I am pre-warned when the taxi driver asks me how long I'll be staying and when I tell him two nights; he says in his broken English - Too long. He drops me at a small hotel but my room is in another part of the town. The hostess walks me there through the winding tiny streets, past the medieval, fairytale coloured Tudor style houses. We are in Beauty and the Beast territory, some of it was filmed here. I drop off my bags, discover there's no wifi and decide to explore. As I walk through the small town, I keep hearing a clacking sound from above. I keep looking up and finally, I see a nest of storks on the spire of the church. I've been seeing them on postcards but now I realise Alsace is an area where they come to nest. They are huge and their nests can weight up to 225 kgs. It's baby stork making time in Eguisheim. The storks fly 15000 kms from Africa, returning to the same nests every year. They're monogamous and the male arrives first to do some home maintenance, making sure the nest is up to scratch for the wife. She arrives and a lot of clacking noises go on, she's probably telling him it's not quite right. I then become a bit of a ornithologist, I research and wander the town looking for nests.
But after half an hour, I have seen the whole town. I have photographed the crocuses beginning to flower, have eaten cake, lunched and walked some more. The taxi driver is correct. I tell the owner that I'm going to leave and she doesn't even charge me for the extra night. Maybe because there's no wifi, the heating doesn't work and it's freezing in my room. I have dinner at her restaurant, my companion a stuffed rabbit with antlers. He's quiet with an inquisitive look in his eye. I am worried about two facts: a) I am considering him as a dinner companion, and b) I would like to ask him how he came about his antlers. Have I been alone too long?
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