Pax

A Walk in the Black Forest

Today we decided to go for a drive over to Germany.

Gone are the John le Carre days of border crossings with men with big guns and no smiles, and angry dogs with big teeth. The sentry box and boom gates have been replaced by a gigantic McDonalds drive through.  There are no signs “You are now leaving Victoria.  Please come back.”, and “Welcome to NSW. Have a nice Stay”.  The only real indication of the crossing of a national border is a dotted green line on the Michelin map, and the fact that we couldn’t read road signs any more.

The Rhine is a real river.  Despite the fact that the Murray-Darling is one of the longest rivers in the world, it really is rather creeky in comparison. Where we crossed there were three huge dams – one hydroelectric, and two with locks for shipping.  And it really is shipping.  We saw two huge barges going through that made the paddle steamers on the Murray look like bathtub toys.

We drove up into the Black Forest along very narrow winding roads.  The farms of the lower slopes were lush and green in early Autumn.  Germany really is serious about encouraging house owners to use solar panels.  Almost every house had solar panels,  and on some it really seemed that the panels were used as a roofing material rather than just an add-on. Some cow sheds even had panels.  I have been told that this is because the German government is serious about renewable energy, and pays generously for power generated, partly for environmental reasons, and partly because it is not that more expensive than building more huge nuclear power stations.

We had a nice cut lunch at a cross-country ski field that was on a continuous 100 km trail through the Black Forest.  Every car park we drove by had lots of cars, and there were Germans walking everywhere.  These walkers were not just the Gung-Hos or super-fit that one often sees in Australian bushwalking, but usually couples of various ages and physiques.  I think a lot of this is because there is such a good network of well-maintained  and well-marked trails of many different lengths and difficulties, and the fact that many of the trails end at a café where one can sit down for a coffee and strudel.

We went for our own small walk in the Black Forest, but turned back when we ran into a logging operation.  In the small part of the Black forest we saw there was no sign of industrial-scale clear felling, but rather more selective harvesting.

Chris

Saint Ulrich

Today the four of us walked up to St Ulrich’s Castle, which overlooks the town of Ribeauville. It was a two hour climb up a delightful mule track through vines at the lower levels, then a forest of large oaks and chestnuts higher up.

The castle was the fortified residence of the Lords Ribeaupierre between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries.  As times became safer and Ribeauville was fortified they moved down to the town itself.

We had bought sandwiches and macaroons in town before the climb, and had a pleasant picnic lunch under the walls of the castle before walking down to the town again in the early afternoon.

It is named St Ulrich’s castle because one of the early chatelaines dedicated the chapel in the castle to the saint.  St Ulrich was an eleventh century German bishop who was revered for his sanctity and simple pure life, so it is a little incongruous to see that in the present town there are bars and restaurants named after him.

One miracle attributed to St Ulrich was that after dining with a nobleman on a Thursday he gave one of his own servants a piece of meat to take home and eat. When the fellow opened the package the next day, a Friday, the meat had turned into a fish.  So all religious images of St Ulrich have him as a saintly man with a fish tucked under his arm. The commercial images of St Ulrich on the bar and restaurant walls have him as a jolly fat man holding a beer stein, Friar Tuckish.

St Ulrich was so revered for his piety that when a group of lower clergy decided that it would be nice to do away with the practice of celibacy they “found” a letter supposedly written by the Saint several centuries earlier in favour of marriage for priests.  The church hierarchy promptly declared the letter a forgery.

Thomas, Alas

In Paris last week we spent a delightful day on a self-guided walking tour of Montmartre. We walked around narrow back alleys through the old village, past houses where artists and composers lived and worked. Alas the old cabarets had been turned in tacky souvenir shops, and the closer one got to Sacre Coeur the thicker the crowds became.

Of course the four of us slowly climbed the 276 steps up to the brilliant white church on the crest of the hill.  When we got to the top a road train pulled in – a ute wearing a whole lot of wood panelling to make it look like Thomas the Tank Engine, pulling three carriages.  Fair enough, I thought, a lot of elderly and incapacitated people could not climb up to the church, and the road train really is a great help to them.  But most of the people who got out of the carriages were young and fit, though some of them were carrying very heavy cameras.  At other times it was a little disappointing to be in an almost deserted narrow winding street looking up in wonder at the window of the house where Eric Satie composed Gymnopodie III, and have to press yourself against a wall to let Thomas and his three carriages rumble by.

Ribeauville is a beautiful Medieval village, with narrow lanes, and beautiful old buildings.  Picture postcard is an overused phrase, but apt.  We strolled through the town in the early morning sunshine before the crowds built up, and it was truly beautiful.  Ted and LouAnne went to the church for the service, and by the time we all met again there were tourists everywhere.  As we were looking at a boulangerie at the local specialty – a two metre long loaf of bread that the baker would cut pieces off for customers, like cheese in a deli, we had to press ourselves into the wall again to let another Thomas and his three carriages full of tourists by.

After lunch we decided to get away from the maddening crowd, and walked five kilometres along a quiet country lane through endless grape vines over the low hills to another nearby medieval village. The village itself was magnificent, though more crowded than the sideshow alley at the Royal Melbourne Show.  It was a relief to get back onto the quiet country lane for the walk back Ribeauville.  Can you believe that there we were in the middle of the vineyards – when Thomas and his three carriages of tourists came rumbling around the corner.  If you look at the photograph you can see the shadow of Ted holding his head in despair.

Chris

Bonjour Alsace

Paris, Adieu.

We left Paris early yesterday morning.  We caught the Metro out to Charles de Gaulle to pick up the Peugeot. Judith hasn’t quite mastered the turnstiles to enter the Metro system yet. Coming into Paris she got through, but her suitcase didn’t, and she needed French gallantry to rescue her.  Leaving Paris neither she nor her suitcase made it, and again a French Gallant helped by prying open the exit doors, and like a modern Hercules holding them open for her to scurry through.

Ted realised one of his ambitions in Paris.  He finally found a genuine French Poodle being walked by an elegant Parisienne.  We are now on the lookout for a genuine Alsation.

The Peugeot is a dream to drive.  LouAnne, being the most experienced driver with left hand driving, took us out of Paris, and for the first 250 km to Alsace.  We had almost 500 km of easy driving on tollways and freeways, and then about 40 km of narrow winding roads, often though tiny villages.  Speed limits through the villages is usually 30 km/hr, but there seem to be no derestriction signs, so I figure that I can speed up again when the line of cars close behind me passes ten.  I have only bumped up onto the curb twice, which I think is OK for the moment. The other three seem to go quiet when I drive into a roundabout.

We have a beautiful cottage for a week in Ribeauville.  It is an old two-floor building in a valley with the hillsides covered in vines, and a derelict castle still standing guard.  We have the top floor, with exposed beams holding up a very modern interior. Judith can so easily see Kevin McLeod standing in the corner talking to the owners about their Grand Design. We are about a kilometre from the centre of the old town of narrow winding roads and and buildings.

Off exploring tomorrow,

Chris

Local Customs

I guess that it will take us a short while to get used to the local customs. 

After cooking our own meals in the townhouse for the first two days we felt like eating out.  Ted and I did a reconnaissance stroll around in the streets near our unit, and found a nice small place, Criee, Restaurant Poisson, very close to where we are staying.  There seem to be a number of small family-run restaurants around once one gets out of the main shopping centres.  These tend to have very small menus, and always have one or two specials of the day.

 Criee had a sign in the window with opening hours 18:00 – 23:00.  So after a nice glass of champagne in the unit we strolled over for dinner, arriving at 6:45, hoping to beat the rush.  Looking in the window we saw a group of three already sitting down for a meal, and thought that we had done well.  When we went in they looked up, and I asked about “un table pour quatre”.  The man said “too early, too early”.  They were the chef, waitress and maître d having their own dinner.  But he showed us to a nice table upstairs, and gave us the menu, and we ordered – LouAnne and Judith a Thai steamboat, Ted a baked bass, and me a steamed filet, and a nice bottle of wine.

The meal was really lovely, and the people in the restaurant very friendly.  We all really enjoyed the meal and atmosphere in the restaurant, and had a lot of laughs together.  As we were leaving at eight o’clock the locals were just starting to arrive.  We will know better next time.

Chris

Cruising Along

We all got up early this morning and strolled along small sidestreets to the Seine. We passed the small Lutheran Church where LouAnne and her American choir sang last year.
On the river we went on a tourist cruise for an hour and a half. It was the standard format, with a commentary in French, English and Japanese. The passengers must have taken half a million photographs of the usual icons. There were two delightful young Japanese girls having the time of the time of their lives. They had perfected the technique of one holding their camera at arms-length, then quickly swivelling their bodies around to have, say, the Eiffel Tower behind them, then giggling and clicking. I can imagine them back home showing their friends: This is Mika and me in front of the Notre Dame – this is Mika and me in front of ……
After the cruise we walked up to the Arc de Triomphe, and down the Champs-Elysees. The cobbled surface is so rough that the vibrations must have been agony for le Tour de France riders after 1200 km in the saddle. There were the usual brands – LouAnne and Judith had a long look at the diamonds in Cartier. But there were a lot more of the big International Brands than I remember from last time – MacDonnalds, Adidas, Starbucks, and disappointingly beside a building renovation a sign “Marks and Spenser Prochaine Ici”. I remember vaguely a fable about wanting so much to be a part of something that when you finally make it your very presence destroys what it was that wanted you to be there.
We then had a nice stroll through les Tuileries , buying some bagettes and patisserie to eat for lunch in the gardens. After lunch we went over to Isle de Cite, where LouAnne and Judith wanted to see Ste Chapelle with its magnificent stained glass windows. They were planning to go to the Musee d’Orsay the next day, so it was a good chance for them to have a practice line-up at a smaller venue. After this they and Ted strolled over the two Isles, and came back to the town house where we LouAnne cooked a lovely risotto, which we ate with some French wine.
LouAnne had brought her pedometer along, and before looking at it we played “guess the distance we walked today”. We all underestimated big time, but Ted was closest to the actual distance – a bit over eighteen km.
Chris