Sweet and Sour

"Some days the wind blows hot and cold.

Life can be sweet and sour but I am in control."

That sums up the Trip so far. The time in the UK was spent with Dal Renata and Matrim. Circumstance, the weather and the Easter/School holidays conspired against us so we spent some quality time with the family. We had a great time as Renata was on holidays and Matrim was not going to daycare. Dallas had time off too.

We finally made it across the Channel and started out from Dunkirk. We spent the first night in the small Belgium town of Tournai. It was just an Aire at the end of a city car park but next to (a real surprise) Baseball Diamonds. Kids were playing tee-ball and there were older one playing on the full size diamond. It was a real buzz watching them play. There was also a huge marquis tent next to where we were parked and it was being used for what sounded like the Belgium version of The Voice auditions. I swear if I never hear Pharrell William's "Happy" again I'll be HAPPY.

We made our way to Luxembourg the next day and stayed in a beautiful little campground just out of town. The bus to the centre of town was just out side the gate and it was only 10 min to town.

Luxembourg City was a real disappointment for a place hyped as a medieval city with a 1000 years of history. The Grand Dutchy is a Grand Dud. It seems being a premier centre of the EU is the kiss of death for your hood. Strasbourg, which we passed through on the way to Alsace is another medieval city spoiled by inappropriately located modern architecture.

We bypassed the EU's home base and settled for the real Alsace of Selestat. The core of the medieval city still remains inside the city wall. Though there are no walls anymore. They were removed in the 18th century to allow the city to expand. The ancient timber framed houses seem to lean out over the narrow street - you get the feeling they are looking over your shoulder at every step. The solid timber skeletons were infilled with rubble, brick or stone and then plastered over to create the distinctive Alsace architecture. The exposed beams are dark stained and the plaster is brightly coloured - earthy reds, yellows and orange, pale blues and verdant shades of green. All with contrasting coloured shutters that vie for your attention.

Wrought iron filigree with attached painted sculptures hang from the first floors proclaiming the butcher,  the baker, the candlestick maker, the cobbler, the tanner and any other trade that sustained these mercantile towns throughout their history. The beauty and spirit of their past has not been dimmed or, thank the lord, destroyed in rush to build a "better" Europe.

We took a little side trip from Selestat to one of the towns former possessions - the Haut-Koenigsbourg castle. The original was first built, on this rocky outcrop 750 metres above the Alsace plain to the East and the Vosges Mountains to the West, in the 12th century. In its time it controlled what where once important trade routes. The North/South wheat and wine trade and the East/West salt and silver trade. It was rebuilt several time and left abandoned for more than 250 years after it was looted and burned during the Thirty Years War. In the late 19^th century it became the possession of Selestat whereupon the city gifted the castle to Kaiser William II as Alsace was then part of Germany. Kaiser Bill restored it to its present glory. It is quite literally magnificent.

We left Selestat and the beautiful little Municipal Campground and headed south along the Route de Vin (the wine road). On the way we stopped at Requewihr - listed as one of the most beautiful villages in France and boy does it live up to its reputation. It is small compact and like steeping through a portal into a Brothers Grimm Tale. It's not hard to imagine this as the home of Cinderella, Snow White or Repunzel. Hansel and Gretel could live here - it is after all the home of gingerbread. Is it too much to conjure up a Gingerbread Home? There were mines here once and the forests of the Vosges Mountains are only broomstick's flight away.

We walked back through the eastern entrance overlooking the emerald quilt of vineyards and the spell was broken. The real world intervened and we continued on our way until we reached Colmar.

This is where I sit and write right now. Colmar another Alsace jewel. Treasure and pleasure awaits at every turn of its narrow cobbled streets. It even has a canal running through to older part of town overlooked by a colourful palette of bent and crooked houses that any artist would find inspiring.

We leave tomorrow for Mulhouse and then we turn south west away from Alsace and head for Dijon.