A day out to Kaysersberg and a bit of Alsacian sight-seeing

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In stark contrast to the previous week, this week has been busy and fun, the highlight being my afternoon out with Lydie, my French teacher. After doing the round of cleaning at school, we headed off to the picturesque Alsacian town of Kysersberg.

As we descended the road into the town, I was delighted to notice what looked like a medieval look-out tower with a stork perched in its nest on top - a real stork! This time I would definitely take a photo!

It was certainly a very pretty town, typical of Alsace with its brightly coloured buildings, shuttered windows and quaint little streets. We wondered or rather huffed and puffed our way up to a medieval castle which gave a great view over the rest of the town.

We then explored the rest of the touristic town, taking plenty of photos and awwing and ahhing at the beautiful architecture which I find so enchanting about this part of France. I know I shall miss it when I have to leave; I'll miss the little French boulangeries, the cobbled streets, the shuttered windows, the deep melody of spoken French all around me.

After out strolling was over, Lydie took me to see the statue of liberty - the French version of course. Bartholdi, the guy who made the bigger version for America, came from Colmar, a fact the town is keen to boast about. His miniture version of the statue lies just outside the town on a busy round-a-bout.

And Lydie had another treat for me in store after that - a stork enclosure at Soultz. I couldn't have been more thrilled! I've been wanting for so long to see storks up close and now here I was, with a whole enclosure full of them! You may be wondering what's the big deal with storks?! The Alsacians believe they bring good luck so when they stopped coming to France because the journey between here and Africa was becoming too deadly, people were gutted. So 10 (or more) years ago the Alsacians decided to reintroduce them and now Alsace is the only part of France where storks come and live each year! As a result, they're quite a local mascot! Hence, my stork craziness.

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