La Ferté Alais Airshow

Posted on September 30, 2021 by John

 

In late August great friend Hervé, his daughter Sophia, son Ben, Ben’s friend Jurgen and I went to the La Ferté Alais airshow. A couple days ago Hervé beat me soundly (figuratively) about the head and shoulders for not doing a post on the airshow. I plead guilty! We had a great day and I should have done a post long ago. But, better never late than ever (or something like that), so here goes.

A note of caution: if you’re not interested in old airplanes, you can skip right on by this post. I certainly will not take offense.

I’ve been a fan of old planes for years (okay, okay, I’ve been a fan of all planes for years), and I’ve gone to a lot of airshows. I can say that the Fête Aérienne La Ferté Alais is my favorite. We came here in 2015 or 2016 but the 2020 show was canceled and the 2021 show, scheduled for May, seemed to be canceled. But the organizers decided to just postpone the airshow a few months and so the last weekend of August, rather than the last weekend of May, we had an airshow!

Now, I don’t want to rag on other airshows, but often they are fly-bys of some interesting airplanes and then about 450 aerobatic demonstrations. One aerobatic display is good, two not so good and from three on, boring! La Ferté Alais takes a different approach. Many of the planes on display here fly in staged “actions.” For instance, there were a number of World War I airplanes, and they all took to the sky at the same time and staged a mock dogfight. That was followed by vignettes with airplanes from between the wars, then World War II airplanes, then more modern planes. In between lots of planes took off, flew by a couple times and landed, all right in front of us.

The last two performances were Patrouille de France and a solo demonstration by a Dassault Rafale. Patrouille de France is the French Air Force demonstration team, like the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels and the U.S. Air Force’s Thunderbirds. Now I’ve seen the Blue Angels many times and I gotta say, Patrouille de France does some stuff I’ve never seen the Blue Angels do. This was followed by a solo demonstration by the Rafale, which is absolutely jaw-dropping.

A very fun day with good friends and great airplanes; what could be better?

Pix:

Herve took a flight in a 1930s Boeing Stearman. There were quite a few airplanes at the airshow that will take passengers for a short flight. Hervé wouldn’t say how much his flight cost, saying only, “It was worth it” when asked.

Our intrepid hero takes to the skies!

Really Old Planes

These are planes from the 1900-1914 era. Even though the United States had the first real heavier-than-air aircraft (the famous Wright brothers and their Wright Flier), France led the aviation world during these years. These planes are pretty much perfect replicas of early French airplanes. All of these planes flew together in the afternoon and what struck me – besides how flimsy they are – is how slow they are; I’d guess they never got over about 50 miles per hour.

World War I

This is a Fokker Tri-plane, the plane flown by the Red Baron in World War I. The woman in front of it is dressed in mourning, representing the widows of the many pilots shot down by the Red Baron. 

A Fokker Tri-plane that flew in the World War I vignette.

World War II

Curtiss P-40 Skyhawk, an important plane in the European front of World War II until more modern planes took over.

A Spitfire, the plane that, along with the Hawker Hurricane, staved off the ferocious attacks on England known as the “Battle of Britain.” This is a rare Spitfire, powered by a Griffon V12 engine (rather than the more common Merlin V12) and a five-bladed prop. This plane flew in the afternoon WWII segment and was pretty amazing to hear.

A bunch of radio-control P51 Spitfires. About twenty of these chased each other around the sky for fifteen minutes or so, along with an RC Japanese Zero and a Spitfire.

The World War II F4U Corsair. I love the looks of this plane. It was instrumental in the Pacific fighting of World War II. Two of these were at the airshow and flew together in the afternoon.

Other Planes

A Douglas DC-3. This plane, which was pressurized and carried 18 passengers, was largely responsible for the growth of commercial aviation, as it was the first plane to make money for the fledgling airlines of post-World War II. Over 12,000 of them were built during World War II and many of the survivors were taken by those airlines.

A Douglas A1 Skyraider., known as the “Spad” in the Navy. When I was in the Navy, these had just been retired from active combat in Vietnam. Spad pilots garnered more respect than any other pilots, including fighter pilots. These planes were hugely powerful and a real handful to fly. I cannot imagine how much it must cost to restore and fly something like this; it must burn a few hundred dollars of fuel per flight hour.

This Beech Bonanza – a common general aviation plane – did a full aerobatic show. Not supposed to fly upside down in one of these, but the pilot did that and much more!

Thanks for “coaxing” me into writing this post, Hervé. It reminded me of what a great day that was.

Posted in Ambles, Around Us | Comments Off on La Ferté Alais Airshow

Chateau Amboise and Chateau Azay-le-Rideau

Posted on September 29, 2021 by John

After seeing Chateau Blois and visiting the town, we took a day-trip to go to Chateau Amboise and then stopped at Chateau Azay-le-Rideau on the day we drove back to home base at Bois-le-Roi. This was the second time we’d visited Chateau Amboise and the fourth(!) time at Azay-le-Rideau. You can get some more info about these two chateaux by clicking on: 2018: Three Loire Chateaux.

Chateau Amboise

Chateau Amboise, a thirty-minute drive from Blois, sits on a point of land between the Loire river and what used to be the Amasse river (which is now under the town of Amboise). From this position the chateau and its owners – and their armies – could control the entire central Loire Valley. In the 1400s and 1500s, when the French monarchy lived in the Loire Valley, a number of kings and queens were raised here or lived here in their later lives. Henry II and his wife Catherine D’Medici raised three future kings and a future queen at this chateau.

Today it looks as it did in the 1500s, commanding a beautiful view of the Loire River and the town of Amboise. We very much enjoyed our return here.

The Loire River. The Loire Valley has become a favorite area for us.

The Chateau Amboise from halfway across a bridge on the Loire.

The main building of the chateau. Can’t see it here, but the left wing hangs down a cliff.

The other side of the chateau. The grounds have beautiful gardens all around.

I do not usually post pictures pictures of our fellow tourists, but this woman has a dog in her shoulder bag! Really.

Laurie enjoying the view through a beautiful window.

The view of the town of Amboise and the Loire River. The town is pretty touristy, but we walked a ways to find a restaurant off the beaten path that we enjoyed last trip. It was still there, still excellent.

Chateau Azay-le-Rideau

Chateau Azay-le-Rideau is 100% Renaissance, and we love it. We first visited it maybe 15 years ago and have been back three times since. It’s not huge or famous, but we can spend a lot of time just sitting and looking at it and enjoying its beauty.

We learned on this trip that for many years this chateau had a collection of portraits of French people unsurpassed anywhere. In the early 1900s much of the collection was sold to ease a financial strain on the family, but some fifty of the best were retained. They were displayed here for the first time in many decades. We saw portraits of royalty and aristocrats. A good addition to the chateau. 

Many rooms are decorated and furnished in styles appropriate to the years of the chateau. We liked seeing those, too. But the star of this show is the chateau itself, so here are some pictures of it.

Walking to the chateau, this is the first view you see.

The forecourt of Azay-le-Rideau. Pure Renaissance.

Looking out a beautiful window.

Dinner time! À mange!

 

Now here’s a bed. Two kings – Louis XIII and Louis XIV – slept in this bed.

The Indre River flows all around the chateau, making the chateau look as if it’s floating in the river.

We can spend hours walking and sitting in the gardens. And have done just that.

That’s the end of our Loire Valley ramble. We drove back to Bois-le-Roi (an “interesting” drive, but we made it) and have since spent a lot of time remembering how much we enjoyed it. Honestly, everything went well: we had great weather, some excellent dinners, and saw lots of beautiful sights. A perfect trip!

Posted in Châteaux, Rambles | Leave a comment

Chateau Blois

Posted on September 27, 2021 by John Zumsteg

We left Cheverny and made the half-hour drive to the town of Blois. Here sits one of the most interesting chateaux in all of France, in a very enjoyable city. We made Blois our base of operations for the next three days.

Our arrival in Blois was not without some nervousness: we had to trust the GPS 100% to get us to our hotel; we didn’t know anything about the hotel or what it was like; and we didn’t know if we’d able to park there – always a problem in an old city like this.

The GPS performed flawlessly, taking us through a twisting and turning route right to the hotel. Which had zero parking. So I drove down a street by the train station and amazingly found on that street one open space that was, even more amazingly, free and unlimited as to how long we could leave the car there. Score!

Then we lugged our stuff back to the hotel and found this lovely lobby and reception area:

This is it: the entire lobby and reception area of the hotel. No one was there. We rang the bell a few times and a fellow appeared and gave us the impression of not caring a hoot about anything, including his newly-arrived guests. But then he said we needed a bigger room because I’m tall, so he gave us a room upgrade, which was nice. And we were glad he did, because the upgraded room was none too big. We looked in a couple of the regular rooms – they were really small and we would not have been happy in one. Anyway, in the end, the hotel turned out fine, if not exactly luxurious, and Laurie pointed out that it often had the feel of Fawlty Towers. True!

And the kind-of-grumpy fellow at the desk? We think he was grumpy because he did everything at the hotel, except housekeeping. He was at the desk at 11 o’clock at night, and in the breakfast room when it opened at 7 the next morning. Overworked? Oh, yeah. In fact, he turned out to be a good person.

Blois Chateau

We had read quite a bit about Chateau Blois (mostly in Ina Caro’s book, “Road to the Past.” If you are doing some traveling around France, this is a must-read). Chateau Blois has an interesting history, but what’s most interesting are the four wings, each built in a different era of French culture and architecture, so you can stand in the courtyard and see how France changed over three hundred years.

For an overall view of the chateau, take a look at this picture:


The earliest wing is in the lower right-hand corner. Starting there, here are the four wings:

Gothic – that structure in the lower right-hand corner, built in the 13th century. This structure was much larger when built, but successive kings demolished parts as they built their own wings, and only this part of the building remains.

The Gothic part is stuck between the Flamboyant Gothic wing – the red brick to the right – and the Renaissance on the left.

Flamboyant Gothic – this section, to the left of the Gothic wing, is marked by the use of red bricks. It was built by Louis XII from 1498 to 1508.


Renaissance – this section, on the other side of the Gothic wing, was built by François I, from 1515 to 1519.

The Françoise 1 wing was originally symmetrical, with the spiral staircase smack in the middle. When Gaston d’Orleans decided to build his Classical wing (see below) he demolished the left quarter of François’s wing. I wish he’d left it intact!

Classicism – this wing was built by Gaston d’Orleans from 1635 to 1638.

Classicism revived Greek architecture, shown by the columns and porticos.

So here, in one chateau, we can see 350 years of French architecture. Honestly, we were excited to stand in the middle of the courtyard, listening to the audio guide (the best we’ve ever had, really; it had five narratives just about the different wings and their evolution and creation). We’d read about the chateau and the wings, but we were concerned that we’d get there, look around and not be able to put buildings to eras and architectural styles. Not to worry: the audio guide made sure we could see and understand what each wing represented. Kudos to whoever created that guide!

The salamander was Françoise 1’s icon (he was king from 1515 to 1547). It was believed that the salamander could walk through fire without burning, and could spit fire. Any time you see a salamander similar to this in France, it’s an indication that François 1 had a role in the decoration of the building.

Maybe because the weather had turned cold, the fireplaces of the Blois chateau caught my eye. You could have a bonfire in these, but considering that the only source of heat in a big, cold, stone room was a fireplace, a bonfire was probably a good thing. There are many like this here:

No, that’s not Laurie.

One gargoyle

Lots o’ gargoyles

Some pretty serious stone-carving, this on the spiral staircase.

And finally, a beautiful window.

We spent quite a while at Chateau Blois, and then came back the next night for the son et lumière – the sound and light show. These things used to be kind of primitive, with spotlights and music and narrative in French, but now, they are pretty cool. Using laser lights, they can project characters on the walls, scenes as if in a movie and literally paint the chateau walls to highlight certain parts. Narration is though individual listening devices, so we could have our choice of about twenty languages. Sorry, hard to take a picture of it, so I don’t have any.

Jeanne d’Arc at Blois Chateau

Joan of Arc is the national hero of France. Every city, town, village and wide spot in the road tries to highlight some connection – any connection! – to Joan of Arc. (We heard of one town that she didn’t visit, but the town exhibits a letter from her to the town explaining that she wouldn’t be able to visit there. Given that she was illiterate, the letter is almost certainly a forgery, but the town displays it anyway.)

But Chateau Blois has a solid connection with Jeanne d’Arc. At the end of April, 1429, she spent several days in Blois, at the head of an army she had been given to lift the siege (by the English) of the city of Orleans. She left Blois, did in fact attack the English at Orleans and defeated them. The son et lumière explains that she prayed in the chateau chapel before she led her army to Blois. Well, maybe she did and maybe she prayed in another, long-gone chapel, but it makes for a good story.

Chateau Blois was the primary reason for our trip to the Loire Valley this year and it did not disappoint. In fact, we had high expectations of this chateau and it exceeded those expectations. A fabulous place.

The City of Blois

The city that holds the chateau is worth some time, too It sits on a steep hillside next to the Loire River and though one would think it would be touristy, it isn’t. Not that there weren’t the ubiquitous souvenir shops, but they didn’t line the streets. Blois really is an interesting city in its own right, and we enjoyed a bit of exploration here.

Houses Along the Loire

Some old and interesting streets

One thing we liked is that these streets, which one could expect would be lined with tourist-oriented shops, were not. The stores here were just regular stores, meant to serve residents.




And a beautiful bridge, to boot. Completed in 1724!

We really liked Blois, both the Chateau and the town. It’s on our rather lengthy list of places we hope to visit again in the future.

Next up (in a few days): Chateau Amboise and Chateau Azay-le-Rideau.

Posted in Châteaux, Rambles | 2 Comments

Chateau de Cheverny

Posted on September 27, 2021 by John Zumsteg

If you once had a teenage son or daughter, they might well look at a picture of Chateau Cheverny and think, “That seems familiar…” If they were to look at the picture below and cover up the right and left outer wings, it might come to mind: this is Captain Haddock’s Marlinspike Hall, the chateau in the Tintin books that were so popular – with our sons, for sure.

Chateau de Cheverny has a long and convoluted history. In the early 1300s the land was owned by the Herault family. A fortified chateau was here in the early 1500s, still owned by the Herault family. Then things get muddy: the fortified chateau was torn down but no one seems to know exactly when or what it looked like! Another chateau – less fortified – was then built here.

The chateau was confiscated by the state, and around 1550 Henry II gave it to his life-long mistress Diane de Poitiers. But she liked Chateau Chenonceau better and sold Cheverny back to Philippe Herault – a descendent of the original owners. Philippe Herault built the current chateau between 1624 and 1630.

During Napoleon’s time as the head of France the family was required to “sell” (at little or no cost, likely) the property back to the state, but during the Restoration (when France had kings again, after the no-king era of the Revolution and Napoleon’s empire) the family re-gained the property. In 1914 the family opened Chateau de Cheverny to the public, the first to do so. From the first records of the property belonging to the Herault family – early 1300s – to today,  still owned by the de Vibraye family, this chateau and property has been in and out of the Herault/de Vibraye family for 800 years!

Okay, enough history – here are some pictures:

The front of the Chateau. The symmetry and clean ornamentation mark it as Renaissance. 

The back of Chateau Cheverny, every bit as beautiful as the front.

Chateau Cheverny is famous for its interior decorations, showing how the rooms have been decorated and furnished through the years. As you’ll see, some of the rooms had some whimsical additions…

The dining room set for a small dinner…for twelve people. There probably was no flamingo on the table when it was used for dinners.

The less-informal dining room for family meals. Note the deserts at each place; these are called “Religieuses au chocolat” and I’m sure you wouldn’t like them at all. Nope.

The ceiling in one room; decorating ideas for your house.

The chateau built with Lego-like blocks. Many Lego-like blocks.

A little treat on the mantle, one for Clara and one for Henry.

More decorating ideas for you…

And a note from Captain Haddock, Tintin’s guardian…

The top sign says, “Chateau for Sale.” On the bottom sign Captain Haddock has added some words to make it say, “Chateau is no longer for sale.” 

Many years ago Mary and Gilles took us to Chateau Cheverny, our first chateau. We remember it being beautiful, but honestly, we didn’t know enough about France and its history and culture to appreciate it as much as we could have. On this trip, probably twenty-five years and many trips later, we realized again just how beautiful this chateau is. We highly recommend it to anyone visiting the Loire Valley.

As a P.S.: it seems that every year we find a wine that kind of becomes our “wine of the trip.” This year we had a red wine from Cheverny the first week of the trip (thank you, Jamie and Hervé) which quickly became our favorite wine of 2021. We’ve had a lot of Cheverny Rouge!

Posted in Châteaux, Rambles | 1 Comment

A Ramble to the Loire Valley

Posted on September 27, 2021 by John Zumsteg

We took a three-night road trip last week to the Loire Valley. It was a terrific trip; one of those where nothing goes wrong, the weather was great, sights were beautiful and historic and interesting. When we got back, we sat on our little terrace, had a glass of wine and said we didn’t know how the trip could have been better.

The Loire Valley, which lies east-west two to three hours south of here, is home to many of the most interesting chateaux in France. This is because in the 1400s, as the central government of France formed and strengthened, the monarchy lived in the Loire Valley. Chateaux built during this time were defensive military structures, meant to maintain control of the country.

When the monarchy was secure in its role – in the late 1400s and early 1500s – having taken away the power of the local feudal lords, the chateaux no longer needed to be defensive structures. About this time the Renaissance arrived in France and the chateaux went from being secure fortresses to beautiful residences. Local aristocratic families had a ton of money – often way more than the king – and so they built Renaissance chateaux to live the good life and show off their wealth.

We visited four chateaux on our ramble. (Long ago we chose to limit ourselves to one a day; that’s all our brains and eyes and legs can take.) The first – Cheverny – and last – Azay-le-Rideau – are pure Renaissance palaces. The second – Blois – was built in the 1400s to militarily control the Loire River and its valley; additions and modifications in the 1500s brought Renaissance in new wings of the chateau. The third – Amboise – was also originally built for military purposes, and had Renaissance flourishes added in subsequent centuries. For each one I’ll do a short post, with pictures, because pictures are far better than words at describing these places.

First up: Chateau de Cheverny.

Posted in Rambles | 1 Comment

Around Bois-le-Roi – Chateau Fontainebleau

Posted on September 19, 2021 by John

We’re preparing to head off on a four-day trip to the Loire Valley, home of many beautiful chateaus; I’ll write a post about that when we return. In the meantime (and afterward) I’ll try to post some pictures and scribblings about things we do around our home base, Bois-le-Roi. First up: Chateau Fontainebleau.

We love Chateau Fontainebleau. It has become our go-to place for a walk around when we have some time and don’t want to go far for a walk because it’s close-by, has beautiful gardens and buildings and a history that we love to contemplate.

A Little Background on Chateau Fontainebleau

The Chateau Versailles sits outside Paris, about 60 miles from here and is far more popular than Chateau Fontainebleau. We’ve never been there because 1.) it is jammed with tourists at even the slowest time of the year (and I mean “jammed,” as in hour-long waits to get into the famous Hall of Mirrors and then standing shoulder-to-shoulder with your fellow gawkers once you get in), and 2.) it has nothing close to the history of Chateau Fontainebleau. Versailles was built by one king, Louis XIV – the Sun King – and reflects his tastes and no one else’s.

Chateau Fontainebleau started as a hunting lodge, and has been added to, changed by, improved upon, and sometimes damaged by kings and emperors since the early-1500s; the roster includes Francis 1st, Henry II, Henry III, Charles IX, Henry IV, Louis XIII, Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, Louis XVIII, Charles X, Louis-Philippe and Napoleon III. That covers early-1500s to 1870, and some sign of just about every one of those rulers can be seen somewhere in the chateau.

We love just walking around the beautiful grounds of the chateau. There are miles of forest trails, an English garden, a garden dedicated to Diane de Poitier, Henry II’s mistress for many years, and a parterre, a wide open space with ponds and flower beds. We can walk for hours if we want and we always have in sight that magnificent chateau.

The Cour Ovale, then center of the chateau.

This pond is about a mile long, and has forests and paths all round it.

What I love about this place. The area above the door has a salamander, the mark of Francois I, who was king from 1514-1547, while the door itself has a monogram added later by Louis XIV – the Sun King mentioned above as the creator of Versailles. He would have installed this door in the 1660s probably.


Now you know our favorite walking place. It’s about a fifteen minute drive from us. We’ve been a couple times so far, and plan to visit again, to take the chateau tour again (they keep adding things to it). We’ll be there for more walks, too; that’s for sure.

Posted in Ambles, Châteaux | Leave a comment

Alsace Trip – Mulhouse

Posted on September 14, 2021 by John

Last stop on our Alsace tour: Mulhouse. Mulhouse differs quite a bit from Strasbourg and Colmar: it’s an industrial city that is having a hard time keeping its industrial base. It doesn’t have many beautiful and historic buildings nor beautiful parks. The street on which our hotel was located was a bit gritty. But! Mulhouse has a couple amazing museums, and one little-known museum that we wanted to see, so to Mulhouse we went.

A word about the pronunciation of Mulhouse. First, in French ‘u’ often is pronounced almost as an English ‘a’, so the Mulhouse part is closer to “ma.” Then, the letter ‘h’ is never pronounced and “s” is pronounced close to the way English pronounces “z”. All this means that Mulhouse is pronounced “ma-looze.” Took us a while to get that right!

The two well-known museums are the Cité de l’Automobile, an amazing collection of cars; and the Cité de la Train, an amazing collection of railroad stuff. The little-known museum is the Musée De L’Impression Sur Etoffes. Etoffes translates as “printed fabrics;” more about etoffes below.

The Cité de l’Automobile

In the early 1900s, the Schlumpf family established a textile factory in Mulhouse. It was a huge success and the family became extraordinarily wealthy as a result. In 1961, Hans and Fritz Schlumpf were at the head of the company and decided to buy classic cars. They amassed a huge collection – some 500 cars – with the idea of opening a museum. Among the collection were some 150 Bugattis, beautiful cars built not far from Mulhouse in Molsheim, France. The brothers bought many cars in parts and formed a shop to restore them as well as many complete vehicles.

This was all great, but they spent so much that they imperiled their textile company. In 1977 the workers of the company learned of the enormous collection and the amount of money spent on it at a time the company was paying them low wages, claiming the company wasn’t making money. The workers occupied the company offices, Hans and Fritz fled to Switzerland, the company went out of business and the car collection went into limbo.

An association of automobile clubs and organizations stepped in and bought the collection, for a fraction of its value (44 million francs, worth approximately $11 million; there are two cars in the collection that today are worth about $40 million each!). A couple years later the Cité de l’Automobile opened.

I know, a picture is worth a thousand words, yada-yadda-yadda. Here ya go:

Bugatti Royales

Six Bugatti Royales were constructed between 1927 and 1933. To give you an idea of their size:

Length: 21.3 ft
Weight: 7,500 lbs
Engine size: 12.7 liters (715 cu. in.) producing 300 hp (that’s a lot for that time)

The Cité de l’Automobile has two of the original Royales. The museum was able to build a third (officially, a replica) from a spare chassis, motor and spare parts in the museum’s possession and then hand-building a body for it!

One of the two original Bugatti Royales in the museum’s collection.

The interior of the Royale shown above. Rather luxurious…

The second Royale in the Museum.

The “replica” Royale. There was a full display showing the process of hand-forming the body.

The two original Royales would likely go at auction for around $40 million each. The last time one was sold it brought $20 million – in 1999. The replica would bring much less than that, not being an actual production car. 

Other interesting cars, in no particular order:

Maybe a tenth of the collection!

1930s Alfa Romeo.

Another Alfa Romeo.

Perfect! One for me, one for our grandson, Henry.

A 1970s Citroēn-Maserati.

I’ll take one, please.

A Woodie!

Bugatti Type 55 (1932-1935)

Bugatti Type 50 (1931-1933)

This is style! A 1930s Mercedes.


I loved the Cité de l’Automobile, but two hours there was all my brain could take, and I know it’s not a destination for most people. Honestly, though, so many of these cars are just beautiful, and seeing them in perfect sparkling condition makes this museum worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Cité de la Train

I can hear it now: “Oh, no, another Cité de la Something.” Yep, this time for trains.
The French railroad system is run by the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF), the “National Company of French Railways.” The city of Mulhouse, wanting to draw visitors to the city, donated land to SNCF to display its rolling stock – locomotives and rail cars. The museum is dedicated to the history of trains in France, and stocked with locomotives and railroad cars from the 1840s to today. It had many amazing exhibits – for example, a huge steam locomotive cut in half so the inner workings could be shown and explained.

The railroad from Paris arrived in our France home base Bois-le-Roi in 1848 and when I saw this locomotive from 1850, I realized that one similar to this would have provided train service on that line. Time from Paris? Maybe 3 hours? Today: 35 minutes.

Every train and railroad car was restored to this level. Railroad locomotives beautiful? Definitely!

An 1850 First Class passenger car.

First class interior. Notice the foot rests, which held hot water to keep those first class tootsies warm.

And a third class car. A wooden plank for a seat. No foot warmers.

A streamlined steam locomotive. This one was set up so that it appeared to be running, with the wheels turning and all the mechanical components to-ing and fro-ing.

The level of restoration here is amazing.

A First class compartment from the 1930s.

Fine dining, even if on the move.

Another museum that’s not for everybody, but another museum we really enjoyed. 

Musée de l’Impression sur Étoffes (The Museum of Printed Textiles)

Yes, indeed, there is a museum of printed textiles in Mulhouse and we went to it. And enjoyed this one, too.

Turns out that until the late 1700s, printed textiles came from India and pretty much no where else. For some reason, Mulhouse textile factories decided to muscle in on that market and started to industrialize it. Designers came and created beautiful designs, and the manufacturers developed machines to replace the done-by-hand processes. The result was astonishing: Mulhouse quickly became the capital in the world of textile printing, both in quantity and quality.

In the 1820s the manufacturers and designers formed an association that collected and preserved the designs. This became the first Musée de l’Impression sur Étoffes. Since then the museum has expanded its collection to include examples of the machines used, and excellent displays of the design and manufacturing process.

Now, for whatever reason, textiles interest me, so when Laurie learned about this museum, we immediately decided to visit. It’s a small place, so only took about an hour (plus an hour for Mary and Laurie in the museum’s shop). 

A dress with printed cloth. Before Mulhouse became dominant in this industry, such a dress would have been hand-embroidered and much more expensive.

A handkerchief of printed cloth. The museum has a collection of over 6,000 printed handkerchiefs, but only a few are displayed at any time.

Another handkerchief.

Carved wood blocks and the designs they printed.

A big carved wood block.

Several of the machines that mechanized the printing process. With these, manufacturers could make huge amounts of cloth.

A modern design and printed cloth. Mulhouse still has a large textile industry, but it is no longer dominant.

Home!

Phew! Now you know all about our nine-day sojourn in Alsace. We were glad to return to our home base in Bois-le-Roi, but we can definitely envision a future return trip, especially to Strasbourg, which deserves a few more days than we gave it.

 

Posted in Rambles | 3 Comments

Big News!

Posted on September 13, 2021 by John

We each have a French Pass Sanitaire! Whenever we go into a restaurant or enclosed venue – think museums – with lots of people, we have to show our vaccination records. The French all have a QR code on their smartphones that the restaurant or venue staff check with an app – it shows that they have been vaccinated. This is the Pass Sanitaire.

Our vaccination records have worked almost 100% (we could not get into a museum in Strasbourg without a Pass Sanitaire, and it took some talking to get into the airshow I went to with Hervé), but we’ve had lots of “what is this thing?” looks when we showed our vaccination records rather than a pass. 

We found out that in late August the French created a way to get our vaccination records into a Pass Sanitaire. So today Gilles and I did the on-line work to get it done and when I finished, Gilles said the site promised an answer in 48 hours. As it turned out, it took about 3 minutes to get a reply email with the QR code necessary. I downloaded the pass sanitaire app, scanned the code and – voilà – we are officially legal. This is not a huge thing, but it will be very nice to just go through the regular, well-known process and not have any questions.

A little thing, maybe, but Big News for us!

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Big News!

Alsace Trip – Colmar

Posted on September 12, 2021 by John

Colmar was next up on our itinerary. It’s not far from Strasbourg, smaller by quite a bit (around 75,000 compared to Strasbourg’s 470,000) and definitely oriented more toward tourism. The city has many beautiful and interesting buildings, built in the half-timbered style common in much of Germany, and an excellent museum. It’s also got a lot of tourists. We also used our stay here to visit the town of Riquewihr – a lovely small town in the mountains that is definitely oriented to tourism and not much else.

Sights Seen Walking Around Colmar

Lots of beautiful old buildings line the streets of Colmar. I might point out that many of these pictures were taken early in the morning; hence, not many people in the streets. Later in the day, Colmar lived up to its reputation as a tourist destination.

Musée Unterlinden

This museum is the crown of Colmar’s cultural scene. It contains quite a number of religious art works, including an altar triptych that is quite famous. Now I have to say that religious art is not my favorite genre, so I wasn’t exactly deeply interested in much of this, but one aspect did catch my interest – polychrome wood carvings and statues. 

But first – the cloister. Laurie and I have become fans of cloisters and try to visit nearby ones as we travel. Cloisters were places of walking mediations in convents and monasteries and it seems to us that they maintain that sense of peace and tranquility to this day. Musée Unterlinden is housed in a former convent and many of the rooms are located off this cloister. We walked around it several times, then found a couple chairs to sit in and enjoy the sun for a while.

Wood Carvings from the Renaissance (1500s)

The museum has a number of religious statues carved of wood, with their original paint. These are from the 1500s generally and yet they look as if they were done recently. I really liked these. The beauty of these carvings and their color really caught my attention.


One more interesting exhibit…

There was a room titled “Cave Alsacienne” which I had to check out, of course…

Wine presses! From a long time ago…

And wine barrels! Almost big enough to hold enough wine for our entire trip here.

Doors and Windows

I guess some folks still like seeing my doors and windows pictures, so here are a few from Colmar and Riquewihr (more on Riquewihr below).

Note the date above the door: 1561. Many doors have the date the building was constructed. I think this is the oldest door we’ve seen.

This door is about three feet high. Wonder who lived there!

Riquewihr

Riquewihr is a beautiful town in the foothills of the Vosges Mountains. On the second day in Colmar we drove to Riquewihr. Here’s a picture of the town from a hill overlooking it.

Riquewihr has a challenge that many beautiful small towns in France – and other countries – have: there is not much to keep the town alive except tourism, so the town has to promote its charm. But when the tourists come, much of the town’s charm is lost in a sea of people. This is the main street of Riquewihr on a day out of the tourist season; think what it must look like in August:

But there’s hope: keeping in mind our friend Ken’s observation that “The well-traveled path is not very wide,” we walked away from that main street. These pictures are all taken not more than a five minute walk away from that main drag.

Laurie and Mary admiring the flowers.

We enjoyed visiting Riquewihr but honestly, it’s good for a couple hours only. And in August? No way.

A Surprise: They Make Wine in Alsace!

Our first night we had dinner in a nice little restaurant in Colmar marked by two things. One, Laurie and I had a main course of pork that ranks among the best pork we have ever had. Maybe it wasn’t the pork so much (though it was excellent) but the sauce! Holy cow: some sort of mushroom gravy. Honestly, if I could have ordered a bowl of just that, I would have. 

Two, we had a really nice Alsace wine with dinner, and realized the cooperative that sold that wine was about a twenty minute drive from Colmar. So the next day, off we went. 

This cooperative sold wines from many local wineries, under the cooperative’s label. They had some wine:

Lots o’ wine…

Mary and Gilles checking out the selections Sorry for the slightly fuzzy picture; maybe too much wine tasting?

Here’s a crazy thing about this wine-buying: the nice wine we’d had at dinner the night before? $7.50 per bottle. 

That’s it for Colmar and the area around it. We are glad we came to Colmar and saw Riquewihr. It’s a new and interesting area for us. Not sure it’s on our list of places to re-visit, though. Next post: Mulhouse and its amazing museums.

Posted in Rambles | Leave a comment

Alsace Road Trip – Strasbourg

Posted on September 11, 2021 by John Zumsteg

Alsace

We’ve been on a road trip to Alsace, in eastern France, for the last week and a half. We visited Strasbourg, Colmar and Mulhouse (pronounced “ma-looze,” of course). We’ve never been to this part of France and Mary has suggested it for a road trip over the last few years. We finally got it together and are very glad we did; this is a very enjoyable, and very different, part of France.

First, the different. Alsace is located due east of Paris, a five hour drive, so about 280 miles. Over its history, it has bounced back and forth between France and Germany, the transition from one to the other almost always driven by hostilities. I thought about outlining the history of Alsace but the more I read, the more complicated it became. So I’m going to boil it down t0 answer the question, “Is Alsace French or German?” reminding you that there was no real Germany until the 1870s, Alsace has been:

French, then Germanic, then French with Germanic language, laws and customs prevailing, then French with French laws, then Prussian and Austrian (Germanic), then French, then German, and now French. Simple, eh?

The important thing to remember, and you’ll see this in the houses and buildings of Alsace, is that the Germanic influence is stronger than the French influence here. Makes for an interesting area…

We were gone nine days and rather than post one big long boring post about the whole trip, I’ll do several posts to cover each of the main places – Strasbourg, Colmar and Mulhouse – and maybe a couple shorter posts about places we visited. Let’s start with some pictures of downtown Strasbourg. It will definitely make you think you’re in a city smack in the middle of Germany.

Strasbourg

Strasbourg is a big city: about 470,000 people in the city proper and 800,000 in the “urban area” (including suburbs and smaller towns around the city). The central city is on an island of sorts; the Ill river splits north of the city, half goes in a stream to the east and the other half in a stream to the west, and rejoins south of the city. 

The Cathedral

The Strasbourg cathedral has several distinctive aspects. Like many churches in Europe, it was built on top of an earlier church, which may have been Catholic or Protestant or pagan. That church was started in the 1100s, largely of Romanesque architecture, solid, with thick walls, small windows and rounded or slightly pointed arches. In the 1200s, as the beautiful Gothic cathedrals were being built in France, work on the Romanesque Strasbourg cathedral was stopped and a Gothic design created. (This was not unusual; many churches in France and Europe had mysterious fires that burned a Romanesque church and allowed a new Gothic structure to be built in its place.) Rather than tearing down the existing Romanesque church, which had a completed apse and altar and transept, the new Gothic design was added onto it; this included the nave and almost all the exterior

The most unusual aspect of the Strasbourg cathedral is its west façade – the main entry to the cathedral and the most visible part. It has Gothic unlike any other we’ve seen.

The Strasbourg Cathedral from the place in front of it. Where most Cathedrals have a façade decorated with statues and a rose window, this cathedral has statues, a rose window and many vertical columns holding arches. This gives the façade a vertical aspect unlike any other cathedral we’ve seen.

A straight-on view of the façade, showing the vertical columns and arches that cover the west front.

This is pure Gothic architecture right up to the central arch over the alter. Beyond that, it’s Romanesque, a reminder that the Cathedral was being built in Romanesque when Gothic started to appear in France (in the 1100s and 1200s). As Gothic gained in importance, many older churches were converted from Romanesque and often, as in the case of the Strasbourg Cathedral, the new Gothic sections were built on and alongside older Romanesque parts.

The bishop who preached here when the pulpit was carved had a dog of which he was particularly fond. He wanted to have the dog near him when he preached, and the person who carved the pulpit obliged him.

What’s a Cathedral without a beautiful organ? This one is particularly stunning. Built in the 1500s, so a “recent” addition to the Cathedral.

This rose window has a funny story. It was originally designed to be much higher on the west front wall, but the person designing the building put the arch above it lower, which would have hidden the top third of the window. It was easier to lower the rose window than raise the arch so now it sits lower than rose windows in other cathedrals.

Walking Around

We did a LOT of walking in Strasbourg. It’s a fairly compact city, with interesting things to see just about everywhere. 

This is the oldest “house” in Strasbourg, built in 1537! It’s on the place in front of the Cathedral. The two bottom floors house a restaurant, at which we had a terrific dinner.

Another building on the Cathedral place.

Some Older Buildings

This house shows a common Strasbourg roof. Foodstuffs were kept in the attic and to keep them fresher, these windows were built to allow air to circulate.

Some Newer Buildings

This building has an oriel window – the squared off bay window that starts at the second floor. Not uncommon here, we have also seen them in Barcelona and Zamora, Spain. Evidently a German influence, how the heck did they get to Spain?

This example of German Renaissance architecture illustrates one of many influences on Strasbourg as it went back and forth between Germany (and its predecessor states) and France.

This is a school! Really. It started life as a residence, and was donated to the city when its owner died. Nice school, eh?

The River Ill

Strasbourg’s central area is surrounded by the river Ill. It’s not a huge river, but the city has taken advantage of it fully, with miles of beautiful river banks and walks. We even took a boat that went all around the city, through a couple locks and up the Ill a few miles to see the European Parliament buildings.

On our boat tour we went up in one lock and down in another. Here we are in the first of the two as the lock gates open to let us proceed.

Under a swinging drawbridge.


Some walking Around Sights

Carousels are popular in France; most cities have at least one and they’re all as fancy and whimsical as this one.

On our way to get on our boat tour, we passed through this place. Laurie said this would be a good place to sit and have a beer. So when we returned from the tour, we did just that. She was right.

People lined up for dinner at the Waffle Factory. Really? In France, where the average restaurant is pretty darn good? Oy.

“The Bridge of Cats”, a nice-looking restaurant that was unfortunately closed for vacation.

So we chose the restaurant on the left for dinner. Looked nice, on a lovely little place, nice staff, good menu. Our dinner there? Not so good. Maybe we should have gone to the Waffle Factory.

That’s my quick description of Strasbourg. We really liked it here and we know we saw a small part of its history and beauty. I suspect we will return on a future France trip. It’s an easy high-speed train ride from Paris, and there really is no need for a car once you’re here. But after three nights, it was time to head south to our next destination: Colmar.

Posted in Rambles | 4 Comments