Rouge Gazon, red meadow, named for the blood spilled here during war time, is now a popular place for for hikers and skiers. It is located in a pass with access by highway so we see many day hikers. We got here as usual by foot from Thann the last town on the Alsacian wine road.
We left le Hohwald almost two weeks ago and have been bumping up and down from Crete (ridge) to wine town and up and down the Crete du Vosges the whole time. The forest and highlands are lovely here and we have been lucky enough to scare up chamoix several times while hiking as well as other deer.
The first day out of le Hohwald we met the Fromms and Christian and Helga Faeber at the Mt. St. Odile Monestary for lunch. The monestery is located on a rock outcrop high above the Alsacian plane and from the terrace there are probably twenty villages in sight in the valley below. We had a great time catching up with everyone. Christian wore his Wilson hat and we had a fine time discussing the American tea party. The Europeans are dumbfounded by this type of behavior.
From there the trail goes through wine towns Barr, Chatenois, and Ribeaueville surrounded by vineyards on the foot hills of the Vosges, with beautifully preserved buildings and lots of tourists. So we spend hours each day in the forest and fields along with the history, culture and food in the towns.
After Ribeauville we left the tourists behind and had five days totally in the mountains. We stayed in two villages, Aubure and Mittlach and the rest of the time in Ferme Aurberges out by themselves in the mountains. Ferme Auberges are country inns in farmhouses that prepare only food made on the farm. They serve smoked meats and sausage, salad, potatoes, cheeses, tarts from local berries and a luscious soft cream cheese cake with kirsch and burnt sugar topping. The visitors this time of year are mostly hikers so the commedier is high in the dining room and the rooms comfortible and cozy, especially when it is raining, which it was for three days.
We also stop at Ferme Auberges for lunch or for a glass of wine or beer on the trail. When we climbed from Mitlatch to the Crete it was cold and misty and when we got to the Col du Herrenberg it was windy and Rhonda needed her mittens, so we followed the sign to Auberge Hus just down the hill out of the wind. We were the first people there for lunch, but the small dining room was soon filled with pleasant French families. We had a perfect lunch with a bottle of wine. Stepping out to the toilet was stepping into the barn, which was like all european barns connected to the house. I stopped in the cheese making room and got a lesson from our proprietess on cheese making. We marched off after lunch waving to the families and singing most of the way to Le Markstein, where we met Ulli and Klaus for two days of car touring.
What a difference it is in the car! We swooped down the highways and through the cols where a few days earlier we had emerged from rainy woods. We visited several lakes and more villages than we had seen in the last four weeks. The high point of the first day was finding the U. of Nancy Alpine gardens along the Crete highway. They have a collection from all over the world and we saw many plants we had been seeing in the woods for the past two weeks.
In Wesserling we visited a textile mill that closed in 2003 and is now a public place. There was an agricultural fair on the grounds with animals, including the small Alsascian cows with their now familiar bells, displays, foods made on the local farms and great down home music, including yodellers. The factory is now a fascinating textile museum and the french formal gardens in front of the former owners chateau is an amazing place where artists create gardens and vegetables are mixed in with flowers in creative ways.
The next day we visited several wine towns and then a large city, Mulhouse, where we shopped for supplies and tried to get my sandles fixed, which are now adhesive taped together. Klaus and Ulli, as usual had a great plan for a tour and we got to see some of the Europe hidden from the solitary walker.
I am standing here using the computer in the dining room, while everyone is working to get the place ready for dinner after the lunch rush. Elvis is on the the sound system, Rhonda is snuggled by the fire, it is rainning, all is right with the world. And voila, I am useful -- the waitress just asked me for the english word for the lentil soup they make here so she could explain to a German tourist (she does not know German and the Germans know no French) what is on the menu tonight.
Tonight they are having a special dinner and there will be a band and dancing. Will we be able to stay up long enough to participate?
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Le Hohwald, Alsace, France
We are finally in the mountains and about half way through our trip. We hiked into the Vosges the day before Bastille Day, reaching 1000 meters on the top of Donon. Once again the terrain along with food and architecture have changed. Alsace has its own cuisine, the first night I had trout with sour kraut, and the villages look German. And it got cold. A week ago it was 40, today the high is 19 and we are wondering about lightening our packs for the mountains by getting rid of lots of heavy warm things.
Here are some photos from the last couple of weeks, in more or less chronological order:
This is in Metz, along the Moselle River. Metz along with Nancy do not get many American tourists, but they are beautiful places without big crowds.
Metz again from a portico of the great St; Etienne Cathedral, with its superb stained glass including modern windows by Chagal and Villon.
The Simonin family, who saved us in Laitre Sous Amance: Marie Pierre, Tomas, Lucas, and Remy. We are sitting after lunch in their farm yard.
The Simonin farm yard, Remy on the tractor.
The Simonin house.
Rhonda with Ute Sweitzer, Klaus Fromm, and Ulli Fromm from Saarbrucken in Papeniere Park in Nancy after they took us to lunch at the restaurant Flo. We went on to tour the area around Nancy with the Fromms and had a great time.
The square in Vic Sur Sielle
Chateau Alteville, Lorraine, where we spent two nights and dined with exceptional people on exceptional food.
The ladies of Fribourg gathering around the boulangerie truck to buy their bread. Most get five or more loaves.
David Barthelemy of Chateau Alteville dropping us off at Gondrexange for our hike to Abreschviller.
Marie Therese Kuchy and Christian at Le Jardin de Marie in Vasperviller. We walked into Abreschviller very hot and tired and found no rooms in the hotels. After deciding to stay in the church I remembered a sign for a chambres d hotes and hiked back to it and got the phone number. Christian answered and said he would pick us up as Le Jardin is in the next village. We had a wonderful time in their splendid gardens. Christian is the manager of 10000 hectares of of national forest land around the town and is also a wonderful wild life photographer. He not only manages the forest, but is in charge of the whole ecosystem, including animals, water, roads. Imagine not having agencies in charge of each part of the environment at war with each other.
Col de Donon
On top of Donon.
Here are some photos from the last couple of weeks, in more or less chronological order:
This is in Metz, along the Moselle River. Metz along with Nancy do not get many American tourists, but they are beautiful places without big crowds.
Metz again from a portico of the great St; Etienne Cathedral, with its superb stained glass including modern windows by Chagal and Villon.
The Simonin family, who saved us in Laitre Sous Amance: Marie Pierre, Tomas, Lucas, and Remy. We are sitting after lunch in their farm yard.
The Simonin farm yard, Remy on the tractor.
The Simonin house.
Rhonda with Ute Sweitzer, Klaus Fromm, and Ulli Fromm from Saarbrucken in Papeniere Park in Nancy after they took us to lunch at the restaurant Flo. We went on to tour the area around Nancy with the Fromms and had a great time.
The square in Vic Sur Sielle
Chateau Alteville, Lorraine, where we spent two nights and dined with exceptional people on exceptional food.
The ladies of Fribourg gathering around the boulangerie truck to buy their bread. Most get five or more loaves.
David Barthelemy of Chateau Alteville dropping us off at Gondrexange for our hike to Abreschviller.
Marie Therese Kuchy and Christian at Le Jardin de Marie in Vasperviller. We walked into Abreschviller very hot and tired and found no rooms in the hotels. After deciding to stay in the church I remembered a sign for a chambres d hotes and hiked back to it and got the phone number. Christian answered and said he would pick us up as Le Jardin is in the next village. We had a wonderful time in their splendid gardens. Christian is the manager of 10000 hectares of of national forest land around the town and is also a wonderful wild life photographer. He not only manages the forest, but is in charge of the whole ecosystem, including animals, water, roads. Imagine not having agencies in charge of each part of the environment at war with each other.
Col de Donon
On top of Donon.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Time Flies...
We are at Chateau Alteville in Lorraine, France. Last evening we had champaign with a group of six ladies from Spain and then dinner with three couples from Paris, two of which are here for a bike race. They will go for 80 km and expect to finish in two hours. I told them that they are luckey my brother in law is not in the race...
We have been in France for almost two weeks. It has been hard to find rooms in towns a reasonable distance apart, so we have been improvising with buses to places to sleep off the trail. The most interesting improvisation was after a very hot day of walking (did I mention that it is finally summer, it has been in the high 30s the last few days). We walked into Laitre Sous Amance looking for the hotel and asked the first person we saw in our terrible French, O a l hotel. We got a strange look, but a second person was called in to consult. The second person a French farmer named Remy Simonin motioned us to follow him. He was very persistent and so his father, the first person we saw, and Rhonda and I followed him into his farm yard right in town, where he called his son to come out. The son, Tomas, 23 and just back from a year in Australia, proceeded to answer our questions. No hotel, no retaurant, no cafe.
Meanwhile beer appeared on the table in the yard and glasses. Mama Marie Pierre, and son Lucas were called and they asked if we would like to try Remys homemade pate with some bread, and then, hey, how about lunch? Out it came, fired eggs, tomatoe and mozerella salad, bread, cornucorns made with farm produce, as was the pate, radishes and finally wine that Tomas earned by helping with a friends harvest in Burgundy. The family sat and watched us eat, as they had finished their dejuener, and asked questions and told us about the community of 350 where they live. We were asked to stay for dinner and for the night. Needless to say dinner was wonderful, Emilie the daughter, who arrived from U of Nancy for dinner and Vincent a collegue of Marie Pierres from the library in Nancy, who came to help zith the interrpreting joined us. It was a spendid evening finished with pear brandy made from the farms pears.
The next day Ulli and Klaus Fromm picked us up in front of the church and we went off to Nancy and surrounding towns for two days and had a ball. We found rooms in Chateau Salins as the hotel had closed in another of our stopping places. The next day the Fromms went off canal walking while we cheated and did a day without packs. It felt so good we got rid of ten pounds of stuff from our packs. By the way, the new boots are really working out. The next day the Fromms headed for home and dropped our packs off for us here at Chateau Alteville so we walked again without them.
Dinner is almost ready so I have to go. We start the mountains in a couple of days. Tomorrow we head out early to beat the heat and then watch the Orange in the World Cup final.
We have been in France for almost two weeks. It has been hard to find rooms in towns a reasonable distance apart, so we have been improvising with buses to places to sleep off the trail. The most interesting improvisation was after a very hot day of walking (did I mention that it is finally summer, it has been in the high 30s the last few days). We walked into Laitre Sous Amance looking for the hotel and asked the first person we saw in our terrible French, O a l hotel. We got a strange look, but a second person was called in to consult. The second person a French farmer named Remy Simonin motioned us to follow him. He was very persistent and so his father, the first person we saw, and Rhonda and I followed him into his farm yard right in town, where he called his son to come out. The son, Tomas, 23 and just back from a year in Australia, proceeded to answer our questions. No hotel, no retaurant, no cafe.
Meanwhile beer appeared on the table in the yard and glasses. Mama Marie Pierre, and son Lucas were called and they asked if we would like to try Remys homemade pate with some bread, and then, hey, how about lunch? Out it came, fired eggs, tomatoe and mozerella salad, bread, cornucorns made with farm produce, as was the pate, radishes and finally wine that Tomas earned by helping with a friends harvest in Burgundy. The family sat and watched us eat, as they had finished their dejuener, and asked questions and told us about the community of 350 where they live. We were asked to stay for dinner and for the night. Needless to say dinner was wonderful, Emilie the daughter, who arrived from U of Nancy for dinner and Vincent a collegue of Marie Pierres from the library in Nancy, who came to help zith the interrpreting joined us. It was a spendid evening finished with pear brandy made from the farms pears.
The next day Ulli and Klaus Fromm picked us up in front of the church and we went off to Nancy and surrounding towns for two days and had a ball. We found rooms in Chateau Salins as the hotel had closed in another of our stopping places. The next day the Fromms went off canal walking while we cheated and did a day without packs. It felt so good we got rid of ten pounds of stuff from our packs. By the way, the new boots are really working out. The next day the Fromms headed for home and dropped our packs off for us here at Chateau Alteville so we walked again without them.
Dinner is almost ready so I have to go. We start the mountains in a couple of days. Tomorrow we head out early to beat the heat and then watch the Orange in the World Cup final.
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