I arrive in Colmar on a Sunday morning and a cacophony of church bells welcome me. I’m early, my room won’t be ready until one, so off I go to discover the Colmar of the internet, postcard views, canals, medieval black beamed and brightly hued houses. Beautiful little shops with stork paraphernalia and touristy storky things; caramel shops, kugelhoff and flambe tarte shops. I wander till I can wander no more and then go in search of a cafe and find a pink art nouveau one with beautiful old teapots and tins, Au Dore, An old lady, who must be 80 at least, is at the front of house, taking orders, delivering, collecting the money. A woman with a mission, who has found a place in life. I’m envious. I have a cafe creme and a large pistachio macaron and return to find out the room won’t be ready until 4! I think the concierge must have seen my face and taken pity on me. She upgrades me to a room with a view of the canal and a jacuzzi. I take it. I should be delighted but a vague sense of unease is back. It’s what I’ve had since the operation but before I arrived here it was accompanied by extreme anxiety. Thankfully, that’s left but the unease is back. I try to deep breathe my way out of it but has infiltrated deeply.
I decide to walk it out before it darkens. I find another street of pistachio, strawberry, mango and bubblegum blue houses reflecting into a shallow canal but even after another hour of walking, it’s still not early enough for the restaurants to open. Exhausted, I end up sitting on a bench with a Japanese girl who is probably hungry and waiting as I am. Finally, the restaurants start to open. I find one and have a chicken and cider pie, alone without a stuffed rabbit to converse with. I return to have a spa bath and listen to Mumford & Sons Delta to calm me down.
I now have an extra day here so I look up tours only to realise that at this time of the year, there are none available. I stumble upon one and email them and they said they're just starting out and would love to take me. In my anxiety infused state, I feel it's best if I'm out and about with humans.
They pick me up the next morning, a husband and wife team. They're having a seachange, having both given up their careers to pursue this line of work. The were sick of working in offices and wanted to be happy. She speaks Portuguese, German, Italian and French and is happy to try out her rusty English with me. They discover I haven't had breakfast and are horrified. Even though I say I'm fine, they insist on stopping at a cafe and picking me up a coffee and a croissant. "In France you must take breakfast."
Our first stop is Hunawihr, in the Alsace wine area. They're passionate about wine and point out the vineyards and how everyone in the area is worried because summer has come early and they are behind in the getting the vines ready. Next stop is Riquewihr and Ribeauville, both villages that inspired Beauty and the Beast. The colours are candied; strawberry, watermelon, lime. I'm told that in the medieval days, buildings were taxed on the ground level meterage, so to overcome paying extra, the second and third floors jut out slightly. My guide also points out the oriel windows, an early form of the bay window for the richer inhabitants, who used them to watch the passing crowds and gather gossip.
My guide is an expert stork watcher. She knows all the nests in the region and her interest, she says, never fades. In the 70’s, due to electricity wires crisscrossing the storks migratory routes, huge numbers were electrocuted. On top of that, there was the famine in Africa, ((which is where the storks migrate during the European winter) which saw more of the storks decline as they became a source of food. France then realised they would have to create sanctuaries and nesting sites to reintroduce them. My guide checks the nests every year to see if the stork couples are returning and they are. I, too, am fascinated. I find out that storks are mute and the clacking sound is the way they use their beaks to attract their mate to the nests they have prepared in advance.
I'm then taken to a winery tasting in the village. I'm the sole tourist! The family has
owned the winery for 500 years and I'm given 10 different varieties of wine to try. I obviously sample only a small amount, learning to swirl and sniff and experience the flavours on my tongue. But by the tenth wine I am decidedly tipsy. I realise I will have to buy a wine and try to appear interested and remember which one I enjoyed the most. They take me into the cellar with the huge old oak vats, each with a different sculpture surrounding the tap and they show me the very tiny arched section that someone small has to climb into at the end of the season to scrape off the sugars that have formed a coating inside the barrel. Claustrophobia springs to mind.
After that, I’m thrilled when they suggest we have lunch as the world has become a shifting place from my intoxication and the streets are cobblestoned and I’m a bit wobbly. I need to soak up the wine. We have the famous spaetzle dish - flour, salt, eggs, milk and salt sieved into boiling water into noodles. This is covered in the Munster cheese of the area and the food acts as the perfect sponge for the ten varieties of wine I had imbibed plus the one they insist on me having to accompany the spaetzle.
After that I am delivered to my hotel, at which time they mention they could do any combination of places I would like to visit the next day; this is their quiet season, so we arrange for an afternoon excursion.
I didn’t think I could eat that night but after another wander around Colmar on dusk, I discovered I had an appetite and found a place that served an old fashioned meal of grilled chicken, green beans and sauteed potatoes! Perfect. I couldn’t bear the thought of another Onion tart or Quiche Lorraine. My company that night was a very cool wooden frog, lounging in a corner, hand holding his froggy chin, debonair, nonchalant and quite an engaging companion I should imagine, if he could talk.
Next afternoon, I'm taken to Chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg, a medieval castle dating back to 1147, remodelled and added onto over the centuries; an interesting look at life in the middle ages; and then to Kayserberg. This is another beautiful village, nestled along a river, burnished bronze in the late afternoon light, fairytale gelato coloured houses lining the river. Everywhere I go there are souvenirs with the stork theme. I am quite taken with them and buy a few pieces. They remind me of the paintings in a book of fairytales that my mother used to read to me as a child. There were always storks on nests on the buildings. I return for dinner with my Frog companion and my time in Alsace is done. Tomorrow, I'm heading back to Paris.
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