Day 78: Freiburg to Ile du Rhin

July 16, 2014

We cycled back in to Freiburg for a last look at the Munster and to check out any and all cuckoo clocks. As we had read in our guidebook, there was a market going on in the munster platz. This was not a farmer's market, but it had many stalls with good food. There were also high quality crafts, such as cutting boards, spoons, and other articles made from olive wood, and wooden toys.

The Rick Steves book had mentioned the long red bratwurst, and indeed there were several stalls cooking these up. I asked one proprietor if I coud take a picture, since "they are famous", and he replied "yes, famous around the world".

We bought some cherries and of course mohn buns, for later, but having just come from breakfast could not try the wurst.

Back in the entranceway of the munster, we parked and locked our bikes. A teacher had a class of about 30 there, and he was holding forth at length about the myriad figures that adorn the arches over the entrance. I wondered how he had gathered enough information to talk at such length, and I wondered what the analytic content of his lesson might be. The students, meanwhile, dutifully copied it all down on their clipboards.

We were back in this section not only to use it as a parking lot, but to have another crack at a photo of the praying devil, under the central Christ figure. Inside, we wanted to see the stained glass windows again that had been sponsored by the craft guilds. The bakers' one, of course, was the main target. Hermann must have pointed to it yesterday, but I missed it. The Munster was still interesting, still huge, but without Hermann's enthusiasm, it lacked something today.

Still, I did get a shot of the bakers' window, and other parts of the windows. I think these could make really nice enlargements, to put on a wall at home. Someone was playing the organ as we walked around. Frankly, it sounded mostly like noise. We will have to attend a bone fide organ concert to see if church organ music can really be mind bending or inspiring.

The main store that sells cuckoo clocks in town is mostly a souvenir shop. Their clock selection is very limited, and had I been counting on Freiburg as cuckoo clock central, there would have been tears (followed by a bus ride to a real store somewhere). As it was, it was just curiosity. What we saw was half quartz movements - which are not worth considering for a moment, and half clocks that were either too large and costly, or too small (and still costly for their size). The other store selling cuckoo clocks was closed, so that was it for Freiburg cuckoo clocks. Dodie was relieved. She had steeled herself for a day of being dragged around to clock stores.

So with that, we closed our Black Forest chapter and made to head off west toward Colmar, in France, and down the Rhine on the French side. But, not so fast. First we had to find the way our of Freiburg. We started with the compass, and headed west. Soon we picked up cycle direction signs for towns that were on our way, and so we fairly efficiently zigg zagged our way to the border.

The border in this case is the town of Breisach. Breisach features a hill behind it with a large munster, St Stephans (plus several other monasteries and cloisters) on it. We could see St Stephans from quite a distance, and not having done our homework, did not at first know if it was a castle, a church, a fort, etc.

Once in town, we picked up the guide pamphlet from tourist information. This suggested three possible tours around town: the Lower City, the Munsterberg, and the Fortifications. All together, there were 34 things to see! We started with the fountain in front of the Tourist Information (not strictly on the tour!) where we soaked our arms in the cold water, Kneipp style.The markt platz, where this was happening was alive with cyclists. The reason is that this town is on the Rhine, and therefore it is on the Rhine Radweg.

We set out on the "lower city tour" and quickly found out two things: Half the sights listed refer to things that used to be there, but disappeared, between 1525 and 1945 And then we saw that. the other half of the "lower city" is a hill, that gives a good view of the "upper city", which is on the bigger hill.

At the top of the lower hill there is a flag pole and light. The flag is the flag of the EU, and the emplacement commemorates the fact that in 1950 the city held a vote that called for the creation of what became the EU. This was the first European city to get on board.

Reading a little deeper into the descriptions of the buildings and gates around, we found that most are reconstructions. This is because on November 27, 1944 85 percent of the city was destroyed in 20 minutes by an allied attack. That means the venerable structures made it to within 6 months of the end. If people had had any sense they would have seen the end, and quit early. But of course, there was no sense to any of this. What a pity.

We pushed the bikes up the cobbles to the munsterberg. St Stephans is very plain, as munsters go, but it does have one good story. In 1162 Emperor Frederick Barbarosa conquered and sacked the town of Milan, Italy. His archchancellor was archbishop of Cologne, and he took the opportunity of ripping off Milan's greatest religious treasures, being the bones of the Magi, plus those of the two patron saints of the town: Gervasius and Protasius. He was shipping all this booty to Cologne, and stopped off at Breisach. The people here asked for the bones of one saint to be left, and he agreed. But then his ship (in some way) refused to leave the dock. They swapped saints, but the result was the same. So it was clear the saints could not be split up (they were twins), and both were installed here. At first they inhabited wooden boxes, but in 1496 they got a new silver one (which it seems they are sharing). The silver reliquary is the focal point of the St Stephan's munster.The Magi ended up in Cologne as planned.

We descended from the high hill without checking out the other places - there is a limit to this kind of thing, even for the Grampies!

Now we headed over the Rhine bridge and into France. oops, not so fast! There was one last German bakery, right on the border. I went in and told the lady I would be getting three things - but what is this one? and what is that one? Ok, please give me this, and this, and this. How much? 4 euros 10. Ok, here is 5. Lady says: have a good evening, and I say "thank you, see you later". So what? So it was all in German! Well now, I have to remember how to speak French!

The need to speak French came quickly, as we dropped off the bridge onto an island in the Rhine that has a camping on it. Aside from language, we can easily tell we are in France: no toilet paper!

Hopefully this fellow was just a student. The organsounded like mostly noise.

The teacher holds forth in the munster entry way

Measures of the correct size of bread, scratched on the munster wall. The small one represents inflation.

Long rows of thornless blackberries overhung the path in one spot. We felt obligated to check them out.

The original image of the building in the next photo

On the bridge we ran into a swiss couple, also with goofy little bikes. Theirs, though, were Birdys, with 18 inch wheels

Today's ride: 38 km (24 miles)
Total: 3,873 km (2,405 miles)

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