Advertisement
Published: December 9th 2007
Ilhaussen
the river Ill lovely setting for a weddingJean guided us to Colmar and showed us what was his parent’s home. The place is now abandoned and in disrepair, the reason is a long story and best let slip into the shadows of my memory. It was built in the early 1800's in what was a prosperous farming area at the time. The district has now been swallowed up by the town of Colmar and borders on the "rough" end of town. It had recently been sold as a development site and would soon be torn down or remodeled as part of a trendy townhouse complex. Our little tour of the almost ruined house would be the last time Jean would visit there. The tears in his eyes told how he felt about its uncertain future and the memories which connected him to this place.
One interesting aspect of the basement was the tunnel that leads to the rear of the garden. Jean's father had dug it by hand and it was designed as an escape route for Jewish folks who took shelter at their home during WWII. Had I been alive at the time I may well have had to use it - detail like that always
Logelbach
Jean's former family home makes me realise how true it is to describe Australia as the "Lucky Country".
We had lunch with Jean and Beatrice and spent hours looking at old family photos of my distant cousins. Some of the family resemblances are uncanny and my sense of connection could not help but grow. Some of the details that Jean could recall of what were my Grandfather's first cousins sounded so much like members of my direct family back in Australia it was spooky. I think my grandfather met some of the people in these photos when he was in Paris on leave from the Australian Army during WWI. Strange to think that so much time has passed and we found our way back here again!
Somewhere at home I have a photo of my grandfather, standing with his father, in front of the apartment building in Paris where Jean and Beatrice still live. At that time it was owned by two of my grandfather's cousins, Lydia and Jeanne.
Organ Recital Back at Niedermorschwihr we met up with a friend of Jean's, Bernard. He gave us a tour of the local church, including the inside of the twisted church spire.
Colmar
Rob's former family home He followed this up with a private recital on the organ, which is apparently well known in Europe to church organ lovers as it was built by some famous organ builder - it was built in 1898 by Jean-André Silbermann. It was repaired at some stage following bombings during WWII.
For more info on the church see
Les Amis du Clocher Vrillé Niedermorschwihr More distant cousins This evening we met up with Jean's brother, Pierre and sister Eliane, plus Pierre's wife Claudine and daughter Floriane. We dined at a restaurant in Colmar called "Hansi" which was typically Alsatian. The food was great, as was the wine and company. Following dinner Eliane led us on a night time tour of Colmar which was really interesting. She is a volunteer tour guide with a local association that helps new comers to Colmar get their feet and settle in to the town. Great to meet them.
11th September 2007 We met up with Pierre again and he drove us to Eliane's place in Turckheim for lunch. A great meal it was too, a big rabbit stew in red wine sauce. Lorenza had never tasted rabbit before and was very impressed. I had not
eaten it since I was a kid and my cousins and I would hunt them and then roast them on an open fire. This tasted far better!
Eliane showed us a video about the history of Colmar and also some history books about Alsace, in particular the references to some of my ancestors. Then we returned to Colmar and did a tour of the Unterlinden Museum with Eliane. Her English is not great, about the same as my French, but we managed to get on in the communication department just fine.
After the museum we took a spin with Pierre to the nursery where Claudine works (owned by her brother). It is a big commercial nursery and is an impressive set up. Claudine supplies many of the restaurants and cafes around Colmar with their fresh cut flowers and also does the floral arrangements (I wonder was this partly the inspiration for their daughter’s name?).
Top 50 Restaurants & a Wedding Claudine was keen to show us some of her work and she and Pierre took us to see the Auberge de l'Ill, which is definitely one of Alsace's top establishments and ranks very highly in the
Top 50 Restaurants of the World. The floral arrangements for the wedding reception that was to be held there that night were lovely, as was the establishments setting on the bans of the river Ill.
One of the owners showed us around and we also met their Sommelier, who had apparently been ranked as France's number one "wine waiter". I think Sommelier is a bit above a "waiter" but that was the dictionaries translation, not mine.
We did not dine at the Auberge, instead we opted for a much more humble and lower priced meal at a place across the road. It was still on the banks of the river Ill and the food was great.
Pierre and I had a good laugh at how Lorenza and Claudine were able to converse in a mixed up language we decided to call “Lorine”, it was a jumble of Dutch, German, French, Alsatian and English. But, they did seem to be able to understand each other. Some Dutch is similar to German, which is similar to Alsatian, etc.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.091s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 14; qc: 22; dbt: 0.0331s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
