Bergheim, Friday October 3

We started the day with a walk around town. First up the main street, and then out to what remains of the city wall. The place was once totally encircled by defensive fortifications and most likely a moat, and a good bit of it has been preserved for historical purposes. A sign pointed out one place where the bad guys (whoever they might have been at the moment) did manage to breach the wall by use of a siege tower. It must have been quite a feat to build a log road from their safe location right up to the wall and then roll the wheeled tower into position. It sure would be hard to accomplish that in an especially stealthy manner.

The entire circuit around the wall is about 2 km in length. We probably walked about 3/4 of it before getting to a convenient place to get off and head home for lunch by way of the grocery store.

So, here’s a brief tour of Bergheim. A beautiful day, with flowers everywhere.

 

And back at our house, here’s the gate to the courtyard.

Then after lunch we took a drive out into the nearby countryside. It’s grape harvest season and we saw lots of agricultural implements out doing their thing, including this monster that was ahead of us for a while till we got to a safe passing spot.

Then a couple of quick impressions in the small town of Châtenois.

 

The messy bit at the top of the blue tower is a stork nest. They are common around here, encouraged even and quite symbolic of the region. Storks feature in many of the postcards one sees for sale, some with pictures of actual storks, and some where the storks have become cartoon characters.

And an old house, that really is that badly out of shape. No artistic license was required for this drawing.

Next up was a meeting with the two women from yesterday’s art class. They are staying over in the next town but came to Bergheim to take in the sights, capture impressions on paper, show us the other drawings they had completed since our first time together, work with Sue Anne on a new drawing from our position in a sidewalk restaurant, and then kindly treat us to dinner as a gesture of thanks. Here’s Sue Anne’s impression of the scene on the other side of the street. She only noticed the dolls in the windows when carefully focusing on the drawing.

Dinner was what the Alsatians call tarte flambée, but don't take that term too literally. It does not consist of a pie that has been set on fire. We would tend to call it very thin crust pizza without tomato. It basically features different mixes of  meat and cheese (mostly cheese, and mostly a soft white cheese like crème fraîche), all quite delicious. A nice meal, and two nice friends. The outdoor café was next to a little gurgling stream where the washing of clothes was done through the centuries.

Tomorrow we go to Strasbourg for the day to meet up with Bruce’s high school classmate Carolyn MacRae, an accomplished photographer who has been on an picture taking expedition through the nearby Vosges mountains as a side trip while visiting her son and his family in Germany.