow a flâneuse! It’s free!
Becky, can you find the image + shadow for NovemberShadows? I hope so.
On our recent trip, mainly to Alsace, but with sorties to Germany and the Netherlands, we came across several stories from the past which we’d known nothing about, but found engrossing. For the next few Fridays, I’ll share these stories with you.
Ammerschwihr
We happened upon Ammerschwihr on our way back from Le Linge and decided to stop, attracted by its mediaeval town gates.
The first set of town gates we spotted
It’s a prosperous little town. This commune is home to the highest number of winegrowers in relation to the number of inhabitants anywhere in Alsace. And that’s saying something.
In front of modern housing in traditional style is this fountain of the Wild Man of Ammerschwihr, 1560. He’s holding a shield showing the town’s weapons in one hand, while leaning on a vine stock.
As we mooched round, it gave the air of being yet another pretty town of half-timbered houses. Until we reached the old town hall, which these days doesn’t even justify being called a facade.
What’s left of Ammerschwihr’s former Town Hall
Then a small plaque. Oh! So it was destroyed during the war?
The Town Hall, built in Renaissance style in 1552 was destroyed in an act of war in December 1944. It’s classed as a historic monument.
Buildings nearby were clearly more modern, though sympathetically built to fit in with the ancient centre (which we later realised were also reconstructions). We found another notice, attached to the wall of one of the many wine producers in town.
We needed to know more.
During the later stages of WWII, The Battle of the Bulge was the Germans’ last attempt to break through Allied lines. They gained a dangerous amount of French territory in a campaign which though apparently well known, I hadn’t heard of. The Allies promptly regained much of this territory, except in an area near Colmar, which became known as The Colmar Pocket. Ammerschwihr was in this zone, and like so many other nearby communities, it lost 85% of its buildings to bombing raids in December 1944.
But the ins and outs of military campaigns are above my paygrade, and if they interest you, you can read about them here and here. I prefer to know what life was like for the women and men on the street. Although I read that the conditions for the serving soldiers during this part of the war were truly horrendous. A particularly harsh winter in 1944 – 45 meant that both sides endured the sheer misery of fighting in deep snow and mud in totally inadequate clothing. Getting supplies to them was a sometimes unachievable struggle. Casualties were extremely high.
For the civilians, life was no better. Ammerschwihr wasn’t evacuated, but many villages were, and unending columns of the dispossessed trailed to what they hoped was safety, having lost everything but the little they could carry. Those who remained faced street barrages, hand-to-hand fighting. Food and often water were hard to come by, and the population hid in cellars, sharing what little they had. For those of us whose territory wasn’t invaded during WWII, this suffering is almost unimaginable. And afterwards – the long hard road to reconstruction, and trying to re-establish some kind of normal life.
The victorious French advancing through Colmar in 1945 (Picryl.com)
Here’s what it says in WWII History Tour: Colmar Pocket
Once under German control, Alsace was subject to forced Germanization policies. The use of the French language was banned in schools, public spaces, and even private conversations in many cases. Street names were changed, French cultural symbols were removed, and local populations were pressured to embrace a German identity, often against their will. Families with French allegiances were treated as enemies, and suspicion ran high among neighbours, with the region caught between two nations. The sense of belonging for Alsatians became deeply conflicted as they struggled to retain their unique Franco-German culture under oppressive occupation.
Perhaps the most devastating aspect of Nazi control was the forced conscription of Alsatian men, known as the “Malgré-nous” (meaning “against our will”). Thousands of young men were drafted into the German army, the Wehrmacht, and even the feared SS, despite many feeling a strong allegiance to France. Some were sent to fight on the Eastern Front, where casualties were extremely high. Families were torn apart, and many Alsatians who tried to resist conscription faced imprisonment, deportation, or execution. After the war, the return of Alsace to France did not immediately heal the scars. The region carried the burden of divided loyalties, lingering mistrust, and the painful memories of occupation and forced service, which shaped its identity for decades to come.
It was hard to reconcile all this with the charming, civilised, peaceful little town we wandered around. The nearest we got to the unpleasant realities was this building, once a town gate, once in fact a prison, and known as Le Tour des Fripons – the Tower of Knaves. It all seemed much less immediate than the town’s more recent disturbing history.
Since we left our home in France, eleven years ago, I’d forgotten the exhilaration of walking in the mountains. The Vosges are not the Pyreneees, far from it. But they offer the same reward of yomping, puffing and panting ever the harder, up the steepest of slopes before finally offering you views- across to distant slopes, and to valleys below: pastures, forests, settlements.
So in Alsace, Malcolm and I picked our chosen pastimes – walking for me, cycling for him. And on this day, we’d driven about 15 km. from ‘home’ to only a couple of hundred metres below the summit of Le Petit Ballon, so he could enjoy the exhilaration of zooming downhill, then along the valley bottom on a series of cycle ways to our holiday premises. I was to enjoy the different exhilaration of climbing to the top of the mountain before walking down and up and down and up the circular route I’d chosen to get me back to the car.
I passed cows first, the sound of their bells reverberating mellifluously far across the valleys.
It was a hard slog to the top, but I got there, and was disappointed by the presence of a bulky and rather ugly phone mast. And then immediately went wrong. I was relying on a walk description in a booklet I’d bought, and on the French equivalent of our OS maps. Which we’d long ago discovered do not do anything like as good a job. I was to follow several different series of balises (waymarks), which are also inconsistent in their usefulness (they tend to be there when you don’t need them, absent when you do).
My booklet said to walk to the statue of the Madonna and turn right. I did. I walked downwards, and found a path which didn’t seem right. Coming across some walkers from a French rambling group, they greeted me cheerily. ‘Are you alone? Come with us!’ I was tempted, but they were going the other way. But they pored over my map with me and set me right before going on their way. Anyway, it turned out I had followed the Wrong Madonna. Who knew there would be two in more or less the same area? I adjusted my walk plan and carried on.
I passed through woodland, a rich loamy path, with weightless grey lichens clinging to every twig and branch. Then open pastureland with distant mountain and forest views.
Onwards and upwards, till I came to an open summit with boulders scattered randomly around, making a perfect choice of picnic venue for me, offering me views in every direction. It was just warm enough, just sunny enough. Perfect.
After lunch, the views became more open, the colours more autumnnal, the path, though inexorably upwards, was a gentler slope. I passed the peak with the bench I showed you yesterday, and meandered slowly down to the wooded valley. On my way down, I found a piece of history from 1915: the remains of a German téléphérique, used to transport goods and all the chattels of war: a reminder of all we’d learnt up at le Linge.
My final couple of kilometres were disappointing, along a road – the one we’d travelled ourselves en route that morning. But I’ve forgotten that now, and kept instead the memories of a fresh, bright day in early autumn: an energetic and satisfying walk.
This is by way of being a preview for Jo’s Monday Walk tomorrow. It’s a viewpoint near le Petit Ballon in Alsace, but as you see, the Boy with Blue Hair Bagged the Bench first. I still offer it for Jude’s Bench Challenge.
On our recent trip, mainly to Alsace, but with sorties to Germany and the Netherlands, we came across several stories from the past which we’d known nothing about, but found engrossing. For the next few Fridays, I’ll share these stories with you.
The Battle of Le Linge
Anglophone readers will all know the dreadful story of the so-called Great War, 1914 – 1918. Particularly the war in Flanders, with its trench warfare in which first the Allies, then the Germans, gained a few yards of ground, then lost it, and gained it again in manoeuvres that resulted in the pointless deaths of thousands upon thousands of men whilst upending the communities in which those battles took place, as well as the families whom they had left behind. It turns out that this story was repeated in very different territory too.
In the Vosges mountains, in territory which has through the centuries passed repeatedly between German and French hands there is a col known as Le Linge. It’s a mere 17 miles (28 km) from Colmar, but it’s a different, often desolate world, reached by travelling up apparently endless and steep hairpin bends which cut through dense forest and a rocky landscape untouched by human hands. On the day we went there, to visit the Mémorial du Linge, it was rainy: and I was glad. This was no site to enjoy in balmy sunshine.
Early on in the course of the war, both French and German commanders thought they could see advantages in taking control of Alsace, though both had sent the bulk of their troops elsewhere – notably the Marne.
Here’s what the Memorial’s own website has to say:
'Given the situation on the battlefield, the French army had to overcome enormous logistical difficulties . Starting from scratch, it had to build roads, camps, ambulances, aid stations, transport ammunition and supplies on mules, install heavy and light artillery, build battery emplacements, shelters and other necessary installations, andfinally transport the combatants, all in full view of the German enemy.
Faced with such preparations, the latter would not remain inactive and would prepare for the coming assault. Taking advantage of the shelter of the forest, excellent logistics (notably a narrow-gauge train from Trois Epis) and the proximity of the Alsace plain, the German troops established solid defenses. Trenches, shelters and connecting trenches were installed on the mountain, fortifications built, pillboxes and machine gun nests arranged, fields of barbed wire unrolled along the steep slopes between trees, rocks, brambles and other chevaux de frise (movable obstacles, often made of a wooden frame with spikes). These defenses added to the complexity of the battle for the French forces and further accentuated their initial disadvantage on the terrain.'
A German soldierA French soldier
Both soldiers here look almost 19th century, equipped for different battles from the long-drawn out trench warfare to which they were actually subjected.
From July 1915, battle commenced. There were attacks, counter-attacks, hand-to-hand fighting as each side was only feet away from their enemy. I read one account in the museum, which I’ve been unable to find again, telling of a batallion going into battle one night with over 2000 men, and returning in the morning with just 3 officers, and 28 men.
Life in the trenches as shown in the MuseumA French field hospital. Note the man smoking in the background.
Despite courageous resistance from the French, the German forces always maintained the upper hand. On October 16th, the last German assault took place, after which both sides retreated into an uneasy, exhausted, totally debilitated calm.
Pillaged from a local church, this was found displayed in a trench, doubtless as an impromptu altar.
And yet. Both sides retained a pointless presence there for the whole of the rest of the war, with skirmishes a daily routine. On average, 5 men died every day during the whole of this period: young men, mainly aged 19 or 20. Specialised forces were deployed, such as these troops here: skiers. Whole villages were forced to evacuate, and many remained abandoned after the end of the war.
Yet again, the website sums it up:
'The Battle of Linge, of no strategic importance, was a true human tragedy marked by the courage, determination, self-denial, and sacrifice of French and German soldiers. It bears witness to the brutality and difficulty of the fighting of the First World War, where thousands of lives were wasted for often minimal territorial gains.'
A map of the trenches. No wonder I found it hard to get my bearings!
After the museum, it was time to go outside and inspect the trenches, still intact. We were reminded that those we see today would have then been about a metre deeper. As advised, I was wearing my walking boots – Malcolm wisely decided not to join me. I set off confidently on the ‘difficile‘ circuit, and after a degree of inelegant scrambling, retreated to the ‘moyenne‘, and finally to the ‘plus facile‘. The scenery was a treat: the terrain by turns rocky, slippy as gravel skittered away from me, slippery, steep, narrow, impassable. The trenches were cold, narrow, inhospitable, offering the occasional cave cut into the rock to offer shelter from rain, wind and- in winter – snow and ice. Winter temperatures there regularly fell well below freezing. On my walk I often passed a white cross, indicating a French corpse who had been found, or a black cross for a German. Both are now memorialised respectfully. It’s recommended that visitors take up to an hour and three quarters to discover the whole site. I did not. It was raining. I was neither a poilu*, nor a frontschwein**.
This was a thought-provoking day, and one which we shan’t forget, at a time when seeing images of war and its human consequences are still part of our daily routine.
*The French term for a infantryman, and actually meaning 'hairy man'. ** A frequent term for a German infantryman, meaning 'front pig'.
For this week’s Monochrome Madness, I’m showing a few images from Strasbourg: its historic city centre, including the area near and in the Cathedral, and a few odds and ends such as a weather vane, a single lonely wolf (?) on a riverside brick wall, and a few of the many bikes there.
In my head, I’m still on holiday. In my head, I’m processing all the new sights and experiences of the last few weeks. Among those sights was the Vosgienne. A smallish cow, black and white with a pronounced white stripe along its backbone, it has short delicate horns. And you’ll find it – of course – in the Vosges mountains. Locals value its creamy milk in cheese production, particularly of bold-flavoured Munster cheese.
My header image is of one we saw on our trip to the Transhumance celebrations. I bet she was glad to get rid of that weighty cowbell. She’d have had one on her mountain pastures too, but it would have looked more like this one here:
It’s our last day in Alsace. Alas. Tomorrow we leave, returning home via friends of Malcolm in northern Germany. We had a day of lakeside walks at le Lac Vert, a hearty meal at a mountain auberge, more walking on bucolic mountain paths, and a final wander round Munster, where we walked into the Catholic parish church and found a wonder of a modern clock,’l’Horloge de la Création’, with no fewer than four faces. A satisfactory last day. If any last day can be satisfactory.
The bonus card for today is a short video of contented cows, their bells tunefully chiming as they grazed. Sadly, they’re not the native black and white cows of the Vosges. But you can’t have everything.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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