At the start of week twelve and after only five days in Switzerland, it seemed strange to wake up in France again and in a huge city. As Rodney rustled up scrambled eggs for breakfast, we could hear the local industries starting up. We drove up the D52 beside the Rhine, but we couldn’t see the river or the canal, only numerous factories and a nuclear power plant. At Vogelgrun, we crossed the Rhine, past massive canal lock gates, in to Germany and the very first building we saw was a McDonalds, not at all what we expected to see!! We did a full 360˚ at the first roundabout and drove back over the Rhine to France, having spent all of 2 minutes in Germany…..we don’t have time for Germany today, we have to get to Obernai.
At Colmar we found a lovely old traditional Alsatian town; timber and plaster houses painted in, what sometimes seem incongruously bright colours, but somehow it works. Rodney bought me a heart and it’s a very yummy gingerbread heart and then we ambled around the town taking pictures, trying to work out why we felt like we were still in Switzerland, or maybe Germany…..?
Colmar is also the birthplace of Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the designer of the Statue of Liberty in New York. The roundabout north of the town points this out very well…
From there we continued north through lots of small colourful villages, where each house seemed to be competing for ‘best flower filled window box’ and finally arrived at the Parc Hotel in Obernai.
We were greeted by our friend Maxime and his 88-year-old grandmother who set up the hotel with her mother in the 1950s. It is a wonderful place and as the hotel is currently closed for two weeks while his parents take their annual holiday and for maintenance to be carried out, we became the only guests. We freshened up and then Max took us for pre-dinner drinks in the centre of Obernai. At 7:30pm we collected Grandma Hélène and Max drove the four of us to a traditional Alsatian restaurant, L’Auberge Saint Martin in Kintzheim for dinner. We ate a continual flow of La Tarte flambée, four in all I think, followed by dessert. Rodney and I were both so full we shared a large smooth crème brulee, but Grandma managed to finish off an enormous piece of blueberry meringue pie!!!
Max told us about his grandmother’s life, how, as a teenager, she had helped up to one hundred Jewish people and others fleeing from the Nazis in World War II by hiding them in her barn loft. She was rightly proud to show us her war medals received for her work with the French Resistance and we were humbled and honoured to meet such an amazing woman.
On Thursday morning, after breakfast with Max, Rodney and I roamed around the enormous weekly market in Obernai; it seemed to stretch down every road. Obernai is another lovely Alsatian town full of wonderful half-timbered buildings in a variety of colours, leaning in all directions and with part of its city walls still intact.
Max turned out to be a very good tour guide, as well as a very good skier. He took us to a local restaurant for lunch and then out to Le Mont Sainte Odile. This is a huge convent perched on the top of a hill with extensive views across the surrounding villages, the woods, the Rhine Valley and across to the Black Forest.
He also took us to see the house in the middle of the woods below, where his Grandma grew up and he told us about her life there. On the way back down, we stopped at a memorial for three English pilots whose plane was shot down and crashed nearby. Two of the men died in the crash, but his Grandma rescued the sole survivor and hid him in her barn until the French Résistance could get him out. To this day, she still puts fresh flowers at the base of the memorial a few times each year.
Max has now gone to collect his parents from the airport, so Rodney and I have had a swim in the indoor pool and we’re looking forward to dinner with his parents and Grandma this evening.
