Category: France

Postcards from Alsace: Four Castles, One Town and a School

We aimed high today and went in quest of castles, all visible from the valley below, as they are all top-of-the-landscape and visible for miles. Alsace is littered with them. Our first was Hohlansbourg, a mighty curtain of a fortress. We could have walked from there to the next three, but it would have taken a long time. Those next three, all from the 11th and 12th centuries are built in a line and are only steps apart. Quite ruined, nobody calls them anything but ‘les trois châteaux’. The picture postcard shows the pleasant walks up to them from – not the valley floor – but the car parks, still some distance away.

You’ve seen a town or two in Alsace already, but here’s another, Eguisheim. What fascinated us here were hugely wide front doors, all up several steps. What was that about? No horse-drawn delivery cart could make use of them. Also – we saw two storks wheeling above our heads. The Alsatians love their storks, and encourage them to build nests on their houses to bring good luck. Normally they leave in August. Increasingly warm winters are persuading them to give Africa a miss, and stay.

Finally, a curiosity – to us. On our way home we called in at the shop run by the local high school. It specialises in agriculture, for pupils looking for that sort of career. Every département has one. The shop stocks the produce not only of this school, but many other agricutural lycées: note the wine! As well as other local produce. A good end to a varied sort of day.

Postcards from Alsace: A Wettstein Walk, and a Choral Concert

A day of contrasts: this morning, a not entirely successful walk in which we quite comprehensively failed to find the path for the latter part of our morning. Never mind. The woodland was atmospheric, the autumnal views across the Vosges just starting to become a spectacular blaze of colour.

Then later, a visit to an unusual church in Colmar, St. Matthias. It was completed in the 15th century by the Franciscans, but in 1715, the church was divided in half … to serve the Catholic community at one end, the Protestants at the other…

In this case, the Catholic end of the church has become a concert hall. And we have just experienced a powerful performance of Haydn’s Creation there. The choir who performed, Passion Bach 25, recruits area-wide, and draws members from both Alsace and Germany. The accompanying orchestra was German, and the choir will perform this work in Germany as well as here in Alsace. We were so lucky to be there.

Postcards from Alsace: Colmar Again

I couldn’t decide whether to post high-rise dwellings for those working-from-home, 1580s style (as tanners, so not popular with the neighbours: it’s a smelly job) … climbing up to the top floor looks a little taxing …

…. or the staircase from the very wonderful Unterdenlinden Museum, once a convent, now an art gallery right up there as One of the Best (a post one day soon?)…..

… or a very earnest, if tiny little figure, spotted on a confessional in St. Martin’s Cathedral …

So much else qualifies too, but three postcards is quite enough, I think.

Postcards from Alsace: Strasbourg

Technology is still defeating me, so I’ll send you uncommented-on shots from our marvellous day in Strasbourg.

And there you have it. A header showing the cathedral. Details (old) of Strasbourg; details (new) of Strasbourg; the bikes of Strasbourg; streets of Strasbourg.

My computer and I have had enough together now. Before I throw it out of the window, I’ll press ‘publish’.

Postcard from Alsace: Two Shots from Ammershwihr

This little town has many delights. But have a care! It also has La Tour des Fripons. It was one of the two towers protecting the entrance to the town. But it did double duty as a prison. Hence the name. A ‘fripon‘ is a ‘knave‘.

La Tour des Fripons

Our real objective for today was the Memorial Museum at Linge. Here was somewhere that brought to life one of the many horrifying periods of WWI, in this case high in the Vosges mountains. It’s a tale that needs telling, but not tonight. Expect a post sometime after our return home.

Postcard from Alsace: Fête de la Transhumance

We know that over in the UK you are battling with Storm Amy, so I’ll keep quiet about the fact that though it is raining here, it’s the only expected poor-weather-episode in our holiday. So we’ve decided to have an afternoon off, allowing me to send lots of postcards from the Fête de la Transhumance in nearby Muhlbach which we visited this morning, ahead of the deluge we’re currently experiencing.

Transhumance is the practice of taking cattle to spend the summer grazing in the lush upland pasture, before bringing them back down to spend the winter in their home community, Both ends of the season are times of celebration, and here’s transhumance in Seix, from our days in the Pyrenees.

The first people we met after we’d arrived were a group of three people in kilts tuning up their bagpipes. We greeted them in French, then reverted to English, assuming they were Scottish. But no! They come from Strasbourg, speak not a word of English, but are Passionate about Bagpipes, and here they were, ready to play their cornemuses for everyone’s bemusement and delight.

The Alphorn was originally used to call cattle. These days it’s the province of musical folklore enthusiasts and there were several bands of them playing today.

Then it was off to visit the donkeys who would be part of the procession of cattle (Don’t ask. No idea why).

On our way up to view the procession we found the tractor that carried so many of the cowbells the animals wear when in their summer pasture, to keep tabs on them.

Then finally, we could hear all those cowbells clanging away, announcing that the cows were on their way. In truth the cows weren’t happy, and many of them skittered nervously about. I don’t know how much the leading cows enjoyed their fancy headdresses either: but they didn’t complain. By now it’ll be over, and they can forget all about it till next spring, when they’ll be off up the mountain again.

We didn’t stay for the highpoint of the event for many of the locals, the large communal meal, thankfully under canvas. But before we went, we looked round the market: local cheeses, sausage, sweetmeats – cowbells too.

And as we were leaving, something else extraordinary. A procession of people, each holding a large cowbell, which they knocked on each knee alternately as they walked forward, producing a rhythmical cow-bell-dirge. Ouch! Poor knees!

After yesterday’s experience at Colmar, which was Tourist Central, jammed with visitors (like us …) it was good to be at a local celebration: crowded to be sure, but almost exclusively with locals, many of them chatting away in Alsatian, which is widely spoken here, particularly among the older generation.

We feel as if we’ve properly arrived here now.

P.S. WP’s AI suggests the following tags: technology; art; cats.

Ruined Statuary

Today, for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness, Sarah of Travel with Me invites us to photograph ruins. I could so easily take you (yet again) to my favourite ruined abbeys: Fountains Abbey, Jervaulx, or Rievaulx. But Sarah herself has shown Fountains Abbey off in her post. I could take you to ruins all over this country and beyond. Instead, I thought that I’d show you not buildings, but their statues, often ruined by weather, by warfare, or quite simply the passage of time.

Best start in Rievaulx though, where carvings in its museum gave me the idea.

Off to North Eastern France, where the churches and cathedrals of Rheims, Laon and Tournus (to name but a few) have all mightily suffered from the weather eating into into the local limestone from which these were built.

And in Troyes, wooden buildings have taken a weather-beating too.

A church in Bamberg has suffered mightily from having been contructed from limestone.

But even more recent buildings have been ruined a bit. Come to Hartlepool with me.

Let’s finish off by disobeying the challenge completely, at Sant Julia church, in Argentona, Catalonia. Its gargoyles were so ruined they pulled them down. And replaced them. Like this.

By the time you read this we will be at least half way down England, in transit for eastern France – Alsace. So you won’t get prompt responses to any comments I’m afraid, as we shan’t finish travelling till Friday. But I will send a postcard before the weekend is out!