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.