Colmar to Thun (France to Switzerland)

What can I say about today, except that it rained? And rained. And rained some more. And looking out the window, it's still raining.

Here's a photo from last night. The dog belongs to Maison Martin Jund, where we stayed. His name is Helios, he likes his tummy being scratched, chasing cats, and his master. He's a Swiss Shepherd.

We left our accommodation in Colmar in the rain, with our suitcases getting wet - not to mention us! The bus trip to the station was welcome - it meant we weren't out walking in the rain! It rained all the way to Basel, Switzerland, where we hopped off to get some Swiss francs, a Half Fare Card (which gives 50% discount on all trains in Switzerland) and train tickets to Thun (which were half price, given that we had our Half Fare Cards). The smoking here inside the station was particularly bad. We hopped on the train as quickly as we could - they aren't allowed to smoke on the trains, but it doesn't stop them standing in the train doorway, smoking away. We arrived in Thun to discover that - yes! it was still raining! Walking to our accommodation here (and getting wet), we were able to leave our luggage in our room (we arrived early) and go out walking - in the rain. Popped into the supermarket for a snacky lunch, which we ended up eating on the covered bridge, because every available undercover area in the main street was filled with smokers.

Then we hit the shops. At least it wasn't raining in the shops! We managed to find - at reasonable prices - a new pair of jeans and two long-sleeved knitted tops for Caelli, and a lightweight, almost rainproof coat - ostensibly for me, but Caelli will be wearing it. Now Phil gets his coat back (from Caelli) so he can be warm again, Caelli is warm, and hopefully my one jumper will be enough (with multiple tops underneath) to see me through the next week, where the expected top temp is around the 4 or 5 degree mark. They're expecting heavy snowfall in Murren tonight!

Back to our room, which was now ready for us. We walked in for the second time and all did a double take! The cloud had lifted a bit, and get a load of the view!

The room is quite large, and once again Caelli has an actual bed, for which she is very thankful.

The shared bathroom has a very large bath, a separate shower, a toilet and hand basin. Caelli and I plan to share a bath tonight.

We went out for tea to a Chinese restaurant, which was really nice, and ended up being reasonably priced, which is a big plus for Switzerland. Look at the view when we got back to our room at 8.30pm. Can you spot the mountains??

One final photo - House Martins resting on our fourth floor window ledge. There are heaps swooping low over the River Aare just outside our window.

Colmar

A lazy morning this morning.  Out for a walk around Colmar while the sun was shining.  Phil set off looking for the fire station, and I'll get him to write his part of the blog at the end.  Caelli and I wandered around town, looking at the fresh produce market and tasting bits and pieces: honey, caramelised nuts, sausages (Caelli declined these!)  This is where locals buy their week's fresh food.  Colmar is really pretty (I've said that before, haven't I?)

The storks were active on their nest on the cathedral, flying in and out.  Whenever the second stork lands on the nest beside the first, they both go through a greeting ritual of quite loud beak clacking, then they bend their necks backwards until their heads are on their backs with their beaks parallel with the ground, clacking all the while.  I saw this ritual a number of times.

Lunch back at the apartment, then we all set off to ride the barges through the canals of "La Petite Venise".  The barges are flat and low (VERY low) and have a small electric motor.  They travel slowly and silently, and when the water is still the reflections are wonderful.  We were the only ones on our barge (other than the driver).  They can hold 12 people.  There was one bridge where we all had to duck!  I really loved this trip.  Kirily - look closely at what Caelli's wearing.

After this we went back to the Cathedral.  When the sun shines from the right angle, there are some interesting effects.  Inside was quite dark.

After this, Phil and Caelli wandered through the shopping area while I caught a bus to the little village of Turckheim, which I was told held more storks on nests on buildings than the larger, more industrial Colmar. It was only 20 minutes from Colmar - almost like an outer suburb. I hopped off the bus, and the sundial tower that was the entrance to the village held...

I found six nests with storks on them, and there were some other birds flying around and landing on light fixtures.  This was the best shot I took.

I climbed a stairway up the hill behind Turckheim, which had some nice views over the countryside, as well as allowing me to see into some of the nests.  One reasonably close nest had two or three chicks as well as the adult bird.

Now it's time for Phil's Fire Report!

As usual, if I get a chance I'll try and find where the local Fire Station is located and so this morning I went to the Tourist Information Centre and asked where Colmar's was located. On this occasion I was told that it was off the end of the town map that I had, but to continue on the main road to Strasbourg and when I get to the very big roundabout the fire station will be on the left and sure enough after 25 minutes walking there it was. At the time I did not know that everything that I was looking at was the fire station complex. Just the fact that there were some fire vehicles, the training and hose drying tower and the sign out the front.

After taking the photo of the sign and going through the front entrance,  I went to a door on the side and it opened, so I walked in and no one was around but as I went to leave one of the officers, who was going between rooms, stopped to talk to me. When I told him who I was and were I was from and that I would like to take some photos of their vehicles he said he would take me up to meet the Chief. The Chief was not in his office but after a short call he was given the okay to show me around.

So first off to the station room where the trucks were kept and the look on my face would have been interesting. Remember my report on the fire station at Aosta; well, this is a purpose built reasonably new station which is nearly as big as Aostra. They had approximately 34 vehicles (several were already on the road plus 3 ambulance vehicles) plus some extras I will explain shortly. This is a dual station in that the fire and ambulance service is one. The firefighters are also paramedics. On their roster, one week they crew the pumper, next week the tanker, the following week the ladder/platform truck and the final week they are in the ambulance (which by the way is the same red colour as the fire trucks).

When I was being shown the station room I met the Chief of the station who arranged for me to be presented with two of the brigade's cloth badges. SDIS stands for Service Departmental Incendie Secours.

After seeing the vehicles we went upstairs to see their lecture room, kitchen and recreation area. From the hallway we could see the administration building where the head honcho of the SDIS fire service is located - the grey building on the left. Like our boss of CFA is located in Melbourne.

Also located here is their training centre, like what we have at Fiskville near Ballan for CFA, except they are restricted to a building for house fires and the tower for multi-storey training which they were just preparing for while I was there. They don't have the live petrol station or gas leak fires that we can duplicate at our training centre.

Remember I mentioned extra vehicles - well they belong to the training centre which included two pumpers, two tankers, the ladder/platform, and a couple of smaller command type vehicles. You can see these in the above photos. The station has 91 paid firefighters with 19 per shift.

This is an almost front view with the front of the white administration building on the left, the fire station building in the middle and the entry/exit for the fire vehicles on the right (just above the car).

This is the side view where the fire vehicles are housed in this modern architectural designed elongated dome/bubble.

Bacharach to Colmar (Germany to France)

Brekky was at 6.30am this morning as we had to catch a train at 7.30am.  Mmngf.  Which insomniac booked such early trains??  And in the rain!  It was a real transport mishmash, involving lots of Phil's least favourite activity - train hopping.  An hour from Bacharach to Mainz, wait 15 minutes, 45 minutes from Mainz to Mannheim, wait 15 minutes - woops - train is 20 minutes late, so wait 35 minutes. 15 minutes from Mannheim to Karlsruhe (on a high speed train), wait 40 minutes, 40 minutes from Karlsruhe to Appenweier, change platforms - this was the weirdest station any of us have come across.  Unmanned, tracks 1-4 are in a normal parallel pattern.  Our train left from platform 9, which was perhaps 300 metres away through rural countryside (or so it seemed).  Look at this sign - left arrow points to tracks 1-4, right arrow points to track 9.

Wait there in a minimalist bus shelter (in the rain) for 40 minutes, 25 minutes from Appenwieier to Strasbourg.  Pheasant count (Appenweier to Strasbourg): 6.  No pheasants on any other leg of today's journey.  Yeah - go figure.  The plan was to dump our cases in a locker in Strasbourg and have a quick look around.  Cases safely disposed of, we caught a tram to the Cathedrale de Notre Dame.  It's pink.  It's a really nice pink.  Doesn't show it properly in the photos, though.

Inside it had some lovely stained glass windows (which never photograph well), and some other nice bits and pieces.  The organ was interesting - lots of gilt, and in an unusual spot on the side of the main aisle.

There is also an astronomical clock which does some cool things each quarter hour (not unlike the one at Melbourne Central, but without musical accompaniment).

We wanted to go on a boat ride around the old city, but the next departure was too far off, so we headed back to the tram stop and stumbled across the Tourist Train.  Next departure in 15 minutes - enough time for a ride on the carousel.  Caelli is on the black horse on the upper deck, just above me.

Notice the carousel in this shot (ignore all the raindrops on the window).

Some pretty areas in Strasbourg.

Back to the station, quick ticket purchase (Caelli) and luggage retrieval (Phil and I) and we all managed to meet on the correct platform.  (I had to ask a station chap in French because Colmar wasn't coming up on the departure board.  I understood his answer until he tried to give me too much information!)  Final train for the day (our sixth) - 30 minutes from Strasbourg to Colmar.  This one went pretty fast, too!  It wasn't raining in Colmar when we got there, but...

We caught a bus to our accommodation here.  It's an apartment with a kitchen and bathroom, and Caelli gets an actual bed this time, not a fold-out sofa-bed.  It's a lovely big room which also contains a sofa, a table and three chairs and a wardrobe.

Once again we are on the top floor, but there's only two floors here!  Views of our balcony and from our balcony.

A quick trip to the supermarket to buy stuff to cook for tea, and then cook and eat (also, several cups of tea which we can make at will right now!  Much appreciated after a week without a kettle.)  After this, Phil and I went walking.  Colmar is a really pretty town.  I love it!

The Cathedrale de St Martin is also nice.  This one is yellow!  It has a colourfully tiled roof.  The later shots were taken when the late afternoon sun shone on it (yes, we actually got some sun after rain AALLLL day).

And on one corner of the roof is......

And on the nest is......

A big tick for me!!!!!!  And what I hoped we'd see in Colmar!  Aufgerecht!