Hey Mikey, he likes it!

I must admit that I was a bit nervous about bringing J to Prague. I love it here, but I have history here, and I was worried that the same magic mightn't have bewitched J. I need not have worried, though, J and his camera have been oogling their way through virtually every city street. In J's awe of Prague's beauty, he has even compared it favorably with Paris.

Yo, H, I thought you were talking about Prague here?

No, no, we haven't been to Paris; this is Prague's own Petrin Tower on top of a hillside park adjacent to the city.

There are so many little details within this city that I've been excited about showing to J, and I'm glad that he's sharing my excitement.

J has been enjoying Czech wooden toys...


... Prague's beautiful buildings, and...


... small statues representing Czech peasant traditions, which continue to this day.

There are plenty of photos already on Flickr, and we've still got 10 days to go here. Czech back for more.

How many geraniums would your town have?

One of the many delights of traveling through Alsace was appreciating their flowery towns.

That's an awfully "fleuri" ruin you're standing next to, H.

For those of you who think this is a lovely display of flowers, you've got a good eye. The French government would agree with you. Yes, you read correctly - the French government has an entire department devoted to determining which French villages are the "floweriest." According to their website, the floweriest villages are a societal phenomenon in France. Wow-ee! What delighted me most were the signs:

No, ladies and gentlemen, this isn't just any town. This is a four geranium town.

Every year, over 12,000 villages and towns from all across France enter the national competition of floweriness. Now, once the official flowery folk come to your town, they submit a ranking. Over three thousand towns and villages receive a rank of at least one geranium, while only 202 towns and villages have the status that every French gardeners surely aspires to: a four geranium ranking.

J and I had the pleasure of traveling through not one, not two, but three towns that achieved the status of four geraniums. Bergheim, Itterswiller, and last but certainly not least, Ribeauville. My favorite flowery moment was this one:

Please, come into my flowery home.

But I really should leave you with a photo from Ribeauville, which not only was a four-geranium town, but won the national prize for floweriness.

Check out the size of those pink geraniums.

Should a representative of the French government read this blog, I humbly submit my candidacy for being an evaluator of the 2008 competition.

La route du vin

As I mentioned before, H and I were kicking around the idea of doing the too-charming-for-words route du vin. Well, we did it, and we did it à vélo ("by bicycle"). You can view all of our route du vin photos on our Flickr account.

Did I mention that June is summer storm month in Alsace?

We had planned to rent bicycles at the tourism office in Selestat, but they rent bicycles only durng the "summer." Their website defines "summer" as May-October, so we figured no problem, but their onsite staff defines "summer" as July-October. Guess which definition trumps.

The woman behind the counter was nevertheless quite helpful. She phoned a bike rental company in the region and got a great deal for us: 10€/bike/day with free delivery and one day free. It was so typically French. Nothing worked the way you'd expect from reading the literature, but everything got taken care of anyway.

As soon as the bikes arrived, we became closely acquainted with the obvious disadvantage of travel by bicycle, which, as we learned early on during our trip, can be summed up in one word: weather. Just as we got ready to depart, the clouds crashed and the skies opened. Naturally. We spent two hours in the tourism office, waiting out the storm and enduring the gentle taunts of the staff, "You're going to do the wine road by bicycle, eh? Ha ha!" H slept. I read inane travel lit.

It was already 4pm by the time we finally got on the road. Selestat lies on the Alsatian plain, east of the foothills of the Vosges mountains, where they grow all the wine grapes. (Alsace as a region is bordered by the Rhine to the east and the Vosges to the west.) We made our way west and quickly found the route du vin, thanks to my expert leadership. And then we immediately took a wrong turn. After spending around 45 minutes circling a suburb which had only a single entrace/exit, we began to eye the western horizon with trepidation as a second thunderstorm rolled in. So of course I made a second wrong turn, which put us squarely in the middle of a cornfield. Thank goodness my wife has such a well-developed sense of adventure. And a forgiving heart.

"Um, J--you did say that there's a route du vin, didn't you?"

As we slogged through the crops, the temperature dropped, the skies darkened, and it began to drizzle. So there we are, getting rained on in the middle of an Alsatian corn field, when H pops out with, "I think I saw where we could take shelter with some cows a bit back there."

At first, I was skeptical, bu then it began to rain in earnest. So I thought to myself, "Let us not stoop at this moist crossroads to any ill-conceived prejudice against our bovine bretheren. Lead on, brave and observant cowmaiden!" Or something to that effect. And let me tell you: whatever their drawbacks--and I'll allow that they probably have some--cows make great company when it's raining and they've got a roof and you've got nothing but Gore-tex.

The cows were very generous. We didn't even have to tip.

After waiting out the second storm with the cows, everything smoothed out. The rain even helped along the fruits of the season; as it happened, we were lucky enough to be abroad during cherry season.

Grocery stores which spritz their produce with water in order to make it look more appetizing have got a long way to go before they can compete with this.

Despite a week's worth of lugubrious forecasts, the weather cooperated for the remaining duration of our trip, and we were able to enjoy the bicycle's openness to the elements as a singular advantage over travel by car or train. When you travel by bicycle, you're really in the landscape--as opposed to travel by car, which conducts you through the landscape. And what a landscape! For charm, beauty, gentility, and sheer glory, Alsatian wine country stands head and shoulders above most landscapes I've encountered...

The road wraps the vine-laden hills like a silver ribbon.


Old Rhine castles cling to the mountainsides and crouch among the vines.


Every 2 or 3 km yields another charming village or lovely city.


The cities and villages actually compete with one another for the best floral displays.


There's even a sorcerer's tower or two... (that's me doing my best Harry Potter).

I don't care what Disney says. There's no vacation more magical than this.

Corks and storks

We began our all-too-short stay chez my good friends DP and CF with a little visit to DP's favorite winemaker, Klein aux Vieux Remparts in St-Hippolyte.

As Homer Simpson might say, ¨Mmm... vins d'Alsace."

Jean-Marie et Françoise Klein, dynamic oeneological duo that they are, produce dry, subtle wines which represent Alsace's wine heritage (German varietals produced in a French style) unusually well. Although DP loves their wines to pieces, I find them a bit dry and tangy for my taste. Their 2005 Gewurztraminer and 2002 Muscat are worth the trip if you find yourself in Alsace, though; and don't neglect to taste the famed rouge de St-Hippolyte while you're there.

H and DP practice swishing the wine across their palates.

After wining and dining for a day or two, we collected DP's and CF's two sweet boys, and headed out to visit Alsace's Ecomuseum. The Ecomuseum gathers together old Alsatian houses, farm buildings, and production buildings into a kind of small town, where traditional craftsmen, including farmers, beekeepers, distillers, coopers, and blacksmiths, show off their know-how to visitors. H especially enjoyed her visit with a queen bee.

The beekeeper explained that the hives are numbered in order to help each bee find the correct hive after a long day's work in the fields.

Oh, yes. And H also enjoyed her first taste of milk only 10 seconds out of the cow.

At first, we were surprised that our sips of superfresh milk weren't cold. Then we thought about it for a second.

And, of course, what fun would a visit to Alsace be without a stork sighting? ¨Storks?¨ you ask.

One must realize that storks are the symbol of happiness and fidelity. As everyone knows, it is the stork which brings babies wrapped in bundles, firmly held in their beaks. Alsatian custom says that when a child wanted a younger brother or sister, he would place a piece of sugar on the window sill to attract the stork, in hopes that it would leave the precious bundle in exchange.

...As everyone knows. The French are a little pompous even in translation. In any case, the Ecomususm provides plenty of stork nests, so we got to see more than our share.

You've seen the bees. I represent the birds part of the equation.

Triumphant return, no. 1

Although blogging has been light lately, that doesn't mean we've been lazy. On the contrary, we've busied ourselves to the point of exhaustion. It would make a long story--and those who phone us once we're back in Canada in a few weeks can get all the juicy details--but since pictures are sometimes worth, if not 1,000 words, at least more than one of them, I've posted all of our pictures from France on our Flickr account. If you're interested, you can click through directly in order to view our Strasbourg photos as a slideshow. (Other posts will follow with links to other photos...)

Strasbourg is even more charming and lovely than I remember, which is saying something. For those who have never been to Strasbourg, the city looks a bit like this:

No kidding. It really is this charming.

And there's a bit of this:

Seriously.

And this:

No, I won't stop. It really is unutterably lovely.

And of course, one shouldn't neglect to mention the cathedral. Strasbourg's cathedral, interestingly enough, was the first building to be identified as "gothic." Goethe more or less introduced "gothic" as an architectural term in 1773.

Eat your heart out, Paris.

Again, you can view all our Strasbourg photos as a slideshow. If you'd rather consume the images according to your own lights, they're all of them posted on our Flickr account.

Kicking it on the Continent

Apologies for the lack of regular updates recently. H and I have been perparing for our (now already realized departure) from Stockholm. We passed one full day in London--my first trip to the British Isles, if you can believe it. And now I'm typing this post sipping a French-style lemonade (sparkling water with lemon-flavored syrup) in Strasbourg, France. Photos to come... For those who aren't as familiar with my history, I lived in Strasbourg from September of 1999 until July of 2001. It was a transformative experience for me, and I'm delighted to be able to share the first city with which I fell in love with H.

We'll be in Alsace for two weeks, during which, if the weather cooperates, we'll visit a bit of the too-charming-for-words Routes des vins. In any event, we'll enjoy the wine. And the cheese. And, well, everything. After two delicious weeks in France, we head to Prague, Czech Republic, where H lived from August of 1997 until June of 2001. Yes, that's one whole month in two of the most magical cities in the world. You may envy us now.