Where's Bertie? He's in a walkers' car park half way up the winding road to Mont Sainte Odile. Exact location: 48.438624, 7.415902
Weather: Overcast morning, gradually clearing to a clear sky at teatime. Warm.
The cockerel behind Bertie, who hadn't disturbed us unduly yesterday morning, had a lot to say at twenty to five this morning and he said it very loudly over the course of several minutes. He then shut up just long enough for me to fall back to sleep before starting up again. I'm not a big fan of cockerels just now!
That had no bearing on the time we got away, which was relatively early, for a short hop, 10 minutes south, to a service point. The plan for the day had been: service point - Barr - laundry - Mont Sainte Odile, but we got to the service point to find it was a few metres away from a double bank of laundry machines, which were themselves within ten metres of seven motorhome parking places, two of which were free. So, there was a slight re-jigging and by the time we drove off to Barr, the third item on today's list had been ticked off early.
I shall confess that the next hop was so small that we could easily have walked from the service point/laundry to Barr, with it being only 2.4km away. But a 5km round trip on a pavement alongside a road didn't really appeal, so we drove. Mick had misgivings on arrival when he saw the size of the access road to the car park, but I had faith that we would fit and we did.
Barr turned out to be lovely and we both enjoyed walking its streets. It's another mediaeval town but, for reasons we can't fathom, being so close to the well-visited town of Obernai, it's not touristy at all. It also lacks the perfect 'Disney' look of many of the mediaeval villages we've seen. It was still well-kept, but it somehow looked more authentic, with the buildings not all being entirely perfect.
Snapshots of Barr. Not sure how I failed to take a picture of the main street.
Weather: Overcast morning, gradually clearing to a clear sky at teatime. Warm.
The cockerel behind Bertie, who hadn't disturbed us unduly yesterday morning, had a lot to say at twenty to five this morning and he said it very loudly over the course of several minutes. He then shut up just long enough for me to fall back to sleep before starting up again. I'm not a big fan of cockerels just now!
That had no bearing on the time we got away, which was relatively early, for a short hop, 10 minutes south, to a service point. The plan for the day had been: service point - Barr - laundry - Mont Sainte Odile, but we got to the service point to find it was a few metres away from a double bank of laundry machines, which were themselves within ten metres of seven motorhome parking places, two of which were free. So, there was a slight re-jigging and by the time we drove off to Barr, the third item on today's list had been ticked off early.
I shall confess that the next hop was so small that we could easily have walked from the service point/laundry to Barr, with it being only 2.4km away. But a 5km round trip on a pavement alongside a road didn't really appeal, so we drove. Mick had misgivings on arrival when he saw the size of the access road to the car park, but I had faith that we would fit and we did.
Barr turned out to be lovely and we both enjoyed walking its streets. It's another mediaeval town but, for reasons we can't fathom, being so close to the well-visited town of Obernai, it's not touristy at all. It also lacks the perfect 'Disney' look of many of the mediaeval villages we've seen. It was still well-kept, but it somehow looked more authentic, with the buildings not all being entirely perfect.
Barr town hall and main square with impressive floral display.
We paused outside a few boulangeries/patisseries/salons de thé, contemplating their wares and trying to convince ourselves that it's not reasonable to eat cake every day.
We were never going to stay in Barr (that said, the nature of the town car park we used was such that it wouldn't have felt inappropriate to spend the night), so onwards to this car park we came.
Once here I spent quite a while standing in front of the map board, trying to translate the high-level map onto my map to come up with a route for tomorrow. On paper it looks good; I shall report back.
As the afternoon marched on, having spent a couple of hours with our heads in our books, I suggested a little strollette. Just a 2.5k circuit via the remains of Niedermunster Abbey.
Remains of Niedermunster Abbey, founded around 700 as overflow accommodation for the excess of pilgrims visiting the monastry on the hillside above.
A very dinky chapel just down the valley
It's very flat down there, beyond the end of the valley
Fountain of the day
Just look at the shape of those roofs!
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