yeah, yeah, alright already.

It must be, what, three weeks already? that I finally joined the 21st century.

There was an abortive attempt last Christmas (or was it indeed the one before!) where I bought a really cheap cell phone that you feed with cards from the grocery store, thinking, Hey, I don't phone often, I have no need of one of those fancy things. It's only to take along when I go up to Paris and need to ask to my parisian friends what the door code is. And then the cheapo never even made it out of the box. Seriously! The ugly plastic bag with the object still inside is still sitting there next to the tv. I should do something about that, really.

Then I joined the Rotary Club (did I tell you about that? I should some day.), and somebody or other is always calling me. And if they can't reach me, they call again. Now, I prefer email. Phones are not my thing. I can't hear properly with them, especially not in French (today is Parentheses Friday, if you didn't know, and I'd like to note here the way we used to laugh that my granddad could hear better in Spanish, but now I understand perfectly what that means). But my email is (was!) tethered to my work computer, and I'm not always in my office, so it's an insufficient method of communication.

So the inconvenience of not having a cell increased tremendously over the summer, passing that tipping-point (which believe me is way on the side of not having a phone), and there I was in the store actually seriously looking at phones. Yeah, I'd looked at them before, but just sort of sidelong and not really interested in a long-term relationship. This time it was to Pick One Out.

I wanted a red one, but the only red ones were icky and lame.

And I figured that in this age of texting and email on phones and so forth, that the phone function may be secondary to having text in my pocket, so it's a keyboard version for me. Yes yes! from cheapo phone-only to pocket computer.

So here I am. Phone/email/Facebook/GPS/camera/fricking television if I want it.

The first couple of days I had it on constantly, checking Fb, checking how I did at bridge, useless nonsense. What I don't know how to do yet is actually answer a call. I can call back, that's clear enough. But which icon is it to pick up??? the little green phone seems to send me to my directory... Whatever. I still have the landline, so tonight (or maybe next week) I can sit around & call myself. Once I am competent to answer the phone, I'll give the number out more widely. For the moment, dropping calls from the Rotary is enough.

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Horace the Spiny

What? it's been three weeks since the last post? And that's during the summer when I should have more time!

Sigh. Just the way it is, folks.

This fall it's just going to get worse for the blog, as our deadline for submitting our dossier for partial accreditation of the laboratory approaches. That, plus frequent Rotary events (my turn to give a talk next week!) and Bridge (my Australian is back in town soon!) and whathaveyou, and there's just not going to be a lot of blogging going on.

But anyway. Last week I was off for a bit of at-home vacation before the Great Return, as the French trickle back into town from their summer fun. On Wednesday I was out in the yard grilling some rabbit, when I noticed an animal in the yard. Not a cat. Way bigger than a mouse (which would not have lasted long, the cats all being out keeping me company).

Remember this guy? Back in June he was just the size of a tennis ball, and now I've got a spiny football waddling around! Gigantic! There he was, or she, who can really tell?, minding his own business and being utterly ignored by the cats. He didn't appreciate the photoshoot, and wandered off toward the back of the yard.

Later I tried to find him again, and it seems there's a nest in the compost heap. Actually, at the bottom of the heap there's some kind of wooden structure that was mostly buried in grass and vines before I started adding to the compost (probably a nice, neat box for the compost, which overflowed years ago, since I never bother to turn the pile over or anything), and sure enough, there's a trail through the grass that leads up to a cave under there. A real hobbit hole in the hill.

Next year I really do need to take a bunch of the bottom compost, and regenerate the soil in the vegetable patch. The tomatos and the strawberries are quite sad this year, and it's not for lack of water. I'll have to be careful not to inadvertently chase my bug-eating buddy(ies) away.

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Turckheim

A cool shower, a nap, a change of clothes, and a stroll around town.

I discover that the covered market has an interesting bakery that will serve well for breakfast tomorrow. Wandering around the "Little Venice" area, which is quite an exaggeration since it's maybe three blocks in all, (Why does every city with a canal have pretensions to be Venice? Amsterdam, Strasbourg, Brugges: each and all the "Venice of the North" The next pretender had better invest in some gondolas) I both regret the absence of my camera for the splendid views of flowered balconies over the canal, and rejoice in having its weight off my shoulder. I'll be back. And anyway, one can in fact have too many pictures of flowered balconies.

Now to taste a bit of that delicious Alsatian wine. Here's a canal-side restaurant & bar that looks particularly perfect for a leisurely glass.

On hearing my wish to just have a drink, the waitress tells me ok, but make it quick - she's about to begin setting up for dinner. Dinner? It's just 5:30!

Is thie France or not?

Really, at 6 sharp she sets all the empty tables for diners. It's not the French who want dinner in the middle of the summer afternoon; it's the visitors from the UK and Germany. I do stay as long as I like: it's not as if giant hordes of tourists descend on the restaurant on the crack of 6. There are some, though. Apparently the couple farther down the deck has been waiting patiently for the dinner menu to open up. I eat later, venturing out just before 8, and as I pay the bill, fresh diners are just being seated around me.

In the morning, the sound of rain awakens me. Not a lot of rain, but it doesn't take much to make a day of walking much less fun.It's light out, but I doze some more, and then some more again. The rain tapers off, and I have no idea how long I've been drifting between dreams. Could be just 6 so close to the summer solstice; could be halfway to lunchtime.

What if it is halfway to lunchtime already! Day's a-wasting, time to get up. So I do. On the sidewalk quick quick there's a parking meter with the time: 7:30. The covered market, with its intriguing bakery loaded with local delicacies, isn't open for another half hour. Time enough for a look around before anyone much is about.

In fact, it's not much fun. The pedestrian district is clear of pedestrians, but full instead of trucks supplying all the shops and restaurants in this window between daylight and business.

After hanging around for my special Alsation pastry breakfast, not at all worth hanging around for, I take the bus to the mall on the west edge of town to see what's up there.

Nothing.

It's just a big grocery store and a handful of annexes - optician, florist, etc. They do have a map that shows some of the hiking trails around, which I take a good look at. The one to Turckheim leaves from this parking lot, paralleling the road. It's only about 6 km even if I lose the trail in the vineyards.

Arriving there less than a dull hour later, there's a farmers' market going on, which is nice. It's mostly local produce, but there's one guy selling leather sandals from Germany. (Not like Germany is far from here: if the smog would clear from the valley you could probably see it.) A pair of red sandals look like just the sort I've been looking for, something I can walk around all day in. They are really nice shoes, but the market-guy, selling out of a truck, wants shoe-store prices for them. I bargain. I haven't lived 15 years in Auvergne without learning anything.

We deal.

The shoes join my camera in my shoulder bag. I would wear them immediately, but the trainers on my feet would be much less welcome in there.

In Turckheim I make a short excursion of the Stork Park. Yep, a whole lotta storks in a pen, part of the reintroduction scheme that has been working fairly well if only the birds could learn not to get shot at in Africa. Then a short hike around the vines, but I don't find a map of where the trails might go or how long they might be, and besides I did vines yesterday. It will be lunchtime soon.

There's a great view of the main entrance to the old walled town, with the nest full of storks on top of the gate, and flowers at all the windows. A real postcard. In fact, you can buy the postcard at a dozen shops nearby. I want my own photo, however, and as soon as the truck parked in the plaza leaves, another takes its place. That would make a great shot. Renaissance town entrance with Beer Truck/Vegetable truck/ German shoe truck in front.

After lunch, cheap but good, not one of the hoity-toity tourist places selling foie gras salads and the owner's own label of wine, but a simple crèperie with wine in (small) pitchers and a waiter who must be on his first day (possibly his first day in the country), I walk back to Colmar.

In the late afternoon I go out again, for a turn around town and a stroll up the river Ill in my new sandals.

It's more a canal than a river, and I'd hoped there would be a strip of woods along the waterway, a bit of birdlife... But on one side are factories and on the other there's only a single row of trees and a cornfield to dampen the noise from the freeway. A boring walk, really.

Before giving up on this, I am treated to perhaps some of the best graffiti in Colmar, painted on the wall that delimits some industrial yard. For once a few people have gone beyond signing their names larger and larger, and have added other images. Where else do these artists have access to such extensive canvas?

I have seen Colmar now, at least from the outside. No museums this time. I've tasted a selection of the wines, and they are excellent - over dinner at Grandma's (a tiny little place serving only such fresh foods as they find in the market that day that they have no menu, just a chalkboard) I test two more. Mmmmm!

End.

The wtf moment continues

I interrupt the fairly interrupted already tale of vacation for a short side question:

What is it with the Russians?

Why, oh why, are they flocking by the, mm, modest-sized groups of a dozen or so a day to the post about the tramway? The post has not gotten any more interesting, and it wasn't all that fascinating in the first place. But they keep coming.
1554 hits and counting, and 1544 of those must be Russians because Russia has become very black on the map of where visitors come from and I know that none of you regular readers are so silly as to check that old post every day, to see if I finally made it interesting by adding the winning numbers for the next lottery, or photos of scantily clad men, or somesuch nonsense.

Ah! Perhaps people looking for a guide to the tram stops in Clermont-Ferrand are bizarrely routed through Russia and land here after clicking on a link they thought might be able to help them find their way to an ASM rugby game at the Michelin stadium. I didn't know Russians were particularly interested in rugby, but those who are, are welcome to cheer for the ASM.

Herrlisheim

The train to Herrlisheim takes about 10 minutes. It's only 6 km according to the highway signs, though I'm sure on foot it wouldn't be that.

The town is on the worng side of the tracks for my destination up the hills to the west, but I go in search of a sandwich, in case the village uphill has nothing for lunch. One ham & cheese, check. Oh, and one of those chocolate cookies there! Breakfast was kind of light for a day of labor. Yeah.

There's a map of various trails posted in a parking lot by the bank, but no landmarks showing where to actually catch them. There's a blue, a yellow, two greens, and a red. A combination of blue-yellow-red will get me up to the Trois Chateaux. Perfect, if I can get started on the right track.

Indeed, it seems the three towers on high are not the lookouts of one massive castle, but three independent castles. How strange. They're so close together, and so obviously from the same period, they must have been inhabited simultaneously. They're like rowhouse chateaux. Wonder if there's a shared yard.

Or in fact any yard. It's steep up there.

These mysteries in mind, I go off for the immediate challenge of crossing the railway, and then the freeway. An unpleasant 20 minutes of heavily used roads later, I'm in the vineyards.

Here, oh so happily, there are no fences. There are not even indications of where one property ends and the rival's begins. Now and then I spy a trail marker, but why bother - I don't know at this point if I should go right or left. Just as good to wander about in the general direction of my goal.

Where the rows between the vines have not yet been cleared of their spring weeds, bright flowers ascend the green rows marching up and down the hills.Men with funny tractors are busy this morning taking care of all that disorder; straightening up the vines adventuring in forbidden directions, and clearing away the spots of buttercup yellow and poppy red.

In the village of Hussern, there's another map indicating a loop up to the 3 Chateaux, but again no indication of where the loop hits any of the roads. Just look around, I suppose. Up this alley and that one there's mostly dead ends, but I find a dirt track that seems accessible. Going in the right direction...

My sandwich is seeming rather a puny lunch, and my bottle of water utterly inadequate. Shops always close at 12 or 12:30, so I have a few minutes to score something, if only I can find a shop. Quite a trick around here, unless you're looking for a vintner's.

Ah, here is one, tucked away behind purple walls and not advertising its modest self at all. The woman is clearly surprised to find a shopper, or maybe just a face in her shop she doesn't see every day. Cold beverages? Er... There is a single cold soda, a Coke Zero, rolling around at the bottom of the fridge, behind the box of spare carrots. (I would say rejected carrots, but she clearly intends to sell them later.) I'll take the Coke, and the last half dozen apricots, please. Perfect.

Once you get past the last row of houses, there's a whole spiderweb of trails and tracks leading vaguely upward through the heavy woods. Soon signs appear, with arrows for the 3 Chateaux. The sun is invisible through the thick canopy. There are no views over the plain, and the Chateaux remain hidden by the trees and the extreme angle.

Even the top of the ridge is covered with pines, preventing any view of the Chateaux until you're right up on them. Impossible to get a photo of all three, since at either extremity of the site the land falls off into nothing.

Not that there's much left to see. Each Chateau was tiny; not more than the donjon (tower) and a few auxiliary rooms now barely footprints outlining their space.

RowChateaux indeed!

The one in the middle has some solid-looking wooden stairs and platforms going up for a great view from the top, but it's all inaccessible behind a huge rusted iron gate. Alas. Otherwise it's pretty much a dull pile of rocks. The 3 Chateaux are best admired from afar, where your imagination can fill in all the missing stuff.

The various proprietors of the vineyards each have their tasting and sales rooms in the village. I'd love to stop and have a glass, escape for a moment from the midday sun that's making me think I should have brought some sunscreen. But, while you're invited to taste, this is a series of small sips destined to make you figure out which one to buy. On foot as I am, buying wine is out of the question.

The tasting also occurs in the cave, or cellar, rather than under a tree or an umbrella on a flowery terrace. So forget it. What I need is a just a simple bar with chairs on the sidewalk, but there isn't one. I'll just have to walk all the way back to Herrlisheim and then the train to Colmar for refreshment.

To get back to the train station I decide to try to follow the marked trails. Take the yellow, then change for the blue, going right, just after the yellow leaves the green. Keep on the blue until it T's, and the quick way is on the right.

That works pretty well, except for the T at the end, which isn't properly marked. By that point my feet have been seriously tenderized, and the extra 3 or 4 km to find a crossing-point under the freeway are not appreciated.

I have 44 minutes before the next train, and was really looking forward to something cool to drink. The restaurant at the station is closed. On vacation. Back in the center of town, nothing is open at all except for the bank. Feh. I go in, but the lone teller has a crowd, and in unlikely to leave his post to refill my water bottle in the back room. Near the station there's a candy manufacturer with an open sales room. Yeah, tried to avoid going in there, but what's a parched girl to do? The cashier is pleased to fill my bottle while I pick out what goodies to snack on...

In the last 15 minutes before my train, the very same train I arrived on yesterday, the sky decides to rain.

For just three minutes.

The ground is dry again before the train even pulls up.