Eichhoffen Saturday 8th October

It appears that Autumn has come.  After a bit of rain on Thursday and some wind and swirling leaves yesterday,  today is cold.  Le meteo said a minimum of 6 and maximum of 13.  ( A few days ago it was 30.) They were right. It has been bleak and raw all day, but nevertheless good walking weather .  There is now more gold and brown on the trees than green, wonderful when there is sunlight on them.

Unstructured time is such a luxury!  The fly and the Peugeot are just wandering around the countryside as fancy dictates; and it is impossible to avoid seeing beautiful and interesting things.  Every village is wonderful, I park the car – which they do in any old place any old how here – and then just walk. I take far too many photos – the old buildings, still homes, the cobbled streets, the vineyards, the vignerons, the floral abundance everywhere – it is all completely absorbing. 

I found my way up to Mont St Odile one day, which is a convent built right at the top of everything way  back in the 8^th century.  Odile was the daughter of the Duke of Alsace, but born blind, and rejected by him.  She was taken away and reared in Burgoygne where she became Christian and her sight was manifest at her baptism.  Back to the Duke, and he set her up and built the Convent for her.  It is now still a convent, though only three nuns are there.  In the main it is an up-market hotel and tourist resort.  Great place to stay, but a big budget would be needed.  When I was there, a group of school children were there, with a lot of mums doing crowd-control and a very patient priest.  He tried very hard to get them to pray in the chapel.   But outside on the terrace, with a view of Europe below them, they played games like ‘drop the hanky’ and ‘ring a rosie’ – do our kids play those games any more?  It is Saturday night as I write this, and there is an organ recital in the chapel at Mt St Odile.  I would have loved to be there, but was not confident about the drive down the mountain afterwards in the dark. 

Also came across Le Struthof.  I had never heard of this – it is the only Nazi concentration camp built west of the German border.  The French have turned it into a fitting memorial for those who died “pour la France” as is on each of the many grave-crosses there.  There was a group of secondary school students there with a couple of teachers when I was visiting – it is not to be forgotten.  It was a very sobering experience, and it grew overcast and rained as I was there, a fitting climatic response I thought.  There are some pics on Picasa, but there were some things I simply could not take photos of.   There is a museum recognising the ‘deportees’ – that is the term consistently used – who were sent there – Jews, political prisoners, Gypsies, members of the Resistance, British military.  In particular I was moved by the story of four women, members of the British SOE (Special Operations Executive) who were parachuted into France to help in various Resistance activities, and ended up in Le Struthof, where they were executed.  They were all only in their twenties, one had had a happy girlhood with her family in France, learning to speak fluent French, before returning to England as a teenager.  And of course the fluent French was the reason she was sent into France during the war. 

Apparently before the War, the site of Le Struthof was part of popular ski-ing fields; people came from Strasbourg and there were chalets and hotels.  Not so any longer

There is a ski-ing area further away (though that only means about 5klms here) – Le Champs de Feu – a major cross-country ski-ing location. 

I have found Selestat, the nearest place with a population over 5,000.  It has about 115,000 according to the guidebooks.  I was in need of such a place, as, while these quaint villages are very charming, they sell nothing but wine and cheese, and I was in need of some other staples, as well as a warm gown and a tracksuit for in the home only wear.  (Real French women do not wear track suits, I had to get one from the men’s department.  But I am cosy in it.)

Selestat is also the home of the Humaniste Library – magnificent collection of incunabula.  Their oldest book is from the eight century.  It is a place to wander around and gaze at the display cabinets with priceless old parchments and manuscripts, and then the very earliest of printed materials -  (Beatus Rhenanus, who started the Library, himself a great scholar, was the printer of the work of Erasmus).   However, the great thing would be to work in the place, to have a project that required consultation with these old old works.  And to sit there for hours.  There was one scholar there doing just that.  All the rest were tourists!