Back to Luxembourg

By design, this was going to be a pretty easy day, in anticipation of our return home tomorrow. We had a good breakfast at the hotel in Strasbourg, and then most of the morning free to see anything we hadn't already seen there.

We strolled along the river and returned to the Petite France area, which was very picturesque despite the overcast and fog.

Then we continued along the river, back toward the city center, and then back to the hotel. We relaxed and read our books for a while, then ate our lunch sandwiches, checked out, and walked to the railway station, just across the street. A French gentleman about our age, who had lived in the U.S. for a time and had excellent English, struck up a conversation with us as we waited for the train.

Like most European trains, ours to Luxembourg was quiet, comfortable, and environmentally electric. As we left the Rhine valley into northern France and Luxembourg, the land became less flat and more rolling, like Iowa. They grow wheat, barley, and hops here, which makes it beer country.

In Luxembourg City, we were able to check into our room at the hotel, even though it was before 3 p.m. We dropped our bags and took a bus into a different area of the city than we had seen before. Actually, the Grund is just the area at the bottom of the hill, along the river. We had seen it previously from above.

The area was scenic because the sun came out. We haven't seen the sun much on this trip, at all. Looking up the cliffs to the old fortifications was more interesting than walking on top of those ruins, as we had before.

After some climbing up steep ramps, we wound up at the Ducal Palace where we had been previously, and spent a bit of time in a free national museum of historical art. The Roman stuff looked like it does everywhere. There were some interesting 16th and 17th century paintings, however.

After exploring that neighborhood a bit, we found a table outdoors at a cafe and had a drink. As we reflected on this trip, several observations came to mind:

• Europeans smoke a lot more than Americans. They can't smoke indoors, but if you sit outside you'll be breathing a lot of second-hand smoke.
• There are way more immigrants here than there were a few years ago. Some are obviously African, but many more are Middle Eastern. The hijab makes them quite visible.
• Almost no one wears hats. If someone has a cap on, it's likely an American tourist.
• Why can't we have walkable cities like they do here? Cars are mostly on the periphery of city centers. People park on the outskirts, or even in the next town, and ride in on a bus, tram, or train. Then they walk. Americans can hardly walk from the parking lot into Target.
• Probably because of the above, there are far, far fewer overweight people here, and one rarely sees someone obese -- unless it's an American tourist.
• There are lots of electric cars here, but there are fewer Teslas. Electric VWs, BMWs, Mercedes, Hyundais, Nissans and even Fords dominate the EV market. Most Teslas here are taxis.
• Languages change, sometimes just by crossing a river. On the French side of the Rhine, everyone speaks French, even if they have German and English. On the German side, everyone speaks German, even if they have French.
• In German small towns, it's more typical to find people who don't speak English. Germans are more likely to apologize for their English than French speakers are. But of course, both of them speak more English than we speak French or German.

Tomorrow morning we head for the airport and begin fighting jet lag in the opposite direction, which is always the harder way.

Struck Out

This foggy, overcast, dreary day was not our best travel day. We had planned to visit Staufen, a well-preserved town of about 7,000 residents just a few miles southeast of Bad Krozingen. We had it all planned out, checking out of our hotel, leaving our bags, getting to the rail station having scoped out the right train.

The train didn't show up. The announcement in German was difficult for us to understand, but a bystander who had some English informed us that a labor strike had caused the train to Staufen to be shut down. He didn't know how long. It was one of Europe's infamous pop-up strikes.

We walked about 15 minutes to the Travel Information office. At least it gave us another chance to walk through the big, beautiful park, and to see a different part of town on the other side. The TI staff hadn't heard about a strike, but one got on the computer and confirmed it. We asked about a bus, but she said it would be affected by the same union. She offered to rent us bikes, which we would have considered.

But she also said she didn't know if the strike would spread to other rail services. That put us in a panic, because we had a hotel reservation back in Strasbourg, France in the evening. It would be a big problem if we got stranded in Germany. So we decided to go back to the hotel, grab our suitcases, and get on the first train going north.

There ensued a period of uncertainty and a certain level of discord between travelers. But after spending inordinate time at various rail stations, and taking a break for a Middle Eastern sandwich wrap at a Turkish restaurant while waiting for another train, we arrived in Strasbourg hours earlier than planned and with nothing on our agenda to pass the time.

We bought tram tickets to the other side of town and visited the European Parliament buildings. There are no tours without advanced reservations, so we just walked around outside.

There is also a nice, big park across the street from the EU bureaucratic offices. But we were a bit too tired and a little too cold to enjoy much of it. We did walk by a pavilion that seemed to have some historical significance, but our French was not adequate to decipher the sign.

So we used our tickets to take a bus back to the city center, found a nice warm cafe, and had a drink. We then returned to the hotel for a bit, and used the time to identify a restaurant for dinner. We had a great meal at a Syrian place, because when in France, eat Middle Eastern food, n'est-ce pas?

It was a long and stressful day without a lot to show for it. But at least it wasn't a travel disaster.

Titisee

All of the guide books advise avoiding Titisee at all costs. But we went anyway. Titisee is in the heart of the Black Forest, about an hour east of our base in Bad Kozingen. Despite the warning that this town is a giant tourist trap, we wanted to see the Black Forest.

Like the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Black Forest only appears black when seen at a distance. Up close, it's a very dense green, and this time of year beginning to show color as the leaves of the deciduous trees turn and begin to fall.

Normally we would have gone by train, but there was construction on the tracks to the east. Deutsche Bahn, the German national railway, kindly provided "ersatz" transportation in the form of buses. We were dreading the bus ride, but it was something of a blessing because of the great views we got from the highway. And there were only five people on the bus, including ourselves.

On arrival, we quickly found our way to the lake for which the town is named and started on the hiking path around the lake, which is about four miles. The first part of the hike was very beautiful, on the east side of the lake. But hotels, resorts, RV parks and other private owners block the west side, so we had to be satisfied with walking on the wide sidewalk/bike path along the road.

It was still a very nice walk, with excellent views of the surrounding hills and the Black Forest trees. They say it's windy here a lot, but the lake was still and the reflections perfect. Leaves are turning, but we are a bit early for the peak. Our cameras didn't seem to capture as much color as we saw.

The forecast had been for a very cool, cloudy day at this higher elevation, with a high in the 40s. We had sunshine and upper 60s. It was perfect, and we were stripping off layers as the day went on.

We had planned to have a nice lunch here, but the restaurants were all very over-priced. So we wound up each just getting a brat at a lakeside stand. That was over-priced, too. We walked around town a bit, but there was nothing to see but junky souvenir shops. Cuckoo clocks are the big thing here. The shops have them for hundreds, up to thousands of dollars. We thought that most probably come from China. This was even the first place we had to pay to use the toilet!

Glad that we hiked around the lake and got to see the place, we were nevertheless happy to get on the bus and get out of there. The return bus was not as much fun because it was very crowded, and the seats were uncomfortably close together.

When we had to change to the train at Freiburg, we decided to walk into the city center and have dessert. I told Mary that we had to find a place with Black Forest cake, beer, and a table outside where we could sit and people-watch on this beautiful day. She said we'd never find a place that offered all of that. But the first restaurant we came to on the Rathausplatz checked all the boxes.

The train from Freiburg back to Bad Kozingen was packed, mostly with school kids. But when we got off the train, there was beautiful sunshine and 70+ degrees. We sat out on our little hotel balcony in shirtsleeves in mid-October!

We did have a bit of stress trying to map out our travel for the next day (thanks, Google Maps, for some very confusing misinformation). But once we got that resolved, we went to a pizza place and split a "pizza mit salami," which is what pepperoni is called here.

Basel

The original plan was to spend today visiting a sort of "living history farm" outdoor museum of life in the Black Forrest region a century or two ago. But as we looked into it, we discovered that the rail connections there were (to put it charitably) somewhat Byzantine. The trip would take at least three hours (it's only an hour away by car), and it was unclear if and how we would get back.

Instead, we opted to just sleep in and then jump on a train to Basel, Switzerland which is less than an hour south of here. Basel was pretty sleepy on a Sunday morning -- not quite as empty as Freiburg yesterday, but close.

The walk from the rail station was through a pleasant park. Our first stop was the Elisabethenkirche (St. Elisabeth Church), which we expected to be busy on a Sunday morning. Indeed, the coffee shop was busy, but the church itself was totally empty -- no pews, no people, just some stained glass and an organ.

On we walked, to the nearby Kunstmuseum. This renowned museum of fine art has been around since 1671, making it the world's oldest art museum. But the building in which it currently resides is much newer and very, very large. It might have taken a full day to see everything there, and the admission fee is quite expensive. So we just looked at some sculptures in the courtyard and called it good.

Next up was Basel Munster, built in 1363 after a previous church was destroyed by an earthquake. This enormous church would have been the Roman Catholic cathedral, but the Reformation changed that.

Some precious art objects were destroyed, the monks were run out of the cloister, and the place was stripped pretty bare. We had to wait for a surprisingly well-attended worship service to end before we could enter. At least we got to hear some good organ music as we waited.

From Muster Platz we walked down hill to the Marktplatz, which is dominated by the Rathaus, or town hall.

(Wouldn't it be appropriate if all buildings where politicians work were called a Rat House?) This one is pretty grand and was started in 1504 with some later additions.

The decoration was done by artist Hans Holbein, who later became Court Artist to Henry VIII of England. The Baroque style is quite stunning, and we didn't even get inside on a Sunday.

We continued up Basel's main shopping street, Freie Strasse, but none of the exclusive and high-end shops were open on Sunday. Just as well, for us.

Our walk concluded at the Tinguely Brunnen Fountain, which is considerably newer than most things we saw. It was constructed in 1977 and has been moving and squirting constantly ever since.

Middle Bridge, first constructed in 13th century, made Basel a trade center.

As we were pondering where to go next, two different Basel residents stopped and asked us (in perfect English) if we needed help finding our way. There are very kind and friendly people here! We finally decided to search for lunch and quickly found a crowded little sandwich shop for a bowl of soup. On our way back to the rail station we found a large, international food court that would have been more interesting. Too late, we'd already eaten.

Arriving back at our base in Bad Kozingen, we were surprised to discover that our quiet little town had been transformed into an Octoberfest street fair. The streets were crowded, all the stores were open, plus vendors lined the streets with stalls or trailers selling everything from candy sweets to home furnishings.

Bands played on street corners, kids got their faces painted and carried balloons, and beer and wine were being sold everywhere. We felt obliged to join in.

It was a bit early for dinner, so we set out walking the footpath along the stream that runs through town. It took us to a very large and beautiful park. We were definitely not the only ones enjoying the outdoors there, but the place is so large that it was hardly crowded.

We had dinner at a local, family-owned Italian restaurant. Although the family members were all blond and very German-looking, the pasta was excellent. Mary also discovered radler, a German hard cider that is much more to her liking than beer.

Freiburg

Up early, we grabbed a quick bakery breakfast on the way to the rail station and caught the commuter train to Freiburg. Nothing there opens before 10 a.m. on a Saturday, so we had the place to ourselves to complete the Rick Steves book's walking tour.

The tour began near the city hall and pointed out a unique feature of Freiburg, the Bächle. These are little stream-lets inset into the pavement of the streets. Water is diverted from a stream to keep running water moving through them at all times. Originally, the purpose was to control fires (damming one floods the street and stops fire from spreading). Now, they're mostly for fun. But the city hires people to keep them scrubbed and clean.

The walking tour also pointed out some houses with unique gargoyles and statues, as well as mosaics in the sidewalks displaying coats of arms or symbols of various guilds.

Like most Medieval towns, the center of the old city is dominated by the cathedral, known here as "the munster." While Freiburg was heavily bombed in World War II, the munster miraculously survived almost intact. The stained glass had been removed and stored safely, so most of the orignal from the 13th and 14th centuries is still on display.

The market square surrounding the cathedral was packed today. It was a special market festival -- an Octoberfest sort of thing. It was a huge farmer's market with all kinds of produce, as well as stands that we would probably call food trucks. People were buying their fruits and vegetables when we arrived early, but when we came back a bit later, one could hardly move through the crowds.

We continued our walking tour through streets mixed with newer, post-war buildings and reconstructed buildings with dates in the 1300s. It's a beautiful, very walkable city with almost no cars. But one does have to watch out for the trams.

At the Swabian Gate, one of the last remnants of the old city walls, our tour ended. We returned here later in the day to climb the Schlossberg hill. A long-gone castle once watched over the city from here, but now it's just a lookout point.

We bought a combination pass to five of the city's museums. The City History museum was a disappointment because there was hardly anything in it. But the Augustiner Museum more than made up for it.

This was a museum of religious artifacts from around the region, but much of it was stained glass and statuary from the munster cathedral that had been removed for preservation due to damage or weather, and had then been replaced at the cathedral with more sturdy replicas. Gargoyles that one hardly sees when they are 200 feet up on the spire are huge and fascinating up close!

On Saturdays, the museum has organists come in to play their pipe organ, and the sound fills the entire museum. So we got a magnificent organ recital in addition to all of the art.

The "Museum of Nature and Man" turned out to be a children's museum, so we didn't spend much time there. Around the corner, the "Museum of New Art" was mostly early 20th century art and film, and was interesting. A special feature was on female artists who were finally allowed to study and work in the 20th century. Prior to that, as one artist said, "a woman had to be naked to get into a museum."

Museum-ed out, we returned to the market at the cathedral. Lunch was a brat from a food truck, and we enjoyed a glass of wine outside while sitting and people watching.

Catching another crowded commuter train back to Bad Kozingen, we went to a little Greek restaurant near our hotel and found it packed on Saturday night. But we did manage to get a table, a good Greek meal with lots of food, and even a shot of ouzo served with the check.

Bad Krozingen

Our last morning in Strasbourg (for a while) was pretty laid back. We'd already seen what we came to see, so we took our time at breakfast and caught up on the news via the internet. Then we took a leisurely walk to the cathedral to look at the stained glass once more, since there was a bit more sunshine today.

We continued to the museum area along the River L'Ill. None of the museums open until 10 a.m., but as soon as the cathedral bell sounded, we visited the Alsacian Museum, where we got in free by virtue of being old. The museum consisted of a series of rooms depicting life in Renaissance and Early Modern Alsace. The rooms were filled with antique furnishings. A stub (living room near the stove), kitchen, bedrooms, wood shop, blacksmith shop, etc.

There were also rooms with artifacts from the three main religious faiths: Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism. (There are many Muslims here now, but not in the Renaissance.) And there were rooms depicting various celebrations and life passages, including confirmation, marriage, conscription into the military, and funerals. It was quite well done, but I took no photos.

Because we had plenty of time, we returned to the cathedral area and visited the Palais Rohan. This palace was originally built just across the square from the cathedral as the residence of the Prince Bishop of Strasbourg. When Strasbourg was a free city, no longer under ecclesiastical rule, it housed the Bishop. And King Louis XIV spent some time here. But once the French Revolution drove out Bishops and kings, Napoleon and Josephine moved in for a while.

Napoleon's "morning room"

The palace also exhibited a whole lot of porcelain dinnerware, plus clocks and windup toys, and a bunch of other stuff that seemed to have little to do with the history of the building. We spent a little time in the archaeology museum down in the basement, which had some nice exhibits. But Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Roman relics dug up in Alsace look identical to relics from those periods found elsewhere.

After a bite of lunch, we took our time going back to the rail station, taking some side streets and trying to see parts of the city we hadn't seen before. Then we caught our train to Offenburg where we had a 30 minute layover before the next train that took us on to Freiburg. We then had to buy a ticket on the short commuter train that took us to our hotel location at Bad Krozingen.

Krozingen is a spa town (hence the Bad, which is really "bath" and not "bad"). It's a pretty little town, and quite modern. Our guess is that it was largely destroyed in the War and rebuilt in contemporary style rather than being restored to its previous, Medieval look, like some of the villages we visited earlier.

We had a bit of confusion finding our hotel, but got there in good order. It's a deluxe room for the same price as the tiny budget room we had in Strasbourg. We explored the town a bit on foot, and got ourselves oriented. Then we found a restaurant and had a very German meal.

Best of Alsace

We had purchased in advance a day tour of Alsace villages and countryside. We thought, when we bought it online, that the pickup point would be the Gare Centrale, just across the street from our hotel. It turned out to be a different Gare, about a half-hour's walk. But we discovered this the day before, so we still arrived early, after a better than expected breakfast at the hotel.

Alsace, as a crossroads of Europe, has been a place of conflict since Roman times. Trade routes from France and the Low Countries into Switzerland and Germany must run through this region because of the Vosges Mountains cutting off access to the Rhine River by any other route. Also, the plains of Alsace are some of the most fertile land in all of Europe, so the land itself is of high value.

In ancient and Medieval times, that meant the necessity of fortifications. There was an abundance of castles in this region. Most are now in ruins, but Haut-Koenigsbourg was faithfully restored near the beginning of the 20th century and is open to tourists for the price of a ticket. That ticket was included in our tour, and we had about 90 minutes to explore it.

The castle's foundation is a stone outcrop well up the mountainside, with an excellent view of both the "wine road" and the "wheat road" crossing Alsace. We think of castles as busy places, but except in times when surrounding villagers sought refuge, there were seldom more than a couple dozen inhabitants of the entire structure, and only about half of those where actual soldiers.

We had opportunity to drive slowly through several very scenic villages, including Kintzheim, Bergheim, Ribeauville, and Hunawihr. Most of these places date back at least to the 9th or 10th centuries, although most were destroyed in the 1630s when Gustavus Adolphus moved through Alsace during the 30 Years War. One still sees buildings with cornerstones carved with dates in the 1630s or 1640s.

Hunawihr featured a rather odd church that had a fortified wall around it. It was both a house of worship and a fortress! The Catholic cemetery was inside the wall, but Protestants had to be buried outside.

Some of the villages were almost completely demolished when the Americans liberated them in 1944 and 1945. We drove by a French military cemetery near the villages of Sigolsheim and Kientzheim on a mountain known since World War II as "the hill of blood."

Our second stop was the very scenic village of Riquewhir, where we had lunch and a glass of local wine. Like many of these villages, some portions of the old city walls remain intact, even after multiple wars.

Third stop of the day was Kaysersberg, where we also had a small wine tasting and had a chance to see the house where Albert Schweitzer was born. Shopkeepers in Kaysersberg were very generous with free samples of their cheese and baked goods!

Kaysersberg also had a very beautiful little church that demonstrated its wealth with a fabulous altar piece. We weren't able to find out much about it, but it was quite spectacular.

We ended the day in the city of Colmar, the second city of Alsace, behind Strasbourg. Our tour included a ride around the city center on a tourist "train." We were getting rather tired by this time, having walked a good deal. So we really didn't mind the hokey ride. But we also didn't really feel as though we got the feel of the city.

We had enough extra time to eat a light supper at a Colmar bakery, however. And we were extremely fortunate with weather. The forecast was for rain, and it did -- sometimes pretty hard. But every time it rained we were either in the van or in a building. So except for a few sprinkles, we never got wet. We never even used our umbrellas.