Random Notes in the Key of Life

Gute Fahrt Travels, Music, Politics, Sports and the Journey

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TrenItalia provides frequent regular service to Genoa and regional service to Acqui Terme and other regional cities.

To go to Turin, you have to go through Genoa which isn’t the best, but timings are acceptable - 10 hours to Colmar, 11 hours to München, 22 hours to London.

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Two views of a village street at Christmas

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Flying over the Alps always seems to add a certain spice to that expedited morning wake up call! Your body is telling you to go to bed. Your watch is telling you it’s time to wake up. Your eyes and mind say, slow the roll, let’s watch this all pass by and appreciate this beautiful planet.

Thanks, Delta.

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New posts coming next week! Ovada, Piemonte, Italia

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From destruction to rebirth, Bennwihr

On my last day in Alsace, I wanted to revisit the town of Bennwihr. For many tourists in Alsace, Bennwihr is just a town between you and the tourist spot you’re trying to get to. It‘s not beautiful, it’s not classic, it‘s relatively new, if not downright modern.

The Church of St. Peter and Paul, in particular, looks very strange from the outside. You might confuse it with a fire station with a training tower. There are no religious figures, no gargoyles, just modern lines and shiny metal, almost like an aluminum airframe. The history of this town and this church is little known to most Americans, but it is meaningful and inspiring nonetheless.

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Zellenberg scenes

Built on a hill that pops up in isolation east of Hunawihr on the main road to Ribeauvillé this wine road village is worth the stop! I certainly want to research the French resistance figure René Roeckel when I return!

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Château de Kintzheim, La Volerie des Aigles

Ruins of Château dating back to the 13th Century and readily accessible. The raptor show was very interesting- I had a translation guide as the French flew past me WAY too fast. Literally fun for kids of all ages!

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Sanctuaire du Mont Sainte Odile

A very serene and beautiful location high above Obernai. Climbed through the cloud layer to break out into bright sunshine with the Grand Ried floor covered with cloudbank.

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Hunawihr Scenes

The small village of Hunawihr is not part of the tourist trinity but is directly between Ribeauvillé and Riquewihr on the Alsatian Route de Vin. The village has a fortified walled church, dating back to the 13th Century.

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Ribeauvillé scenes

The largest, and certainly most “vertically challenged “ of the tourist trinity villages, Ribeauvillé rises up the ridge of the Vosges with a tall medieval gate about two-thirds up through the village proper. It has expanded out onto the plain in recent years.

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Battle of Wœrth aka Froeschwiller or Reichshoffen. The village of Woerth has a wonderful museum about the battle. There are numerous Prussian, Bavarian, and French monuments around the battlefield. Sadly, several of the Prussian monuments are not in great repair. As the political orientation of the region changed monuments were torn down or defaced.

The most famous of these was the mounted statue of Crown Prince Friedrich who, sadly, was the middle ruler in 1888, the “Year of Three Kaisers”, ruling for only 99 days, having assumed the throne with a terminal case of larynx cancer at age 56 after the death of the patriarch Wilhelm I. Friedrich III was married to Princess Royal Victoria from England and had Republican leanings. A very different European history, with Bismarck, might have resulted. Instead the Third Kaiser, of course, was young Wilhelm II, immature, impetuous, and martial.

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Deutsche Soldatenfriedhof Niederbronn-Les-Bain

A large cemetery, all from the Second World War. The sun popped out for just this portion of today’s visits. I wasn’t sure I would come here, but am glad I did.

They added a nice, small museum adding information about (obviously) a handful of the soldiers (and civilians) here. Malgré-Nous, Nazis, Apoliticals, they all gave everything for the most vile cause of the 20th Century, if not all history.

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Headwaters of La Lauch - Guebwiller

Starting in the Vosges front range, this stream flows past Guebwiller to Colmar, flowing through “Little Venice”, before hooking up with the Ill and heading to the Rhine at Strasbourg

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Musée Unterlinden - Colmar

Picasso’s !!! More than just the Isenheim Alterpiece!

Bust of a Seated Woman (Jacqueline Roque) - Portrait of his (last) wife

Head of a Man with Straw Hat

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Route de Vin - south of Colmar (city off in the distance on first picture)

The hills south of Colmar make this my favorite section of the Wine Route - as the vineyards slip into the folds between the Vosges front range and the ridge line to the east.

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Route de Crêtes- it looked clear but there was just a touch of haze - you could see the Swiss Alps in the distance (the Schwarzwald “Black Forest” is the first range)

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Nécropole National du carrefour Duchesne

This small French cemetery is several kilometers up forest trails toward the Téte des Faux summit. French burials from the Tête des Faux battles in the early winter of 2015, the first winter of the war, are here. It’s a very isolated and peaceful site - you have to want to come here - which might have been hard on survivors as they aged.