Sunday 1st October 2023

Not much of a sleep for either of us with Jane aggravating a sore back with a slip in the bath. My cracked ribs making for uncomfortable laying down and also impossible to use my poles when walking.

Despite all that we woke to another cracking day with 26 degrees and sunny weather predicted.

Fabulous breakfast where WW3 nearly started during discussions with a French lady who taught English. Jane made some innocuous comment about the local food and her response was along the lines “ visitors need to be careful about having opinions on local food as it may not be well accepted .

That sort of ended breakfast table conversation.

It was probably a good segue into our uphill trip to visit a German War Cemetery.

We passed loads of walkers, runners and dog walkers heading both ways on the hill – could not look at the rear end of a dog after yesterday.

A campervan parked in front of a directional sign had us off in the wrong direction for a while, but finally worked it out and headed back to take the right path and head further upward.

After about 30 minutes we reached a doorway that led into the cemetery. It was a bit daunting to be confronted by more than 1500 white markers where 5300 German soldiers remains had been placed. No matter which country a fallen soldier represented it’s pretty sobering to see men aged between 17 and 58 lost to war.

This is a resting place for many soldiers who were killed in the late 1944 push by French and US troops to take back the Rhine Valley.

When you look back down the valley now full of vineyards, it’s difficult to imagine it as a theatre of war.

We quietly sat and took in the view then set off downhill, again across vieyard roads towards St Hippolyte.

We now seemed to have abandoned the forests and most of the walking is on gravel or tarmac. Another little geographical misadventures was cured with the help of a Ukrainian woman- ironic someone whose country is currently war torn to now be here in an old war zone.

We gradually found the town , again dominated by winemaking and tourism. The town was smaller and as Jane put it ‘ with a lot less lipstick’.

It was however one of the towns Pilgrims walk through on the Way of St James and his scallop shell direction shell was sprinkled along the way.

Being Sunday the locals were out and about with a group of 4 playing pétanque or boules in the local park near where we took lunch.

It was a burger lunch for us. Mine was a medium rare piece of beef served on two potato cakes (not bread) with Munster cheese and side salad- can’t imagine the Macca’s Cheeseburger would match it. It also had hand crafted chips.
It was interesting that our beer bottle and the glasses in which it was served had matching labels – seems it is a bit of a trait over here. As photo showed the restaurant had a real orange feel about it.

Again the passing parade was cycles and a throng of motor cycles. Our restaurant seemed to readily accept walkers and cyclists but not bikers.

We decided against the walk up to the castle and also a bus ride back to Bergheim and decided on a vineyard route of 4 Kms. The walk allowed us to pass the famous red, white and blue cock statue. The French maintained it in parochial colours as a sign of defiance to the German during annexation .

We also chanced to gaze the 20 Kms or so over to the hazy Black Forest mountains which we will tread next week.

As we walked out of town into more modern estates we realised fairytale towns don’t last forever and architectural wank’s are an inevitability.

We soon found our way back to our home town, passing the ramparts and moat before winding our way through the streets to the hotel.

We dropped the backpacks off, freshened up and headed off for a walk around the ramparts which circled town, but not before another visit to the famous lime tree and it’s slightly less number of oracles sitting beneath it.

Some magnificent old homes sat inside the ramparts with a former moat as their backyard. Several were undergoing major restorations and retaining their heritage.

We wound our way through town where locals were out in the street using mini public squares as a backyard. There were again some quaint houses and fountains in these backstreets.

We finished the stroll with a visit to a winery owned by the hotel, where we tasted and bought a couple of bottles of wine for later consumption.

It was then back to the hotel for a spa and a swim.

We ate in and watched an abysmal Aussie Rugby team beat minnows Portugal pretty unconvincingly.

That end this walk and now it’s to Colmar and Basel for 4 days before the next walk in The Black Forest.