Marne-au-Rhin canal

After looking around the old town and a collection of old bikes, we headed for the gap in the Vosges mountains where the Marne-au-Rhine canal comes through on it's way to the Rhine at Strasbourg.

It's 40 degree's today so we checked into a motor camp in Severne. 

   There's a lovely harbour here and we were chatting to an Aussie from this barge who had been here since last October. He's waiting to go to Paris but the sliding lock on this route had a major catastrophe and so he waits !

 Saturday morning and an early start to beat the heat. We're going to bike the 15 Km's west to the 'Plan Incline',as the sliding lock is called.

  As the canal climbs up into the hills of this region, the Lorraine, it goes up a lot of big locks. This one is in the main street of Severne

The canal follows the Marne valley and there's still plenty of shade. After 10 Km's we pass through Lutzelbourg.

This little village was swamped by a wave of water when the Plan Incline malfunctioned.

  Before it was built, canal traffic came down a huge staircase of locks . They are now ghostly remains and part of the cycle way even goes up the middle of it .

Without it working , the best I can show is this model of the lift.45 meters of lift!

  The catch on the top right malfunctioned while a tourist boat was half way in. They couldn't close the lock gate so 30 kilometers of canal water, surged down through the valley.

Enough drama, but the Aussie may have a long wait.

   Yesterday we followed the canal westward and ended up camped next to a cemetery near mouacourt. Quiet neighborhood but I bet I could never find it again. I do remember this stork on someone's chimney though.

This morning we explored the lovely city of Nancy. At the port we met these lovely kiwis, Ruth and Roger from the Bay of islands who winter over in France in their barge. They were able to replenish our book supply thank goodness! 

What a boat,  I was green with envy , but Roger was complaining about the harbour master charging 22 euros a night to berth here.

Tonight we are just outside Nancy in a camp on the Moselle, at Villey-le-sec

The Vosges mountains . Western front.

 Colmar is a very pretty town and only half an hour from Brisach.

We had lunch there and then headed up into the Vosges mountains to find the more famous sites of the western front in the Alsace .

  It pretty well follows the ridge of this range of mountains.The logistics of getting supplies ,and cannon ,up here ,and then getting the wounded down again,boggles the mind !

Because the trenches up here were made of rocks and concrete, they have remained intact. Our boys had the mud and rain, these poor buggars had sub zero temperatures , AND rain. 

  The crosses you can see are recent bodies they have found. It's an ongoing business.

These were German trenches. 17,000 men died in the battle for this ridge.

 It's late now so we camped at this French cemetery. Nearby is the German one with the usual black crosses

In the morning we headed for our next goal, St Marie-aux-mines. Pretty little mountain village , but it started raining so we checked our emails at the office de tourisme, visited a cemetery on the ridge,and then beat a hasty retreat to Schirmeck, where we booked into the local municipal camp.

The Donon pass was our final goal in the Vosges. The guide book said there were several walks about 7 Km's long,clearly marked along the lines of both sides. They may have been clear when they were fighting ,but we got lost several times. Then suddenly we would stumble across some remnants. Some of them huge.

Finally , to complete our understanding of this part of the war ,we headed towards Strasbourg, and the Fort de Mutzig. 

 Kaiser Wilhelm had this fort built back in 1893 to keep the French out of the Alsace !!! Both sides were preparing for WW1 even then

It held 7000 men and was used For just 20 minutes early on ,when the French broke through at Donon. It soon had them scarpering back to the hills .

" 'old still now while I take zat bayonet out off your bom"

Neuf-Brisach

It's summer holidays in Europe so getting a campsite can be tricky. We ended up here in Neuf-Brisach because the ones with swimming pools were full. Quite happy though because this one is vast, lots of shade , and no kids! And at e13.40 is cheap.

 It's also a Unesco site because of its huge ,star shaped fort that was built by Louis 14th to keep the Germans out.

  Yesterday we just chilled out. Washed the sheets, lay in the shade and read books. When it had cooled off ,about 8pm,we joined the locals in town ,drinking our beer and eating dinner in the streets.

Today we started early before it got too hot and biked a circuit that would take us along the north Rhone du Rhin canal to See one of the battlements of the maginot line.

This French family on their old Dutch sailing barge wanted to talk rugby. I'm getting sick of defending Richie McCaws parentage, so we moved on. Allez les blacks

Here we are . Maginot was the French minister of defense who designed this wall of fortress's right along the border with Germany from Switzerland to Belgium. ( Belgium had declared themselves neutral after WW1)

  It was really well done and should have done the job well, with all those guns pointing at their old enemy.

 However, Adolf didn't play fair and he raced over Belgium and came and knocked on the back door.

"excuse me Monsieur ,but the back door was open so we let ourselves in"

  The rest as you know , is history.

  We left here and crossed the Rhine at one of the 10 power stations along it on this stretch, into Germany.

  Not as shady on this side but very pleasant biking. 

 Just about at Old Brisach when biking towards us we came across those two Kiwi cyclists we'd met up on the Danube. Bob and Bretta !

   talk about a small world. They were on their way back to Amsterdam from where they were to fly home.

By the way ! In answer to some of the cheeky comments about how we seem to always have on the same clothes ?

 You're right! But we wash our own clothes each night , and when you travel for several months with only a 'carry on bag' !!!!!!    Cheeky buggars.

  See what a hard day it's been for my wife

Cite' de L'Automobile

When we biked through Mulhouse ,we could have visited this world famous museum then. However this is a place worthy of  at least half a day so today was it !

   It covers a whole city block and houses over 400 of the worlds most valuable cars including a Bugatti Royale estimated to be worth over 25 million NZ. 

Every one of the cars here is in perfect working order and for the petrol heads, there's a lot of the motors on display.

  They still make Bugatti's near here including this 400 km/h model. 

You carry an audio guide which was really helpful. I must admit though that after a few hours it was a bit overwhelming

  Renault and Citroen are also made right here in Mulhouse.

  Out on the Autodrome, the special event center ,there was a WW2 memorabilia day. 

  If you're ever in this part of France it's really worth going to see.

  It's been damned hot in the afternoons and all we want now is a motor camp with a swimming pool !

Pfetterhouse and Km 0

We've seen a fair bit of the Belgium end of the western front because that's the end our boys fought at. And we all know that it ended at the other end ,at the Swiss border, but exactly where and how ?

  I can see you nodding and saying

  " yes, always wondered that myself"

 Well, wonder no more ,it's just east of Basel at a place called Pfetterhouse.

 I was told to go to the Mairie and ask for Andre Dubail, the chairman of a group called 'Les Amis du km zero ' very obliging chap and he explained that their group have been cleaning up the old pill boxes and making a little tourist walk around 'km zero' as it was named during the war.(I'm fairly certain that's what he said. He may have been saying his potatoes have got blight )

  A strip of Switzerland , several hundred meters wide sticks out into France at this point ( actually it was part of Germany at the time) . It was fenced off with barbed wire ,and a Swiss pillbox and a few Swiss soldiers were all it took. "Ze vestern front finishes ere !"

  The Germans could however, fire over the top of this bit of Switzerland at the French positions ,and did so, until some landed short. The saying 'caught short', came from those poor Swissy's. 

  It's such an interesting area and so unspoiled by tourism. The trees growing up through the concrete give it a sad and  somewhat spooky atmosphere.

Christines holding onto a border post with 1760 chiseled into it. Not that one, that's a flag, this one !

Its too late in the day to move on so we're camping the night on what was 'no mans land' That forest in the background  hides the German pillboxes . We had to search but we found about 11