Bergheim and around

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Had breakfast at the hotel, breads, croissants, jam, coffee, orange juice. Then we drove to Colmar. The scenery was spectacular, vineyards as far as the eye can see, mountains and wonderful medieval villages.

Colmar was interesting, a bustling town full of tourists. Like Amsterdam, it has no high rise buildings and lots of quaint streets. We parked in a parking station and had trouble finding our way to the street. A guy in his mid fifties, who we presumed was French, pointed us to the exit. We wandered about, and then grabbed a coffee near the cathedral. We spotted the guy from the car park with his wife and gave them a wave. I invited them to join us for coffee in my best French and then found out they are from Kent in England!

We then wandered in circles looking in shops, had a duck salad for lunch and Lorenza tried the onion tart, which was much like a thin pizza. The Fischer brand Alsatian beer packs and punch and washes the food down well.

We stopped and listened to a trio playing upright bass, violin and some type of hammered harpsichord. Bought one of their CDs, which is some kind of semi-classical stuff. After some more grocery shopping we headed back to Bergheim via the motorway.

In Bergheim we found out a well known jazz player was performing at the former synagogue, so we decided we may as well go and have a listen. We had no idea what to expect of the Michel Hausser Jazz Trio. We got some good seats and the hall began filling up with people, including the local Mayor and other VIPs in the front row. Behind us were some British folks who obviously considered themselves to be very upper class, they talked shit in very loud voices and tried as hard as they could to draw attention to themselves.

Before the concert started I took a look around the former synagogue and tried to strike up a conversation with a women, I asked if she spoke English, she replied no but said she had a friend with her who did (her reply in French of course).

The concert started and Michel Hausser played the vibraphone (is it the one you hit metal keys with padded hammers in your hand?). There was also an upright bass and a guitarist. They mainly played jazz classics by Stefan Grappelli and Jango Reinhardt. Michel introduced each song with a rather lengthy story in French; he had a great speaking voice even if we could not understand much of what he said.

After the concert, the women I had tried to strike up a conversation with introduced us to her friend who could speak English. Turned out it was not just a friend it was her husband! He had visited Australia in 1992. When I introduced myself to him he asked me, "What did you say your family name was" - when I repeated it he said that he lived in Colmar in a street bearing that name. I explained to him that his street was named after my great grandfather’s brother - he was rather astonished that I was an ancestor of the one time mayor of Colmar that his street was named after. He explained this to his wife and we all laughed at what a strange coincidence this was.

After some small talk she introduced us to Michel Hausser who spoke very good English. He was an interesting guy to talk to and had played a series of concerts with some well own Australian jazz players that I was familiar with. He is 77 years old and a warm and friendly person, when he realised we did not understand much French he apologised for not introducing some of the songs in English.

When Michel wished us good night he kissed Lorenza's hand, which she found extremely charming. What a smoothie!

4th September 2004 - we took a walk up the hill from Bergheim and found a German War cemetery. There were about 5000 graves and they were mostly form the latter part of WWII. The bodies had been relocated to this place from various smaller village cemeteries by a German organisation that tended to the condition of the site.

While wandering about we bumped into an older German couple. They first greeted us in German and then he proceeded to chat with us in a very British accent (he had worked as a teacher in Leeds). They were a very interesting couple and gave me a very different perspective on WWII. I explained that being an Australian I felt much removed from the effects of WWII and did not really understand much about its true impact on Europe. He explained that he felt a very heavy burden in his heart due to the horror his country has brought to the rest of Europe, which is why he and his wife did volunteer work for the Volksbund Deutsche organisation.

I commented to him that it was not he and his wife's fault that thee things happened. I was surprised when he responded « no - we started the war and caused all this, it is our fault in many ways ». He then explained to me that there is a word in the German language specifically to describe the corpse of a soldier, which translates to something like « the body of an animal that must obey ». He asked me did I know of any other language that would have a word like that. Naturally I had to answer no.

He went on to say that a lot of Dutch and Norwegian people are still very negative toward Germans and that they felt this very strongly when they visited those countries. I explained that I definitely belonged to a very lucky generation, I had missed WWII, Vietnam and the Gulf War, I was very lucky. His wife told us that her father was buried in France and that she was about 2 years old when he had died. He was killed in the very early stages of the war.

They wished us a good holiday and we continued our walk with a lot to contemplate from our conversation with them.

After lunch we went to Ribeauville to the "Pfifferdaj" festival. It was just the warm up for the following day’s big medieval parade. So, we decided to have a few beers and come back tomorrow afternoon to watch that. Weather at 5pm was 30c and 65% humidity.

5th September 2004 - a busy day by the standard we have set so far in Alsace! We toured Haut Koenigsburg. It is a restored medieval castle, with the restoration being paid for by the German government. This was a pretty good trick - the people of Alsace gave the castle to the Germans as a gift and then reclaimed it after the war and after the restoration had been completed - smart work !

We had a talk to two Gendarmes on duty outside. They worked 20 day stints on duty and stayed at the castle, then had a week off (I think they said a week). I commented to one that his English was great and he said he could also speak Italian, German and Spanish, or at least enough of these to impress the women. He laughed and said "it helps to know as many languages as possible, not every beautiful women in the world speaks French do they!”

After the tour of the castle we spent a number of hours watching the parade back in Ribeauville, until our legs ached. So, we escaped back to Bergheim and grabbed some beers at the cafe. Got talking to a Dutch couple and bought each other some drinks. They came from a town close to Tilburg, with the woman working as a nurse at Tilburg hospital - small world!

One thing Lorenza and I commented on to each other is that the rural and village lifestyle seems to be healthy enough. Not like the Australian rural towns which are slowly shrinking and dying. How do they maintain this? Is it something the government is doing or is it just a much stronger cultural thing here?

When we got back to our hotel, the receptionist told me that we had a message "your family called, they will call you back in about one hour".

When I asked "what they called from Australia?” the receptionist explained "no, these people were french, not Australian". That was exciting news, who had tracked us down? At the designated time the receptionist put a call through to our room and Jean introduced himself to me. He explained that our letter of introduction had not reached him until after we had departed from Australia, but we had mentioned we were staying in Bergheim so he had rung all of the hotels there to track us down. We arranged to meet the following day.

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