Western
Europe continued
Tour of France continued
Mon 10/1 Day 10 Verdun - Colmar. 3 hours maybe to Strasbourg. Drive to Colmar. Stop off to visit Strasbourg This is a beautiful old city, full of architecture and cuisine, unique to Alsace. It's a mixture of German and French, but don't tell the locals this. They consider themselves very French. There's many museums and old churches and buildings to visit. I've always wanted to visit this area of France. Then head off to Colmar & visit it. Colmar is about 1 hour from Starsbourg.
Hotel Turenne
10 route du Bale
Tel. 03-89-21-58-58
640 FF per night for the shared room. Its an additional 48FF
w/breakfast. Confirmed with visa card. Have garage, its 30FF
per night to park in it, however, can park for free on the street.
Again, no Verdun, so we drove directly from Tours to Colmar, skipping Strasbourg. We went through a couple really cool towns, and again we saw how fun it would be to really take it slow and explore a town that captured our fancy. We stopped in Dijon but had a problem parking. Too much mustard everywhere. Or something like that. We had lunch at a place that was on the verge of becoming a Spanish food restaurant, and the waiter was snide but nice in a weird sort of way. I called it rudely friendly, but hey, the French are learning. We then hit the long lonesome after some fish and got into Colmar. Out of all the places, I think my dad was struck the most by Colmar. It was very German, but was spared bombing in the war because both sides liked it so much. My father couldn't stop taking pictures. We got in our room, we were sharing a suite, my parents in the main room, Laura off to a little alcove between the bedroom in the bathroom, and I had a hide-a-bed in the main room. We then walked around and ate a wonderful dinner. Capital wonder! Sauerkraut and sausages, man, oh man, oh man. As we walked around, we could smell the sauerkraut cooking, but it tasted even better than it smelled. Rick Stevie's liked the town and the hotel, and I must say, thank God for Rick Stevies. He gets Americans out of America, and one of the reasons why my parents went was because of that man. After dinner, we got back to our room, and I found something on in English that wasn't the news! Well, CNN isn't really news, more like news light, really, and so my mother and I watched The Fearless Vampire Killers who starred a young, unrecognizable Roman Polanski. The movie was worse than my hide-a-bed. Mercifully, it ended and we went to bed.
Tues 10/2 Day 11 Colmar, visit Route du vin. Visit a bit more of Colmar in the morning, then head off into the mountains. Around Colmar there are beautiful villages and scenic drives through the mountains. Riquewihr came very highly recommended, its supposed to be very sweet village and not to be missed.
Also nearby is Ribeauville
where the finest linen factory in France, Beauville, is located.
Also if we're interested, there's a city close by which has a
large old car museum. Some of the scenic drives include: Route
du vin (vin means wine), Vallee de Munster (where the cheese
comes from I believe), Route des Cretes, Ballon d'Alsace, and
visiting the lake in Geradem. In addition Freiburg, Germany is
just steps away from Colmar and if we like, we can go across
for an afternoon and visit the cathedral and tower. Its always
fun to visit another country for an afternoon! We'll stay somewhere
along the route in the mountains.
Hotel Turenne for second night.
No driving for us that day. We wandered around Colmar, looked at churches, ate lunch, bought some postcards and momentos, and just enjoyed this wonderful little town. We went to a museum and about an hour into the museum, we hit the wall. No, not another picture of a bleeding Jesus! Ahhhhh! I must say that Grundewald's Isenheim Alterpiece was really, really stunning, and I found some Medieval artists that I liked, which is really a feat, because I agreed with my father, too many bleeding Jesus' and pious Mary's. But guys like Grunewald, Jost Haller, and Martin Schongauer (think Virgin of the Rose Garden), those guys kick ass. Our day in Colmar ended with more sauerkraut and sausages, and luckily, that night, there was another movie in English, Roger Moore's The Big One. Cool movie, though I think my dad would have rather watched the vampire killer movie again.
Typical old building and canal in Colmar
Three of us at yet another canal & quaint old building
I was facinated by all the interesting and varied windows in the city. Here's a couple: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
The old and the new mixed into the city & that really kept it alive
Some medieval women from a painting in the Colmar museum
Aaron and his parents in the streets of Colmar