World France Alsace Colmar

Karen & Mike 2011: Windmills, Chocolate & Wine

France - or Germany? Sep 22, 2011

First champagne, now riesling. Our first two days in France were spent in around the city of Reims, in the champagne region of France, about 150 miles east of Paris. This was the Allied headquarters in Europe at the end of WWII, and where the surrender of Germany was signed. In fact, the room where the surrender occurred has been preserved as a small museum, including the battle maps hanging on the walls with the troop and equipment locations as they were that day, and with the table and chairs in place, with plaques showing the names of the various generals. It is really an eerie, yet interesting, place. However, the main attraction of this city is the cathedral. It is immense, beautiful, and awe-inspiring, similar to Notre Dame in Paris. This is the church where, for centuries, the kings of France have been coronated (25 of them!), and where Joan of Arc brought the king to be crowned, which led to the unification of France, expulsion of England and, eventually, a fiery end for Joan! Karen and I had the opportunity to take a semi-private tour (with one other guy form Victoria, BC!) of the bell tower and roof of the cathedral. A quick 266 steps (no landings, no breaks) and we were rewarded with uncommon close ups of the statuary and gargoyles on the building, seeing the flying buttresses and roof from a rare perspective, and magnificent views of the surrounding city and countryside. Amazing! Again, we are reminded of the age of things over here, which can be hard to comprehend, relative to the US. For example, this year the church is celebrating the 800th anniversary of the beginning of it's THIRD restoration (it started in 1211!). The church has actually been here since the 5th century. The city itself was much prettier and more interesting than we thought it would be. There are beautiful buildings throughout. - mostly restored, since having been destroyed in WWI - with parks and green spaces throughout, along with the requisite statues and memorials, and flowers everywhere. However, as I stated above, this is champagne country, and a visit here would not be complete without a tour of a champagne cellar and tasting room. We learned number of interesting factoids about champagne (only comes from 3 grapes, once in the final bottle it won't age anymore, only go flat, so don't cellar it for a ling time, and there are over 1 billion bottles being stored/aged in the 120+miles of tunnels/cellars in the champagne region!). Tasting a number of them we also confirmed that the reason more people probably don't drink it more often is that they associate it with the usually cheap stuff they toast with on New Years or other occasions. You have to realize that good grapes make really good champagne, which is completely different than what we are used to. It is smooth, flavorful, and doesn't give you a headache (at least in moderation!) Heading about an hour east of Reims we visited the WWI battlefield of Verdun. It is a solemn, and somewhat spooky place. This is the site where the Germans and French fought a 300-day battle, with the front lines shifting back and forth, but by no more than a few hundred meters. When it was done, over 60 million artillery shells had been fired into this small region (less than 20 square kilometers (about 8 square miles) and over 300,000 men killed and 500,000 wounded - in just one battle! That is over 200,000 shells fired every day for 10 months! The countryside was turned to a moonscape, however, it is now tree-covered and beautiful, although it remains hummocky and pock marked from all the explosions. This is because there remain so many unexploded ordinance and debris in the ground that the land can no longer be farmed and remains untouched.. An ossuary was constructed on the site which contains the bones (mostly fragments) of over 120,000 unidentified dead that were collected and enshrined here. It is truly sad to think that, with all the reminders and memorials about how bad war is, we continue to sacrifice our best in them. With time to reflect on what we had seen, we proceeded to the picturesque city of Colmar, located in the Alsace region of France, about 10 miles from the German border. This region has been contested between the two countries (and preceding kingdoms) for centuries. When you walk the narrow, cobblestone streets and look up at the half-timber houses, and here the local Alsatian dialect being spoke, you would swear you were in Germany! This area is a gem! Because it is so well preserved and so beautiful, it was purposely avoided during the wars, remaining untouched in both WWI and WWII. Our first meal here was an Alsatian staple - pork, sausage, and sauerkraut; it was delicious! And with the local white wines, most famously Riesling, we took several hours to finish everything. The wine tasting was fabulous, making this one of my favorite spots we've visited in Europe. Tomorrow we head to Beaune in Burgundy, where we begin our exploration of the reds!

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