France... On a Sunday.... :)

Sunday: My grandparents and I woke up late and got moving. The room was very warm and I had to spend the night sleeping in my clothes because I forgot to bring something to sleep in. I felt rather dirty and in need of a shower when I woke up, but there was no warm water so I just settled for washing my face. I then went down and had a quick breakfast which included some bread and some yogurt and some really nasty coffee. We then packed up and my uncle Denny showed me how to pop there van out so it turned into a camper and that was cool to see. We left the van at the hotel and then ventured on to the second museum to see. The 2nd museum had a famous alter piece and a lot of paintings by this famous painter. The museum, which we thought was going to be small, was actually quite large. We entered through a small entry way that passed by a stone well. We paid and got our tickets and then walked to another desk where there was hand held audio touring devices that you could use. They pretty much worked like this… By some paintings or displays of art there was a number and when you typed it into the little walky talky thing it would tell you about the piece. It was really cool. There were a lot of different paintings depicting the crucifixion scene. A lot of different artists portrayed it in different ways, designs, lighting and textures. A lot of the paintings had John on one side and the Virgin Mary on the other side. Some of the art shown were stone carvings that were only displayed once in a while to protect them. Some dated all the way back to the 1500’a… which isn’t surprising, but it is cool to see something that old! There was a lot of paintings and different forms of art that led up to the main attraction of the piece called the “Issenheim Altar Piece”. It had four different that folded out, but only one was shown at a time during the different seasons. The painting of Jesus had an interesting detail in it. Jesus was not only bloody and beat up, but he also had a lot of black spots (sores) on Him caused by “St Anthony’s fire” which was a disease caused by ergot (fungus) in the rye. Now days they are able to take the fungus out during the process, but back then it was bad and all over the place in the bread because they couldn’t get it out of the seeds. The altar was really amazing and there was so much to take in! I was kind of ahead of everyone because they were stopping at every painting and listening to the information about it. I did too, but only at the important ones. I then moved on to the second part of the museum which was on the second floor. The building was a large square with the center cut out as an outside garden. It had a brick walkway around the bottom and then the top walkway was an enclosed wrap around hallway with large glass display cases with different items. One hallway had painted plates, and different vases. Another hallway had large bells on display on the ground and then keys, locks and different door handles in glass cases. The third hallway had different glass cups and some paintings. And the fourth had some wardrobes. There were several rooms off each hallway that all connected in a couple spots. I started through one room that had some really old furniture and it had good lighting so I was able to get some pictures. The room then went into another room with a few large paintings. As I walked down the hallway there were a couple small rooms on display with large long paintings hanging on the wall. I then walked into two large rooms. The first one had three large, detailed hardwood wardrobes with some very precise designs. There was also some silver goblets and pewter dinner ware that was very interesting. The next room had some large glass cases of armor and weapons. There were some very interesting swords and spears. I didn’t see any shields though. The following rooms had some more paintings and then one wall had a huge rug that had been very detailed designs. After looking around for a while I met up with everyone and they were just starting to come into the 2nd floor. We had all. The churches we saw had different patterns of We also went back to a small Café that we had seen the day before and we had some coffee and cheese cake. It was very delightful! We also saw some different people who were playing instruments on the street and making quite a bit of money doing it! I remember one guy who had a big amp that was playing music and then he played his saxophone along with the music. It was kind creative and very interesting. ON Saturday we saw a couple of people playing their accordions. After we ate at the Café we walked back to the hotel where our van was parked. My cousin Ana and I have been playing a game as we walked along. There is a special way to trip someone and you walk behind them and as they lift up their foot you take your own foot and gently kick theirs forward. They really don’t trip but it makes there leg go up high. So Ana and I did this back and forth to each other all day and I think I won :P We got back to the hotel and loaded up. We then decided to drive back on a different route on the “Wine Road”. So now I have been down Romantic Road and Wine Road.

The special route that took us through a bunch of small wine villages’ a3nd we got to see hill after hill of rolling vineyards and I even got a picture of two hills of vineyards and white capped mountains in the back ground. It was very pretty! Each vine was pruned and the hills were very colorful because the ground was different colors in different places. It was fun to just stare out the window at the rows as we flew by them… it was almost like a slide show. The houses along the road were all very quaint. We passed one that was very happy yellow and had a really dark blue motorcycle outside! We also passed a beautiful cemetery with flowers on every grave stone and all around the perimeter. We saw a castle on a hill and behind it the hill had been specially molded to look like steps for farmers. From a distance we saw a statue on the top of the hill. We passed a large park filled with storks and the trees were spotted with large nests. And right after that we saw the Rine Valley with the black forest and the foot of the Alps. The churches we saw had different patterns of tiles on the roofs and it was interesting to see the colors they used.

My grandma bought a post card back in Colmar with a blue house on it that was not from Colmar, but from one of the small villages. As we drove through the wine villages on the wine road we kept eye out for the little blue house, but despite our eager attempt to find it we never did see it. After our search for the blue house we began a search for some where to eat. We stopped in a small town and walked through it , but everything was a little expensive so we moved on. We stopped in a little town called Andlau and checked again for a place to eat, we didn’t, but there was some nice photos taken J - We finally found a little Café eloquently named “Café Bistro”. It was very blue and had some nice timbers along side of the building. The people were every nice and translated the menu for us. My guess was it was a couple that owned or at least ran the Café. The husband described all the dishes for us in English and helped us all decide and then when we had decided he said “C’est fecile!” and in English that’s “It’s easy!” He was a very very nice gentleman and was very hospitable. The ambience of the Café made it, by far, the best place I have eaten at yet. He was very interested in the going to New York someday to listen to the jazz there. He was really into jazz. I ordered a dish that was duck and some sauce with rice and some vegetables (Carrots, Zucchini and onions). I also helped my cousin and aunt eat some of their left over food. My aunt had homemade noodles with mushrooms (which were extremely delicious) and my cousin had the same noodles with chicken and sauce that was very good as well. After we ate I got a coffee and then we were off. I found a good spot to take a picture of the Café, but my camera decided to be crabby and would not record the pictures I was taking correctly and kept showing up “corrupted”. This was really frustrating and I’m not sure why it’s doing it. This camera is starting to be very troublesome! I thought I figured it out, but then I took a picture again and it repeated it’s previous bad mood. Oh well… It will work out. Traveling back was very beautiful. We passed the French town of Strasbourg and saw a little bit of it from the autobahn. It was very cool. There were some nice gardens that were all split up into different sections for different people. There were many sections that you could see the mountains from and there were a lot of deer stands along the way. We saw some deer and a dead badger along the road.

As we crossed the Rhin river we saw a swan that was fixing it’s nest as it’s little duckling (?) swam around. The sky was really beautiful all day and the sun was shining most of the time. IT provided some nice walking weather as we were out and about. The rest of the ride home was relaxing and it was nice to do all this typing during the trip. My Uncle brought home an Alphasmart board which is pretty much a keyboard with 8 different files that you can type on. So I was able to document the whole trip while I was on the road!