Paris - The Usual Sights

Paris is a pretty place when all decorated for Christmas. The weather was lousy, but I guess you have to expect that in December. But other than the bone-chilling-rain-driven-sideways-by-the-gale-force-winds, it was a great time to be a tourist.

Our first stop on this tour is the Arc de Triomphe. (Above, the Arc at night. In December, night comes at about 4:40 to Paris.) Napoleon gave the order for the arch to be built, back in 1806, to commemorate his conquests. Since then, the French Republic has continued to use the arch to commemorate significant military events. The most significant is the tomb of the unknown soldier, which is located near the center of the arch.

I was surprised to find that the monument contains two connections to Alsace. The first connection is one of the reliefs carved on the pillars...titled "La Marseillaise". La Marseillaise, currently the French national anthem, was written in Strasbourg in 1795 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle. The people of Strasbourg take pride in this fact and seem to view the song as a gift given by Alsace to the rest of France. In fact, they take so much pride that they've named a couple of local bars after "La Marseillaise".

Digressing further....I can remember when there was a movement afoot in the USA to replace the Star Spangled Banner with America the Beautiful...on the premise that no nation should have a national anthem that speaks of war and battles. After learning the words to La Marseillaise, I laugh at this notion. After all, the chorus of La Marseillaise rings out with "...may impure blood soak our fields". Compared to that, the whole thought of "bombs bursting in air" seems pretty tame.

Digressing even further... La Marseillaise was adopted by the French not because they sang it in support of their government. It has never been an anthem of the government, but rather always an anthem of the people. And a rebellious people they can be. The song first became popular when a militia from Marseille marched to Paris to support the little uprising known as the French Revolution. Later, it became the anthem of the people as they rose up to depose Napoleon III to form the Second Republic. In the late 1800's the fledgling movement of international communism adopted la Marseillaise as their anthem...at least until they could write their own anthem, the "Internationale".

During the Second World War, la Marseillaise fit perfectly with the French Resistance ...where it was up to the citizens to arise and spill the impure blood of the invaders. The citizens still take pride in this song today. I will always remember the Soccer games this past summer for the World Cup. At the start of a match, when they played the national anthem on the television, you could hear the whole city of Strasbourg singing la Marseillaise. Everyone sang. And they sang loudly and with their hearts.

Ok....I said that the Arc de Triomphe had two connections to Alsace. Besides la Marseillaise, the second connection is the commemorative plaque shown in the intro picture. Very near the tomb of the unknown, in the pavement, there is this bronze marker that commemorates "November 11, 1918 - The return of Alsace and Lorraine to France". You see, the loss of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany in 1870 was a bitter pill for the French. Very bitter. They tell me that the geography texts used by French students from 1870 onwards would outline these lost territories in black as "French land under foreign occupation". To the generation...actually two or three generations...of Frenchmen born before WWI these lost territories were the promised land. And so, the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine at the conclusion of WWI was an especially proud moment for France. The plaque does not say "Nov 11 1918 - Armistice Day" or "Nov 11 1918 Victory in Europe Day". It marks the return of occupied territory. The generation that fought for these passions is long gone now, but this little bronze plaque serves as a reminder.

Wow, I'm really full of it today. Enough of the history and on with the tourist pictures.

Here is the Champs Élysées and a narrow view of the Christmas lights. Imagine these lights extending for a mile or so from the Arc de Triomphe down to the gates of the Louvre. I would give you a photo, but my camera is not so good and they all turned out blurry.The Eiffel Tower at night. For 10 minutes out of every hour the tower displays the blue flashing lights as a special treat. Of course, in this photo the blue lights don't flash. You will have to use your imagination.Here is the courtyard of the Louvre. If it looks grey and cold, that is because it was grey and cold.Above is the Moulin Rouge. Though I gave some thought to going to a show, in the end I decided no. I did not want to spend the equivalent of 200 dollars to watch pretty naked women dancing. This is another sign of advancing age, I suppose. Also, it doesn't seem to be the ideal date to take the wife to.Above is the Basilica Sacré Coeur, or the basilica of the Sacred Heart. The basilica sits up at the top of Montmartre, at the highest point in Paris. Theoretically, you can take the funicular railway up to the top of the hill. Unfortunately though, it was out of service the day that we visited. In French, the term is "Hors service"... out of service. Not to complain, but it seemed that half of the machinery and/or rest rooms were "hors service" in Paris. C'est la vie.In closing, we leave you with the cathedral of Notre Dame. You will notice that the cathedral has no scaffolding around it. This is a rare thing in Europe. Also, you will note that the masonry is very white...which means that there must have been scaffolding recently to clean the place....but the job is finished and the scaffolding has since been removed

Also, please take note of the pretty little Christmas tree in front of the Cathedral. Inside and out the Cathedral was decorated for Christmas. At the time of our visit, they were celebrating a children's mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. I find this to be very comforting. First of all, children are wonderful in any language and any culture. Secondly, when you are far away from home, it is nice to find things that accentuate the similarities and not the differences. Christmas is wonderful for that. It ties together Europe and America and much of the world in a common celebration. Whether you speak of Christmas or Noël or Weihnachten or la Navidad, it is all a common language.

And so it goes.

Thanks for suffering through one of the more rambling posts in the history of this blog. And Merry Christmas to you and all your loved ones.

Paris - Another Side of the Venus De Milo

Theresa and I went to Paris for one last trip before our departure from Strasbourg, scheduled for December 17. This was actually my first trip to Paris. Theresa had been four times, but I was purposely playing hard to get. Avoiding the city has been my little protest to prove that Paris is not the center of the world for everyone.

So, there will follow a few postings of tourist pictures from Paris. For starters, I give you some photos from the Louvre....where you can find the iconic statue of the Venus de Milo. In my life I have probably seen a million photos of this statue. But in the Louvre I was able to see a side of the statue I had never seen before. I leave you with the photo below...the rarely seen and seldom appreciated backside of the Venus de Milo.

Prime Time for Oysters

Now is the prime time for oysters. The textbook indicator is that November and December end with an "R". The more pragmatic indicator is that they are being sold everywhere. With the approach of the Christmas season and the opening of the Christmas markets, several seafood stands pop up outside local restaurants...especially around Place Broglie and Place Kleber. You can pick out your oysters and carry them home and shuck them yourself or you can dine inside and have them shucked for you. Also, the oysters are on sale in the groceries in the fresh fish sections. Theresa and I have acquired a bit of an addiction to raw oysters since coming to France. In fact, oysters have figured prominently in previous postings. So, needless to say we are happy with the current abundance.

The intro picture is a selection that we picked up at an oyster bar in Paris. The plate is a sampling of dozen oysters from six different areas of France. (You see, like wine, the oysters are supposed to pick up a distinctive flavor from the locality where they are raised.) The plate also includes six of the rare "number 0"size oysters from Normandy. These bad boys are very large...the biggest available. You can't just swallow them whole...you have to chew them. Served with a little lemon or shallot vinegar, they are truly a treat.As another example of oyster-madness, we submit to you the following: Last Tuesday I stopped by the grocery and got two boxes of oysters....that's four dozen. They were size #2 and #3, which is the typical restaurant size. Theresa and I shucked and ate all four dozen for dinner. This is not something I would recommend for every night, but as an exception it is a special treat. Serve them with a nice dry white wine from Alsace and some brown bread and butter. Life does not get much better as far as food goes.

The only problem with fixing oysters is that there are too many sharp things involved. The knife you use to open the shells is dangerous enough. But the shells themselves can be sharp as a knife if you catch them in the wrong place. The photo below is not of me giving a "thumbs up" for the meal. Rather, I am displaying my bandaged thumb which I sliced wide open the sharp edge of a shell.

More Christmas Markets

We went to Freiburg, Germany for the Christmas markets again this year. Freiburg was one that we enjoyed much last year. This year, it was just as enjoyable. As the intro photo shows, there were lots of pretty ornaments for sale.There were also very tasty sausages to be had.And the Gluhwein is easy to find and easier to enjoy. (Gluhwein = warm spiced wine. Also known as Vin Chaud in France.) On a cold day, the hot spiced wine opens up all your breathing machinery. In Germany, they will even supplement the medicinal value with a shot of rum or amaretto, if you ask.Some of the booths sell antique Christmas ornaments. These remind me of the ornaments that used to hang on the tree in my Grandmother Hertel's house.

It is the sights and sounds and smells and tastes that make the Christmas Markets most enjoyable. I could share a bunch more photo's, but in the absence of the smell and taste these photos would be pretty meaningless. So, we leave you with one last photo of the gateway to enter the Weihnachtmarkt...the Freiburg Christmas Market.

Mont Sainte Odile - One Last Visit

Cohn had been talking about the two of us going off somewhere on a weekend trip. He wanted to get out of town and get in a good walk. I suggested we fly to Strasbourg and walk up to Saint Odile, or somewhere or other in Alsace. "I know a girl in Strasbourg who can show us the town", I said.

Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises, Chapter I

Mont Sainte Odile has been a pilgramage site for over 1000 years. People come to the top of the mountain in droves. Hemingway came in the 1920s and was impressed enough that he mentioned it as background in his first novel. Nearly 80 years later, Theresa and I have been up there more times than we can count. Cindy Eaton had not yet been there. On December 3 we all went up for our final visit before we end our year in Strasbourg.

It was on top of this rock that Sainte Odile founded a convent, high up in the region of Hohwald, or high forest, overlooking the Rhine valley. Born blind, her sight was restored upon baptism and many other miracles were attributed to her afterwards. She is the patron saint of Alsace.

Some pilgrims still come to pray. Some come to enjoy the view. Some come to do a bit of both. Mont Saint Odile satisfies all.

You never know exactly what you will be able to see from Mont Sainte Odile. On a hazy day, you can barely see the villages below. On some days, you may actually be above the clouds and look down to see the valley seemingly filled with cotton balls....as if looking down from an airplane. On a clear day, you can see easily to the Black Forest in Germany and even see the Strasbourg Cathedral, though it is some 15 miles away.

The day we went was clear, but windy and cold. You can tell by the pained looks on the faces of Theresa and Cindy, below.Regardless, the trip to the top of the mountain was well worth it. Every visit has been different. This one was especially different because it is our last before we leave. I hope someday to visit again. I suspect that whether in 5 years or 10 or 20, the view will still be much the same. I suspect that Saint Odile herself would still recognize the view after 1300 years.

Since it is the Christmas season, the final picture below is of a mosaic in the Chapel of the Angels on Mont Sainte Odile. The mosaic shows the visit of the shepherds to manger on Christmas night, with help from a choir of angels.

Christmas Markets

With the first Sunday of Advent, the Christmas Markets began popping up all over Alsace and in Germany. I feel unfaithful to admit this, but I like the German Markets better than I do the ones in Alsace. The Germans have better food. At least in my opinion they do. As you can see from the photo's below, there is lots of food.On Saturday, December 2, Theresa and Gabi and Cindy and I went to a small market in Rastatt and then the larger one in Baden Baden. Following are some pictures. Not a lot of comments here. I think you will get the feel of the little booths and the decorations and the Christmas atmosphere.

The Cathedral Unencumbered

It seems that every old building in Europe has scaffolding around it. I believe the European Union is pumping money in to the restoration of the monuments that attract tourists. Perhaps I am wrong. But whatever the reason, you rarely get to see an architectural masterpiece as it was built. Nearly all are encased in scaffolding. This has been the case with the Cathedral of Strasbourg. The bell tower has been undergoing maintenance since I first saw it some two years ago.

At the end of November, however, the scaffolding came down from the Cathedral. The spire now appears pretty much as it did when it was completed in 1439.You have to wonder how they did this. The architecture is an achievement but the engineering is a miracle. At the time the church was built, the ground surrounding Strasbourg was marsh and the water table on the island was much nearer to the surface than today. To lay the foundations, they first had to drive oak timber piling into the muck as supports. (Much like the way foundations were built in Venice) Then they piled stone after stone on top of that to build the platform. Then atop that they built the spire. All stones hoisted by ropes and pulleys and muscle.

At 142 meters, roughly 430 feet, the tower was the second tallest masonry structure built before advent of the machine age. The first tallest was the church at Beauvais, France which collapsed under its own weight 6 years after it was finished. Several other churches had taller towers built of wood. They burned. By virtue of better engineering, the Strasbourg Cathedral Tower survived to become the tallest building in the world from 1625 til 1847. To this day, it remains the tallest surviving structure from the middle ages.

In French, the word for a church spire is the same as for an arrow, "la flèche". I like that. The tower does look like an arrow piercing the sky.

The removal of the scaffolding was timed to finish before the start of the Strasbourg Christmas Markets. In the opening photo, you can just make out the Christmas lights strung across the street leading up to the Cathedral. In the photo below, you can see the first few booths set up in the Cathedral plaza.

The Rest Stop at Gruyère

The drive from Strasbourg to the chalet in Les Mosses was like a drive through the cheese section of the grocery. You pass through Emmental and Neuchâtel and Gruyère and Fribourg. All of these are villages in Switzerland that became more famous by lending their names to cheeses.

...and by the way - Swiss Cheese, the stuff with the holes in it that is sold in America, is Emmental. I lived nearly 46 years before finding that out.

Gruyère is a pretty little village on the banks of a mountain lake with a castle in the middle of the lake. The main highway passes close by and there is a rest stop there. We stopped.
The opening photo shows the lake with the village of Gruyère in the background. The photo above shows Chris and Jill Hagan stretching their legs after being trapped in the back seat of the car for 2 1/2 hours. Kids must play.

The photo above shows a couple of the cows that pasture in the grass surrounding the rest stop. Inside them somewhere is the tomorrow's cheese.

The Swiss love their cheese and the seem to love their cows even more. If you look at the cow in the background, you can just make out the bell tied around it's neck. It seems that almost anywhere, if you get away from the noise of the road, you can hear the clanging of cowbells in all directions. In Gruyère, the hills are alive with the sound of cowbells.

Thanksgiving in Switzerland - Daniela's First Snowball

Daniela is Lucia Nogueda's niece. She is 18 years old and came from Mexico in June to stay with Lucia for the summer. She has used that time wisely and has seen more of Europe in those 5 months than I will see in my lifetime. And she is pretty reliable for an 18 year old - more mature and trustworthy than I would have expected. After all, she was able to spend Thanksgiving week-end with a bunch of old farts between the ages of 28 and 46. That's pretty impressive for an 18 year old.

One other thing....Daniela had never seen snow before....at least not up close. The opening photo shows her first experience with the stuff. I think that is worth her own blog post. Daniela, congratulations on the occasion of your first encounter with snow.

Thanksgiving in Switzerland - Celebrating Outside

The weather on Saturday was good - a high of around 40 degrees or more. The sun was out. Most of the snow had melted. It was a perfect day to go for a walk.

The only problem with walking in the Alps is that you have only two choices. You can walk "up" or you can walk "down". There ain't no such thing as flat. What ever you choose, you are going to have to do the opposite to get back to where you started. Most folks who walked chose to walk "up"....farther up the mountain.The chalet sits on the side of a mountain at about 1500 meters altitude. During the summer time, the mountain is segmented into pastures with barbed wire and electric fencing. The cows graze the mountain pastures during the summer. Then, in the fall, the farmers drive the cows down into the valleys. They also pull up all the fence posts and lay the barbed wire on the ground until spring. The mountain side then becomes a ski slope for the winter. A few tourists come, but not as many to Les Mosses as to the big ski resorts.

From the chalet, the absence of snow made it possible to walk up the ski run toward higher elevations. The first thing that happens as you walk is that you get a better appreciation for those cows of summer. There are absolutely no flat spots on which to stand. You are always leaning uphill or downhill and straining your lower legs to keep from falling. Those cows must have great calves. (bad ump bump). The second thing that happens is that the scenery just gets more and more stunning.The opening picture shows Chris and Jill and Tim silhouetted against he sky as they climb toward the peak of the mountain. The photo above shows them more closely, upon their return from the top. The rest of the photos just show some of the beautiful scenery that was to be seen on that day.This last picture shows a stone wall that someone built on the side of the mountain at 2000 meters altitude or so. I walked up this stretch and my thighs burned and my lungs ached and my sense of balance strained to fight gravity and the uneven footing. I have the upmost respect for any farmer that could drag and then pile these stones to make a wall. Must have been one tough dude.

Thanksgiving in Switzerland - Celebrating Inside

The chalet near Les Mosses is a very old farmhouse but has been renovated to add modern plumbing and electricity. Consequently, our experiences living there for a winter week-end were nothing like the original farm family. We could take our showers in the mornings and did not have to rely on chamber pots or outhouses. The heating is still done all by wood stove, though. There is a great ceramic stove just off the kitchen that puts off heat like a jet engine. The chalet was either blazing hot or freezing cold....depending on the status of the fire.

We also had a few options to pass the time that were probably not available back in the day. First off, there was a ping-pong table up where the hay loft would have been. Nothing like a ping-pong tournament to waste a winter night. Also, as shown in the photo below, we could kill time playing the card game PIT. Saturday was the day of turkey dinner. The intro picture shows Tim whipping up a pumpkin pie with the turkey just out of the oven in the foreground. Picture below has Joe preparing the potatos. Dinner was a team effort to prepare and a team effort to consume...as shown by the second picture below.

We had to drag food up that mountain for the other days as well. The picture below shows Friday night's two menu items - the fondue pot and raclette cheese. These are the most traditionally Swiss dishes that you can fix. There is no better way to spend a cold evening than to fill your belly to the bursting point with hot cheese and meat and bread.

Thanksgiving in Switzerland - The Chalet

Even though the Skyline Chili Thanksgiving Celebration had been a success, it did not quench the cravings for a real thanksgiving dinner of turkey and stuffing and sweet potatos. We decided the best solution would be to throw a Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, November 25. This would allow an entire day for the cooking.

And what better place to have Thanksgiving dinner than in Switzerland.

As it happens, Tim Whittaker spend some time working in Geneva and his former boss just happens to own a chalet near the village of Les Mosses. The village sits at about 1500 meters and is not too far from the towns of Lausanne and Montreaux, which sit on the banks of Lake Geneva. It is an old Swiss farmhouse that has been converted to a ski lodge with ability to sleep about 20 people. What better place to make a week-end.

The intro picture shows the chalet. Originally, the family would have lived in this front portion and the back and lower portion of the building would have served as the barn and hayloft. The picture below shows the wall in the bathroom. At one time, this was the feeding area for the cows. The strange bumps and grooves in the wall were caused by the constant rubbing of the cow heads against the wooden beams as they would eat.

Below is a picture of the village of Les Mosses as seen from the chalet. Last year, because of 2 feet of snow, we had to park down in the village and hike up the side of the mountain to get to the chalet. We did this in the dark carrying all the provisions for a thanksgiving feast. Last year it took over an hour to climb that mountain and was like a scene some disaster film. This year, the snows are late and we were able to drive right up to the chalet. Thank heaven for little favors.

For the record, the group that went to the chalet included: Tim and Andrea, Jill and Chris, Wade and Patrick, Joe, Daniela, Theresa and I.