On the last Saturday in May we left Grinzing early in the morning on a tour through the Austrian Alps, the Black Forest, Alsace-Lorraine, and Burgundy, with a final stop in central Germany. If this trip were an oil painting, much of it would be blurry. The first several days were a jumbled, conflated kaleidoscopic scene of alps, castles, quaint cities and cute towns of half-timbered houses, cathedrals, lush parks, windows with overflowing flower boxes, narrow lanes of cobblestones, and fast-moving rivers and lazy canals. I regret that the blurry part includes some of the finer sites, particularly Freiburg, Colmar, and Strasbourg, in which we spent a half-day each. It was not, however, until we reached Dijon and then Burgundy that I began to take in the details of the day-to-day. Beaune, France, though not the loveliest nor the most historic of the places we visited, had the most color and texture for me, perhaps because our experiences in the town were so different from, and maybe also a little quirkier than, those on the rest of the trip.
Among the quirks were fun language differences, and not just the translations. We seem never to have incidents in German at all like the ones that we have in dealing with the French. Some of our language experiences in Dijon and Beaune reminded me of the scene with Peter Sellers in one of the Pink Panther movies in which he grew intensely frustrated while asking for a rheeoom at a hotel. A couple of times we saw an interlocutor's face color in exasperation to the shade of an Alsatian pinot noir. Communication problems for the most part, I found, came up only when we failed to realize the French person was trying to communicate in English, though eventually the words emerged like after-notes in a sip of wine.
Marmots, Mountains, and Castles
It is a testimony to the over-abundance of beautiful mountain views on the first leg of the trip that my clearest memory is not of the views, which have commingled, but of a marmot. As our first Saturday was about scenery, we experienced the region primarily from inside the car, rather like going up and down on a magical merry-go-round, spinning slowly as the scenery passed. A goal of ours for more than a year had been to drive the Gross Glockner Alpine Highway south of Salzburg, though we feared that, even if we drove there, we would not see much. Until the day we left, the forecast indicated that we would see only rain, clouds, and fog on that road, which, we noted, had been closed for snow earlier in the week. The sky itself--which we sometimes seemed to be driving in--turned out to be nearly as dramatic as the mountains. When we got to the north entrance of the Alpine Highway, we found the countryside bathed in sunshine, and great white convection clouds burgeoning and billowing in a pure blue sky. We wound along the highway past an amazing number of bicyclists wheezing up and flying down the inclines, each curve bringing a new vista. We parked at the high point to take pictures, stepping out into the 40-degree sunshine and spectacular scenery. Across the road, near a don't-feed-the-marmots sign, a marmot, the cold wind ruffling its deep brown fur, stood on its hind legs in a sunny parking strip surveying a clutch of German tourists a few feet away, while they eyed it with their cameras. A man and a woman knelt down and offered the marmot a chunk of bread, and the marmot dropped to all fours, looking the offering over as it edged nearer to them and then abruptly ducked into the shadows under a car. Oh No, I could imagine the marmot thinking, German cuisine again, and he would not come out until he saw a car with French plates pull in.
Saturday was a 10-hour driving day. Descending the Alpine Highway, we wound our way on to the euphoniously named little town of Heiligenblut, whose remarkable church spire soars to compete with the mountain tops, and then south, into Italy, with its leisurely green countryside with magnificent mountains and tailgating idiot drivers; from there we headed north again through the Brenner Pass and back into Austria, where we spent the night in Reutte, on the border with German Bavaria. Reutte itself, though not a particularly attractive village, sits in a particularly attractive setting. It is a memory that has not blurred. A river of opalescent green, laden with calcium, rushes through the town, and snow-capped stony peaks rise in the background.
Bavaria: Fantasy Land
Our next stop was like going to see the Mona Lisa and having to peer through a horde of gallery visitors for a glimpse of it. Sunday morning we headed to Neuschwanstein Castle, where tour buses gathered by the hundreds, and tourists gathered by the thousands. After a long wait in line for timed-entry tickets to the fantasy land castle of Mad King Ludwig, we found that the earliest we could get in was more than 5 hours later. We opted to skip the tour, and off we went on foot, climbing the slope to the castle compound, passing gasping, straggling groups of tourists who had also eschewed the ticket-center buses to the top, which were jammed like the Tokyo subway at rush hour. Ludwig's castle was partially obscured by repair scaffolding, but we were able to tour the exterior and take in the views. There was enough of the castle to see that was identifiable as the Disney inspiration for Fantasy Land, and the views were lovely--lakes, castles, red-roofed towns below, and green-gray sloped rocky peaks in rugged rows stretching to the horizon. After we descended from the castle hill to the vast parking lots lined with shops, we headed for the Alpsee (Alp Lake), to sit on a bench and get our breath while watching the white sailboats ease across the flat blue water in the shadows of the mountains that edged the lake. Like the marmot finding refuge under the car, we were for the moment out of the press of humanity.
Besides the crowds, there was a cultural-psychological block to our Bavarian experience. Having rested, we strolled the crowded grounds and came on a form of crass entrepreneurship. A large sign in English and Japanese announced a mega designer-store outlet. Curious, we entered the large, boxy building: we found a sea of Japanese shoppers, dozens of different high-end brands--Rolex...Gucci...Bulgari--an all-Japanese retail staff, and all the signs in Japanese only. There was nothing we could see in the megastore that was remotely related to Neuschwanstein, Bavaria, or even Germany, but business was brisk.
The trip back to our hotel in Reutte, however, brought us back in touch with Bavaria. We decided to take advantage of what is normally a problem with the GPS and let it lead us on a rural route rather than on the main roads. We drove slowly through farms and narrow lanes and tiny villages with houses squeezing the road so tightly that in several stretches only one-way traffic was possible. As we emerged from one village, we found our car surrounded by huge brown cows. They milled around us, their immense heads bobbing past the car side windows like the mounts on a carousel. We edged slowly through them, noticing that they were being herded by three men on bicycles, each holding a long stick. The tour groups in Neuschwanstein, I thought, could have used these men, especially on the slope up to the castle and maybe even in the megastore.
Freiburg and the Black Forest
Monday morning we discovered that the GPS does not work without a fuse, and we were back to relying on paper, heading for our hotel in the town of Staufen, at the southern end of the Black Forest. En route we toured Freiburg, which has no one particularly special site but is just a beautiful city with a fine Gothic cathedral; we wandered its old city with its tiny, shallow canals--inches-wide Buchle--coursing through sidewalks and squares, its cathedral, its half-timbered houses, and the old city market. I thought we were now close enough to France that I could look forward to something other than another round of pork, starch ball, and sauerkraut--which comes disguised on German menus under hundreds of names. In Staufen I had the best dinner of the trip: cheese on winter melon, with lasagne. I should have learned months ago that, when in Germany, order Italian food. Tuesday morning we started out on a planned drive on a scenic north-south route through the Forest. The route, however, was closed for construction, frustrating Linda's plans to buy a cuckoo clock in one of the Forest villages, and we contented ourselves with the rolling woods and farmlands of the southern portion alone. Later in the afternoon, we crossed into France.
Alsace: Teutonic Surprise
Once we were over the border, I was eager for the dinner hour to arrive. Just south of the beautiful city of Colmar is the village of Eguisheim, where we had hotel reservations. With its timbered houses in pastel colors and boxes of bright red and pink and white and yellow flowers lining its streets and in every window, the cuteness of Eguisheim could be no greater or it would be cloying. Not so lovely was my dinner that night. Because I generally like to try foods that are peculiar to a region, at a very nice restaurant for dinner I opted for the "Alsatian Regional Specialty." Soon a warm china plate was set in front of me, and next to it an earthenware terrine. I lifted its lid to find two small pork sausages atop a heap of sauerkraut, and next to the sausages a medium-sized boiled potato. As Anticipation had been my appetizer, so Disappointment was my main course. I was the marmot, looking for a car to duck under.
Colmar and Strasbourg: Conflated and Blurred
The following morning we drove to Colmar, parked the car, and strolled along the Rhine and through the market and parks and crooked, cobbled streets lined with timbered houses and flower boxes, where the river lazily wound along, and in the afternoon we took the train to Strasbourg. Strasbourg was rain and sun and chilly breezes and a cathedral remarkable for its Gothic generosity and stunning height. Both cities, I thought, deserve much more time, but our main goal on this trip was to experience the region broadly.
Dijon: Gargoyles and Alf Leetair
After the loveliness of the Alps, Colmar, Strasbourg, and the villages we had stayed in, our first stop beyond Alsace was a spiral downward. From our base in Eguisheim, we drove 2 hours southwest into Burgundy for a stay in Beaune, stopping along the way for a visit in Dijon. Aside from the city's fame from its association with mustard, the color of many of its structures, it has little more than its gargoyles to recommend it. Dijon received no mention in our guidebook to France, and to us it was clear why that was the case. Apart from the Gothic cathedral with three rows of gargoyles across its facade, the most memorable thing about Dijon was the parking garage, home to the evil spirits frightened off by the gargoyles. A dark, narrow, low-ceiling ramp curled tightly down to the parking levels deep in the underworld. Grimy dark walls shaped lanes that were barely wide enough for the car to pass, and the garage ceiling was bare inches above the car roof. Three levels down, just before we reached the River Styx for the crossing into Hell, we found a very narrow space to back into, and then we made our way up a foul staircase to street level, into mustard sunlight soiled by diesel fumes. On crumbling sidewalks with litter gently drifting and tumbling along like dried leaves, we passed shops displaying trays of cellophane sleeves holding three or four jars each of flavored mustard at what seemed to be ridiculously high prices. We spotted two cathedrals and made our way to them through narrow, traffic-congested streets. Like so many of the churches we have seen in France, these also had suffered from the Revolution and Napoleon; their interiors were largely bare, but they had, at least, retained some of their stained glass and ornate Gothic stonework. And the gargoyles, row after row across the facade, were magnificent.
Dijon also gave us our first sip of linguistic embarrassment, though a petite one. I ordered water (de l'eau), and the waiter asked, Alf leetair? I thought this might be a brand and asked him to repeat, which he did. I then asked whether he spoke English. He looked exasperated, reddened and repeated Alf leetair again, and I realized he was saying "half liter." Ah, oui, and we all looked relieved.
Beaune: Wine and Roses
From Dijon we drove on to Beaune, and for the first time on the trip we got a good rest from being in the car. So much of the trip to that point had felt like just seeing things without stopping long enough really to experience the locality; Beaune let us simply relax and absorb local life.
A city of some 20,000, Beaune is in the heart of Burgundy, surrounded by vineyards and wineries. With crooked cobbled streets and ample flower boxes, it has the charm of Eguisheim, but on a larger scale, and rose bushes in prolific bloom run through the heart of the boulevard that rings Beaune, just as they do for miles and miles in the median strip of the modern Autoroute that leads into the city. Much of the medieval wall circling the old city is still intact, and one morning we strolled its length, pausing from time to time in small grassy parks lined with huge, ancient plane trees and rose bushes. On our second morning, we strolled along a stream and then through a sprawling, rose-filled park on the edge of town, where a lake offered a home to a variety of ducks, geese, and swans, which we found also in huge nests on a small island in the lake. Country lanes led through gently sloping vineyards just beyond the park, and those invited us for a walk as well.
Stomping the Grapes of French. In the afternoon we visited a multi-room wine shop, one recommended by our guidebook, where a local expert offered us advice. A tall, thin man with a moustache bleached white by years of being dipped in alcohol, he seemed to be a gentle man, schooled by painful experience with uncultured palates, ignorance, and pretentiousness. In heavily accented English, he explained that the best whites in the world come from Burgundy. I looked politely skeptical, having recently read an article in the Herald Tribune on Austria's Wachau Valley whites. Noting my expression, he said that we not need take his word: So and So also said Burgundy whites were the best. We had, of course, heard of So and So? We both lied, nodding to him (and feeling wholly ashamed). He poured a small sample of what he said was an excellent white and handed it to me. It tasted like licorice with a touch of vinegar. I told him I was not inclined favorably by the sample; he said it was, perhaps, an acquired taste, and arched an eyebrow ever so slightly, struggling, I am certain, not to let his face betray the dismay he felt as, behind his eyes, his annoyance was reddening and swelling like a ripe purple grape after an autumn rain. I took pity on him, thinking he must have felt like Monet trying to tell a doodling child how to paint a water lily, or more a tragic character, Sisyphus, for eternity pushing the rock up the hill only to have it roll back down. Finally, because he sounded so wonderfully authoritative and had such a thick accent--and had done a creditable job of trying to contain his dismay at my ignorance--we could do no less than purchase five reds and a white to bring home and drink with delight or displeasure, as our Philistine tastes dictated.
Another Petite Linguistic Adventure. Late on our first afternoon in Beaune we sat our tired selves down at a sidewalk cafe for a cold beer before heading on to explore the town further. I ordered in French two large draft beers, and the waiter appeared to understand me easily. He replied, "Eenakah" or "African"? Linda and I looked at each other in confusion. We made him repeat that question a couple of more times, and then Linda asked him whether he spoke English. His face reddened in exasperation, and then it dawned on me that he was asking whether we wanted Heineken or another brand, which we determined later to be Affligem. He brought us two small drafts of Eenakah and charged us for two large ones.
Getting Pumped. On our second afternoon, we toured a medieval palais converted by its noble owners (trying to get right with God before their deaths) that had served Beaune as a hospital from the middle ages until the mid-20th century. It had even held wounded French troops during World War II and was for a time policed by Nazi soldiers. Among the centuries-old apothecary jars and surgical instruments, the most interesting items displayed, I thought, were the enema syringes, huge nozzles affixed to pumps that could have inflated a basketball, including a self-administering enema on which a person sat while working the pump by hand...potentially hours of entertainment. We left the shadowy rooms and halls of medical history for the glorious outdoors.
Dejeuner et Diner. The sun was out and the day was too lovely for us to sit inside. Because the outdoor cafes were crowded, we got sandwiches and soft drinks at a shop and plopped ourselves down on a bench next to a carousel to people-watch. We shopped a bit more and strolled a lot more, and late in the afternoon, as we waited for our chosen restaurant to open for dinner, we returned to the park with the carousel. Tots, some grinning broadly, some lost in wonder--and one little girl whose eyes ran with tears of fear--went slowly around while tunes from Disney movie soundtracks floated by us and mingled in the full-bloomed roses in the park. For a moment, we were back in Fantasy Land. And even Fantasy Land, we noted, had its rules. Attached to the carousel were four signs, including one in English: "Prohibition of Up or Down After the Bell of Departure."
On our second night in Beaune, we found ourselves in a restaurant that offered, at least, a proprietor with very good English. Our waitress, who looked to be in her late teens and starting her first job, willingly struggled for us in halting English and was clearly eager to please--and not quite as frightened as the child on the merry-go-round. The proprietor, elfin, oily, and officious, was all smiles to us yet cold and abrupt with the waitress, yipping criticism at her as the two of them scurried among the tables. A different points in the evening he stopped to chat, telling us about his years managing a restaurant in Washington, and making remarks about cheese and gas that he himself seemed to find quite witty. Perhaps he, too, had seen the display of medieval enema equipment and it was on his mind. Then, like a terrier, he hurried away and bit his new waitress in the ankle, so to speak, by admonishing her for setting out the wrong size spoon for our dessert plates.
Rothenburg ob der Tauber: Elf Land
Our time was getting short. Saturday we left Beaune and drove to melodious Rothenburg ob der Tauber--named by someone with clogged sinuses--in central Germany, leaving us just one more driving leg to Vienna. Except for the astonishing crowd of German tourists, Rothenburg reminded me of colorful illustrations in children's books of a village that Santa Claus, elves, and garden gnomes might have dwelt in. Its shops offered acres of Christmas ornaments, including ones labeled "Made in Williamsburg, Va, USA." The town still looks, I imagine, much like the village it was in medieval times. Our hotel, the Golden Griffen, was the home of the 15th-century town mayor; much of the structure, furnished with ancient wood chests and other antiques, with rich dark plank floors and stairs, had doorways that were perfect for elves but that imperiled anyone taller than 5'6". (I made it through our stay, nonetheless, without adding a souvenir scar to my scalp.) Here Linda was able to buy a cuckoo clock--from a very large selection--a purchase she had planned to make in our drive through the Black Forest, aborted because of the closed highway.
Und Zuruck
Sunday morning found us on the road home. The Bell of Departure had rung. We were back in Grinzing by mid-afternoon, our carousel ride over. A relieved Walter the Cat greeted us at the door, and we were ready for a cold Eenakah.
