 1 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 We had the morning free and Michele recommended that we visit La Petite Pierre, a small village in the Northern Vosges. Alsace was German from 1871 and many of the villages have "heim" (home) as their suffix. Others are: • -ach ("river") • -au, -aue (related to rivers or water) • -bach ("stream", "beck") • -brücken or -brück ("bridge") • -burg ("keep", borough) • -berg ("mountain") • -dorf or -torf ("village") • -feld or -felde ("field") • -furt ("ford") • -hagen ("hedged field or wood") • -heim ("home") • -hufe ("hide") • -hausen ("houses") • -ing or -ingen, -ungen, -ung, -ens (meaning "descendants of", used with a personal name as the first part) • -kirchen or -kirch ("church") • -oog (Northwest) or -öhe, -oie, -ee (Northeast) |
 2 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 La Petite Pierre's history begins in the Middle Ages. Because of its strategic location, bishops built a castle in the twelfth century to guarantee free circulation between the Alsacian plain and Lorraine. |
 3 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 La Petite Pierre means Little Rock. When Alsace was German, this town was called Lutzelstine meaning little stone. It is still known by both names to this day. |
 4 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 Jenni parks our rubber band car. |
 5 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 Very attractive balconies on a hotel in the main street. |
 6 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 The three roses - a 3 star hotel. |
 7 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 The sign points to the Staedtel, the old town of La Petite Pierre. The Maisons des Rochers are the houses built into the rocks which were occupied from the 17th century until 1958. We didn't see them. |
 8 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 My guess is that this building has not been torn down because of its "heritage" value, however, the sign on the door says it is condemned. It looks like we have one government bully not allowing it to be pulled down and another saying it's not safe. So it will stay like this until it falls down. Why do I feel so at home in France? |
 9 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 The village is a former fortified town which once looked out across the Lorraine plateau. |
 10 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 We walk up the hill to the historic area. The village is divided into two districts: the modern part, which is built around the main street, and the fortified old town which is perched on the rocky headland. The village grew up around the castle which belonged to the counts of Lutzelstein (little stone). |
 11 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 The stairs are centuries old and lead to the ruins of the Benedictine Abbey and Meisenbacher Schlossel |
 12 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 The stairs were covered with moss. |
 13 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 From the stairs, we walk down a badly decaying path, turn right and walk up to the plateau on which the abbey once stood. |
 14 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 The abbey dates from the 7th century. Nearby is the Garden of the Poets. |
 15 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 We're looking down from the Garden of the Poets into the restored old town. The Chateau is to the left and the church spire belongs to the Simultaneous Church of the Assumption. |
 16 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 Parts of the old city wall can be seen. |
 17 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 "The old town or Staedtel" was abandoned in 1870 when Alsace/Lorraine became part of Germany. Jerri-Hans, Count of La Petite Pierre, sought to develop the industry of La Petite Pierre by granting forest rights to glassmakers. Jerri-hans gained the nickname of "Prince of glass." Rene LaLique established himself in this area and a museum dedicated to him is to open in 2011 in Wingen-sur-Moder, a town close by. |
 18 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 We come down from the remains and walk down the main street of the Staedtel. Staedtel is an interesting word because it is neither French nor German. It might possibly be Alsacian. Is this right Michele? |
 19 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 We stop for lunch where Jenni confuses the waitress with our order. With her poor French she thought she was saying one thing but the waitress was hearing something different. It was 11:30 we well remember. |
 20 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 We remember the time because lunch is not served until 12:00 noon. We sat and waited and when the church bells rang 12:00, the waitress brought out our meals. After a toilet break, and leaving her wallet in the ladies room (big panic later on), we continued our tour. |
 21 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 All of these buildings are within the old city walls. |
 22 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 Centuries of history here. |
 23 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 It is sobering to think that Australia was centuries away from British settlement when these buildings were first built. |
 24 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 We approach the chateau which is situated on the edge of a ridge. It is separated from the old town by a moat that was built in the early thirteenth century. |
 25 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 The Chateau was built during the 12th century and its fortifications were extensively modernised by Vauban in 1684. |
 26 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 Seigneur de Vauban (who later became Marquis de Vauban) was a Marshal of France and the foremost military engineer of his age. He was famed for his skill in both designing fortifications and breaking through them. He lived from 1633 - 1707. |
 27 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 Vauban also advised Louis XIV (the Sun King) on how to consolidate France's borders to make them more defensible. Vauban made an at-the-time radical suggestion of giving up some land that was indefensible to allow for a stronger, less porous border with France's neighbours. It was Louis XIV who first annexed Alsace into France. |
 28 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 The chateau is the headquarters of the Regional Natural Park of the Northern Vosges. The park was established on 30 December 1975 . |
 29 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 The openings to defend the fort appear to be larger than required for archers. Perhaps these portals were for cannons. |
 30 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 La Petite Pierre is at an altitude of 210-390 metres. The air was beautifully clear and not all that hot. |
 31 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 Inside the courtyard. The ancient wall to the right is very thick and is actually two walls filled with rubble or soil. The outer wall drops away to the ground many tens of metres below. |
 32 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 Ahead is the main entrance. As it was lunch time, the building was closed but this didn't bother us because the exterior was more interesting. The stone capping of the wall is visible here. |
 33 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 The ancient walls are very imposing, especially given the thickness of the wall which must be 2-3 metres. |
 34 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 You can see how thick the wall is in this photo. |
 35 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 Weird art work decorates the grounds. I don't like art that disfigures the beautiful shape of a woman. |
 36 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 Although this is clever; it is carved from a single tree. |
 37 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 |
 38 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 Jenni comes back down the stairs after learning that the facility is closed. |
 39 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 Looking across to the newer (less old?) part of the village. Our car is parked there somewhere. |
 40 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 This is the Simultaneous Church of the Assumption. A simultaneous church is a church that hosts two Christian faiths, generally Catholic and Lutheran. The church was first built in 1417 by Count Burckhardt of Lutzelstein. |
 41 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 |
 42 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 After visiting La Petite Pierre, stopping for petrol and discovering that Jenni had left her wallet at the restaurant, returning to La Petite Pierre to retrieve the wallet, driving to Strasbourg and getting caught in a traffic incident, meeting Michele and parking the car in Michele's work garage, we walked to Strasbourg Station. Here we were to catch the TGV (train de grande vitesse - high-speed train) to Paris. Departure time was 18:16 with an expected arrival time of 20:34. We had booked the tickets in Sydney at a cost of A$338. |
 43 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 After Paris, Strasbourg is the second largest railway station in France. It connects with other parts of France and Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands and other European countries. Here Michele interprets the platform information for us and shows us where on the platform our carriage will be. |
 44 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 The air conditioning in our carriage was broken and it was stifling hot - about 40°. The train went at slow speed (160 kmh) until we got to the upgraded section at Metz. Then it ran at full speed of about 320 kmh to Paris . |
 45 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 When the Metz-Strasbourg section is upgraded (by 2014), it will cut travel time from 2h 20 mins to 1h 50 mins. I was surprised at how much land was given over to farming; it seemed that farms stretched all the way to Paris. Farm land is very boring scenery. |
 46 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 We arrived at Paris Est (or Gare de l'Est, East station ) on time at 8:34 pm, still very hot with lots of daylight left. Gare de l'Est is one of six large SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer français) terminals in Paris, not far from the Gare du Nord, and it is one of the largest and the oldest railway stations in Paris. It was opened in 1849 and called the Strasbourg platform. |
 47 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 We caught a cab from Gare de l'Est to the L'Avre Hotel, 21 Rue Avre, 75015 Paris, France. It was perfectly located near all of the things we wanted to see and three metro stations. On the way in we saw the Champs Elysees, the Eiffel Tower and other Paris landmarks. |
 48 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 The L'Avre Hotel cost €98 per night. We booked for three nights but stayed one: extreme heat in Paris, no airconditioning, window open for air - huge noise, no internet, desk clerk no English. And tiny, tiny, tiny. This is it, there is no more than what you see here. We paid a premium for a garden room which overlooked a noisy beer garden below. |
 49 Wednesday 7 July, 2010 That night, we walked a few blocks, 500 metres, and checked into the Ibis that Michele had recommended to us. They spoke English, had internet and room cooling (air circulation) but not full air-con. It was very near the Cambronne Metro station. We had to pay an extra day penalty to get out of the L'Avre Hotel but it was worth it. Next stop: Our first day in Paris |
