Where in France a Parisian is regarded an expat, or you can go
to a restaurant to taste some local specialties like baeckoffe or flammekueche?
In Alsace of course.
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| Petite-Venice, Colmar |
Guarded from the rest of France by the Vosges Mountains –ok,
high hills really – and from Germany by the Rhine River, Alsace is a land of beautiful
green hills, photogenic villages and good wine. And storks. In fact the regions’
symbol is the stork, due to the sheer number of birds migrating each year. Where
I come from, there’s an old belief that if you see a stork flying, you’ll
travel much and far that year. In
Alsace, we saw so many storks flying, walking, feeding or just looking around,
I am curious what kind of a year we’ll have.
For centuries, Alsace has always been a subject of violent dispute
between France and Germany. Roman Empire ended the tribal wars for a while but
after its fall the region became the territory of Alemanni. They were a
Germanic tribe who in most ways paved the way to modern day Alsace by extending
the vineyards which has always been the main source of income. Their language formed the basis for the Alsatian dialect still in use today. In the
following centuries the region was occupied, reoccupied, partly sold or presented
as gifts to countless duchess, generals and kings from Germany, Austria and France
so many times that it’s impossible to keep track. Just in the last two hundred
years it changed ownership four times - which roughly means a new ruler / language/culture every fifty years - and finally after WW1, it was reunited
with France.
The effects of this historical confusion are evident everywhere
in Alsace from the names of its towns and local dialect to its cuisine and
architecture, which are neither French nor German, but unique and beautiful.
Most local people speak both Alsatian and French, and in
restaurants and shops German is used frequently to serve the tourists across the
Rhine. One friendly shop-owner told me ‘they’re coming to see what they’ve lost’,
with a slight smirk on her face.
No visit to the region is complete without drinking the renowned
Vin D’Alsace and tasting the local cuisine therefore we spent considerable time
doing both.
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| Restaurant Au Raisin d'Or |
A typical Alsatian restaurant is rustic and warmly
decorated. Lunch and dinners are lengthy affairs where family and friends
gather around a big table, sharing the days’ adventures while sipping perhaps a
glass of local beer or gewürztraminer as an aperitif.
Alsatian cuisine is rich and fattening, with lots of meat, potatoes
and choucroute (French version of sauerkraut) served in generous portions and it’s
delicious. Unburdened with the French
style sauces, it’s a typical villagers’ cuisine, with fresh produces cooked for
people who do physical work and need their nutrition. Well, we didn't exactly
fit to that description, but when in Rome...
My personal favourite is Tarte Flambèe, a very thin pizza made
with fromage blanc, thinly sliced onions and lardons. It’s crispy and incredibly tasty, especially when washed downed with bottles of dry Alsatian Riesling.
Another favourite dish is baeckeoffe, a mix
of potatoes, herbs, mutton, beef and pork marinated overnight in wine and
slow cooked in a sealed ceramic casserole dish. Traditionally, the women used
to prepare this dish on Saturday evening and leave it with the baker to cook in
his oven on Sunday while they attended the lengthy Lutheran church services
once typical to the culture. On the way back from church, they would pick up
their casserole and a loaf of bread and Voila ! the Sunday lunch was served.
Desserts are mostly tarts or a slice Kugelhopf, served with layers
of crème fraiche and ice cream. Luckily for me, that was the only part of the cuisine
that I wasn't extremely fond of.
Another ‘must-do’ in Alsace is to take dozens of pictures. Apart from the
beautiful countryside, Alsace has a unique architectural style which changes from imposing to cute to kitsch throughout the region.
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| Strasbourg Cathedral |
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| Most unhappy gargoyle ever ! |
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| Masions D'Tanneur of Petite-France |
One of my favourite parts in Strasbourg is the Petite France, partly due to its relaxed atmosphere and partly because of the story behind the
name. Now a tourist favourite full of restaurants and galleries, this part served
two functions when it was a part of the medieval Germany; it was the district of
the tanners and the hospital for syphilis – which was regarded as ‘a Frenchman’s
disease’ by the puritan Germans - was located there. In those times, the tanners
were placed at the worst parts of the cities due to the considerable smell
coming from the vast amounts of urine that was used to soften the leather. Naming
that district as Petite France was a not-so-covert way of showing how the
medieval Germans felt about their neighbours.
Another place we visited was Colmar, a nice market town that
demonstrates the typical Alsatian architecture. To my surprise, Colmar is pretty known among
the Americans because of a certain M. Bartholdi, a 19th cc architect who among other things
constructed the Statue of Liberty.
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| Full moon at Place Stanislas |
