Le Chateau du Haut-Barr

After the Menu Dégustation, as I was walking back to the hotel I stopped in at a little bar and had a couple of beers. The beers were from an Alsacien brewery named Licorne. They were pilsner style, and quite tasty. The bar was a neat little place. What I was most impressed with was the neighborhood type atmosphere. I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying, but it was clear that there were jokes going back and forth between the clientele and the workers. And everyone seemed to know each other. It kind of reminded me of the atmosphere on a good night at Flabby’s. I kind of miss that. But in order to be a regular anywhere, I guess you have to stick around for a while. “Pray for me Momma, I’m a Gypsy now.”

After I left the bar, I turned left to walk back to the hotel. I should have gone right. Of course, I didn’t realize this for several minutes and I got lost. It wasn’t a big deal because it’s not that big of a town. I turned around and found a sign for “Bus Parking”, and remembered that my truck was parked near the bus lot. So I followed the signs to the bus parking, and found my way back.

Now before you start accusing me of being drunk in a strange town … I got turned around on the same street the very next day (and I hadn’t had anything to drink). The problem in a strange town (especially a foreign strange town) is that you have very few landmarks. And the ones that you do have, you are not able to correlate to each other. i.e. you just don’t recognize where you are (or I didn’t anyway).

The next morning I went out to walk around Saverne for a while before heading up to the Chateau du Haut-Barr (it’s pronounced ho-bar and is the high point around here). I stumbled upon a flea market, and spent way too much time there. It was just like any flea market anywhere. People selling junk. Sure, there were probably some decent buys there, but I didn’t see anything that I needed. It was populated by the unwashed masses (literally), although they did have decent coffee there.



And that saying about French women not getting fat? Trust me, it’s just an old wives tale.

After the flea market, I walked up into Saverne’s pedestrian area and stopped at a bakery for a baguette. It was nice and warm, and as I walked I just started gnawing on it. Until I came to a small Moroccan Café, where I had to stop in for a merguez sandwich. Merguez is a thin spicy red sausage made from lamb. The sandwich was made of two pieces of the sausage, a little cheese, and French fries stuffed into a baguette. It was pretty tasty.

I left the town and drove up to le Chateau du Haut-Barr. This place is really nice, and has fantastic views. There are areas for hiking up around here and it would be a nice place to visit again. The Castle was a stronghold of the Bishops of Strasbourg at one point. From it you can look out over the Alsacien plain, and on a really clear day they say you can see the Cathedral in Strasbourg (about 30 km away).



It has some steps that rival the steepness of my old apartment at 6th and St Catherine in Louisville (although they are not as rickety).



And I loved the signs that basically said “be very careful”. In the US most of this would have been behind glass walls or chain link fence. I guess here a warning is enough.



There used to be a series of towers on the hilltops between Paris and Strasbourg that they used to communicate messages back and forth. I think I read something that said that they used lights to signal. This picture was taken from one of the towers and you can see at least two more in the distance. I guess it was l a lot like the old game of Post Office where a message is passed between a bunch of people. By the time it gets to the end it is something like “Pierre ate your mother’s goat”. I wonder how many wars were fought based on someone (or several someones) misinterpreting a message throughout this chain.

Anyway this is the restaurant with the foie gras that I was thinking about coming up to the day before. And I’m glad I didn’t because it would have been quite a hike.



All in all it was a good time. I just ordered this tent so I can cheaply stay at campgrounds around here. All I need is to get an air mattress and I’ll be set.



As always, there are more pics on my flickr page.