The Wine Country of Alsace,
Blog 14
We rented a car and took off
for the Alsace Wine Road on the way to Colmar, a highly touted charming
town. Armed with a map, we were doing
great until roadwork took us on detours to nowhere. We were lost in the Vosges Mountains, but it was
OK—even good to be lost-- as we were high up among beautiful forests of trees. There was a second detour, which took us even
more out-of-the way. It’s a good thing Dan and I love adventures.
Even though each town was a picturesque
medieval wine village, we didn’t stop, with the exception of a brief detour to
view Albert Schweitzer’s house, because we were saving all of our energy for
Colmar The area is known for its storks as well as its wine. Stork nests can weigh up to 1000 pounds
because they like them sturdy. They also
choose prime real estate on the tops of cathedral and church spires in the most
beautiful places…a room with a view. When it comes to storks, it’s location,
location, location! Dan was able to get
a close-up of a family of 3 and also of an individual stork on top of the
Colmar Cathedral.
We got a map from the TI and
combined it with Rick Steve’s walking tour of Colmar—beyond wonderful. If I could have made all the tourists vanish,
I would have been transported back to the Middle Ages. We skipped both the museum of
Frederick-Auguste Bartholdi, the designer and architect of the Statue of
Liberty, who lived here, and Rick Steve’s favorite French museum. Even a museum junkie has her limits when her
feet are sore. The walking tour took us
to all the highlights of the area:
Petite Venice with canals, the Tanners’ Square, the colorful, narrow
houses, the synagogue and so much more.
You’ll just have to beg to see our pictures. Steves said it was a leisurely 1 hour
stroll. The Lees did it in a record 2 ½
hours.
We got really, really lost
trying to find our way out of Colmar and ended up who knows where, but with
blind squirrel luck we finally found the expressway back to Stasbourt. It was amazing that we stayed calm and
laughed rather than argued.
Shortly after we arrived back
to the hotel after a lovely, mild day, we experienced violent thunder, lightening, followed by a
heavy downpour. We decided to try the
hotel restaurant. Wrong! Not only was it very expensive-- $25 for a small side salad—there was nothing
on the menu to satisfy our palates: tete
de veau, pied du porc, liver of canard.
Feh!
Since the rain had
diminished, we headed out in our usual restaurant search mode, which is what I
dislike most about traveling. Dan’s
motto is, “When all else fails, eat Italian,” so we ducked into a pizza, pasta
place. Dan ordered a side salad $5 (not
$25) and I had a bowl of tomato soup. We
waited and waited and waited for the pizza to the point that went beyond
leisurely French dining. When they
served the table that had ordered 15 minutes after us, and our pizza was nowhere
in sight, even mild mannered Dan agreed to pay for what we’d eaten already and
leave.
As we walked back to the
hotel at 10:30, an oasis:
McDonalds. Very tired and cranky,
I left Dan at the door to order a Big Mac.
Twenty minutes later he returned to the hotel stating, “That’s the
second restaurant I walked out of tonight.”
They couldn’t get their act together to serve the two people in line
ahead of Dan. It was OK though. We lived off our fat until morning.
Today we had a choice of TGV
to Charles De Gaulle either at 12:15 or 7 P.M.
As much as we loved Stasbourg, we had to be out of our hotel room mid
afternoon and I hate to admit it, but we’re tired. We decided to have breakfast in Petite
France, a section we hadn’t yet visited.
What an experience! Next to us
was a forty-five year old German man, Oliver, who was moving to Stasbourg. He looked like a hippie but acknowledged that
he was quite conservative. Then he proceeded
to tell us that his grandfather had worked with Werner Von Braun during WWII
and refused to be part of the group that came to America because that was the
enemy. He said that his grandfather “did
terrible things.” At that point, I
decided to tell him we were Jewish. He
told us his grandmother insisted that “she knew nothing about what was going
on.” When he was older, he confronted
her and told her that was impossible.
She read up on it and came to him in tears—ashamed. According to him, he is filled with guilt and
has a hard time dealing with it. When
Dan asked for bill, Oliver got up. Dan
guessed correctly that he paid for our bill. When I spoke to Debbie, she said,
“Did he think he was paying reparations?”!
We grabbed baquettes at the French equivalent
of Togo’s, and after a smooth 2 ½ hr ride on the TGV to the airport, we
are at a Novotel, the best ergonomically designed hotel of our trip: easy to find and many outlets, a hotpot
rather than a complicated coffee machine that even Dan couldn’t work, a shower
that doesn’t require mountain climbing.
Tomorrow…home. It’s been a great
trip!!!
I have one blog after this
that will deal with overall impressions.
Thank you for reading. Again,
forgive typos, incorrect words, misspelling, bad grammar. Adieu,
Shirley
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