Colmar today

Sorry that it has been so long since my last significant post.  We finally have internet and who knew that being connected to the world can make so many things so much more difficult.

I'll only focus on items for today...

J and I are now in Colmar as part of a multi-day weekend excursion to explore the Alsace Lorraine region of France, pretty much next door to where we are in Germany.  One nice thing is that the region has been under continuous flip-flop of ownership between Germany and France, and is very frequented by Germans, so most people here are at least speak both German and French.  Many speak English as well.  We are, nevertheless, trying our best to interact in French as we can manage.

Generally spared from World War damage, much here is from the middle ages, including LOTS of half timbered houses and a cathedral built in the 1200's.  Colmar is designed to get lost in, as in the old city there is not one single straight road.  You learn how to recognize by landmarks very quickly as the streets themselves are not always labelled.  We started by imitating Rick Steve's suggested tour route.  Well, actually, we first started the day by me applying to a pretty decent job in the same area as Jill works, but then we got to exploring.

It started at...

...one of the many "places" hidden around Colmar.  They have a goofy shallow canal that runs through the middle of the town, teeming with trout, that was originally designed to help the local tanners dump their tanning chemicals.  While we have yet to see any actual tanners in the city, we saw a lot of ice cream stands (glace's) and restaurants.  It's acually quite a touristy town that, because of it's architecture, is permanently held back in the middle ages.  J described it best, "It's like visiting a modern renaissance festival, except more legit," with all of the cobblestones, half-timbered houses, very close quarters, architectural quirks due to the tight space being utilized, and the wide variety of touristy wares for sale.

Here are some of my more favorite views of the city...

This was an angle from place Tanner...

This is a back angle from Petit Venise along the canal (which was only about 6 inches to 4 feet deep)...

This was a close and prettier angle of Petit Venise...

This is a zoom in of the lower right corner of the previous shot to show how very sizeable trout were treading the water like sharks to snatch crumbs from restauranteurs...

A picture of the tower of St. Martin's Cathedral (built in the 1200's)...

The altar area inside St. Martin's Cathedral (lot's of detailed artwork inside, by the way)...

An outdoor antique sale from a lot of small time sellers.  This I found one of the more interesting items...a duck built out of sunflower seeds and some other seed...

The stork is a HUGE bird of the region...kind of like the Common Loon in Minnesota or the Bald Eagle for the US.  You see shops DEDICATED to the sale of the likeness of the bird.  Near the end of our getting lost, J spotted a nest atop the St. Martin's Cathedral with an adult and chicks in it!

Just another neat example of the half-timbered houses completely surrounding the area.  Interesting factoid: originally stone houses were a symbol of wealth; if you had a stone house you were assumed to be rich.  People built half-timbered houses and covered the wood with plaster to make them look like store and appear as a symbol of wealth.  In the early 20th century, the look of half-timbered houses was considered more appealing, so people started carving away the plaster on the houses to expose the timber.  Just so, when we looked at the half timbered houses here, the wood did not jut out from the plaster nor was it flush with the plaster.  It was about 1/2 to 1 inch within the plaster and appeared to be carved out in every since case.

An alternate view of the cathedral, with the stork's next on top...

Me enjoying my first glass of wine.  I had tasted wine before, but never liked the taste of it.  Here, I tried a few sips of J's Riesling (a specialty of the region) and liked each sip.  I find that I like to very slightly sip it.  Anything more than a sip, and I only taste alcohol.  Needless to say, it took me about 90 minutes to finish it.

I'll try to take a picture tomorrow, but there is a dog here at the place we are staying that looks just like Etsy's couterpart: collie-looking head, white, long-haired, male, totally laid back, loves attention, roughly the same size.

Oh, and for the last thing, here is a pan of the place we started our personal tour.  Hopefully, blogspot will allow me to upload this...

Sorry, the video came out sideways, but hopefully you can see what a lot of the town looks like.