{"id":885,"date":"2012-07-12T07:43:54","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T06:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=885"},"modified":"2025-11-23T06:17:51","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T06:17:51","slug":"back-in-france-but-it-doesnt-feel-like-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2012\/07\/12\/back-in-france-but-it-doesnt-feel-like-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Back In France, But It Doesn\u2019t Feel Like It\u2026."},"content":{"rendered":"

At the start of week\u00a0twelve and after only five days in Switzerland, it seemed strange to wake up in France again and in a huge city.\u00a0 As Rodney rustled up scrambled eggs for breakfast, we could hear the local industries starting up.\u00a0 We drove up the D52 beside the Rhine, but we couldn\u2019t see the river or the canal, only numerous factories and a nuclear power plant.\u00a0 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!!\u00a0 We did a full 360\u02da at the first roundabout and drove back over the Rhine to France, having spent all of 2 minutes in Germany\u2026..we don\u2019t have time for Germany today, we have to get to Obernai.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Rodney bought me a heart and it\u2019s 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\u2026..?<\/p>\n

\"\"
On the canal at Colmar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Cholesterol delight !!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Colmar is also the birthplace of\u00a0Frederic Auguste Bartholdi,<\/span> the designer of the Statue of Liberty in New York.\u00a0 The roundabout north of the town points this out very well\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Statue of Liberty on a Colmar roundabout<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

We were greeted by our friend Maxime and his 88-year-old grandmother who set up the hotel with her mother in the 1950s.\u00a0 It is a wonderful place and as the hotel is currently closed for\u00a0two weeks\u00a0while his parents\u00a0take their annual\u00a0holiday and for maintenance to be carried out, we became the only guests.\u00a0 We freshened up and then Max took us for pre-dinner drinks in the centre of Obernai.\u00a0 At 7:30pm we collected Grandma H\u00e9l\u00e8ne and Max drove\u00a0the four of us\u00a0to a traditional Alsatian restaurant, L’Auberge Saint Martin in Kintzheim\u00a0 for dinner.\u00a0 We ate a continual flow of La Tarte flamb\u00e9e, four in all I think, followed by dessert.\u00a0 Rodney and I were both so full we shared a large smooth cr\u00e8me brulee, but Grandma managed to finish off an enormous piece of blueberry meringue pie!!!<\/p>\n

Max told us about his grandmother\u2019s life, how, as a teenager,\u00a0she 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.\u00a0 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\u00a0woman.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Obernai complete with stork’s nest on chimney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Obernai<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Max turned out to be a very good tour guide, as well as a very good skier.\u00a0 He took us to a local restaurant for lunch and then out to Le Mont Sainte Odile.\u00a0 This is a huge convent perched on the top of a hill\u00a0with\u00a0extensive\u00a0views across the surrounding villages, the woods, the Rhine Valley and across to the Black Forest.<\/p>\n

\"\"
With Maxime at Le Mont Sainte Odile<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 On the way back down, we stopped at a memorial for\u00a0three English pilots whose plane was shot down and crashed nearby.\u00a0 Two of the men died in the crash, but his Grandma rescued the sole survivor and hid him in her barn until the\u00a0French R\u00e9sistance\u00a0could get him out.\u00a0 To this day, she still puts fresh flowers at the base of the memorial a few times each year.<\/p>\n

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\u2019re looking forward to dinner with his parents and Grandma this evening.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Rodney in the Parc Hotel indoor pool<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
My heart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the start of week\u00a0twelve and after only five days in Switzerland, it seemed strange to wake up in France again and in a huge city.\u00a0 As Rodney rustled up scrambled eggs for breakfast, we could hear the local industries starting up.\u00a0 We drove up the D52 beside the Rhine, but we couldn\u2019t see the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8176,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions\/8176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}