Sunday 14 July 2024 – Bastille Day

We walked into the old town looking for a breakfast spot and the force was with us, as we found a delightful, canal side café for a petit-déjeuner. Flashy upgraded his order to include cheese and meats, which disappeared with half the baguette into the back pack for later. Prior preparation and all… It was a delightful breakfast by the canal and all the flowers.

Our plan was to then wander aimlessly through the old town, stop for a beverage; find a park for our baguette roll; a shop for bottle of gin (as we ran out last night, sacre bleu!); think about a venue for a late lunch or an early dinner; and generally soak up the ambience of Colmar on a beautiful summer’s day. We managed to do all of this, among a large crowd of tourists.

Shabbily dressed, lots of tats on display, generally casual strolling about like any city almost anywhere. No flags. No bands. No uniforms. No national anthem. Bastille Day? What’s Bastille Day? We walked back home for a nap.

Colmar is famous for many things and of interest to Flashy is the memorial to SGT Audie Murphy, US Army, that is in Colmar.

Audie Murphy, a Texan, was an American soldier, actor, and songwriter. He was widely celebrated as the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II and has been described as the most highly decorated soldier in U.S. history. He received every military combat award for valour available from the United States Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. Murphy received the Medal of Honor for valour that he demonstrated at age 19 for single-handedly holding off a company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, before leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition.

After a nap, we went into town looking for a simple dinner. Planning dictated that something close to our castle, in the professional neighbourhood (doctors and architects), would be better than the touristy area of the old town. We got the last table for two at a little canal side restaurant, where, in remembrance of the Major, Flashy ordered the pig knuckle mit sauerkraut. Lady P had the mixed sausages and pork and we ordered a bottle of the local Pinot Noir. A fitting end to our Colmar sojourn.

Monday 15 July 2024

A 7.00 am departure for the 884 km return road trip to Les Petites Rivieres started. This was successfully completed over 11 hours, in 1.5-to-2.0-hour legs, with breakfast in the old part of Besancon the highlight of the trip. Besancon is the town that the mini series un village francais (A French Village) is based on. Set in 1940 with the Nazi occupation, it was a fantastic series which we watched in 2023.

The rest of the trip was interspersed with fuel and coffee stops and an ice cream as a reward on the last stop. Generally speaking, the French ‘A’ Roads have really good fuel and food stops, with groceries, take away, dine in, playgrounds, clean toilets etc, every 20 kms, so it’s easy to plan rotating drivers and comfort stops.

Home to very long lawns and thankfully, no power outages. A well deserved gin and tonic and a fresh, delicious roadhouse salad bowl for dinner and we made it to 9.00 pm.

Swans on the canal. Not on the menu