We recently spent a week in the Vosges Mountains of France. The mountains are about and hour and a half south of Strasbourg. We stayed with a French army officer and his family at the mountain lodge that they take care of each summer. (They are the care-takers in exchange for free lodging.) The lodge is in the Munster Valley...famous for it's Munster Cheese.
The first night there, we hiked up to the summit of Le Petit Ballon to watch the sunset.
The prayer flags at the summit originate from a Tibeten tradition. The wind carries the prayers from the prayer flags.
Our first big hike was across the crest of the Mountain range. The views were amazing and we stopped several times to collect blueberries. Everyone there makes their own jam and buys their milk directly from the farmer. So when you eat your cereal, you know the milk is good, not because it was in a refrigerator the night before, but in a cow.
At the end of the hike their was a little mountain inn that served blueberry pie. It was a nice treat after a day of hiking.
Of course what would a mountain trip be without a village festival? (These festivals are called "Fete de ville" and each village has one each year. The purpose is to gather together and celebrate the village. The village where we were staying has just over 600 residents and I think they all either participated or attended. So, when we realized this annual event was happening during our stay, we knew we had to go. We wanted to see if the village festivals in the Vosges compared to the one we went to in the Alps. (Remember the hunch punch and the Russian acrobat skits? ) This one was a little more tame, a little less weird, and just as much fun. The excited started when we looked outside of the lodge and noticed that the parade was starting at our front door. So, to kick of the evening, we had a chance to hear an Alsatian Alpine Horn group perform.
The town had the traditional four float parade followed by some great beer and Whit's favorite, Cremant. Cremant is similar to champagne but made in the Alsace region in which we live. One of the parade floats had a guy passing out cremant to the parade goers.
After the parade, everyone heads over to the small park for food, drinks, and dancing. They even have one of the big blow up slides for the kids. Everyone is really friendly and it is fun meeting some of the villagers. I especially enjoyed meeting this gentleman, someone from the Shire I think.
He creates these yard decorations using only a chainsaw and is extremely proud of his work.
We wanted to take advantage of the hiking so we chose a 18km hike around the valley one day. The trail guide called it "quite difficult" but we felt up to the challenge so we left early in the morning and started the first section of the hike which involves climbing to one of the highest points in the Vosges. Le Hoehneck is the name of the summit and we even managed to make it without using supplemental oxygen. Here are a few pics of the climb.
The next two pics are from the top. Notice Whit is wearing more clothes than in the earlier pics? It was freezing up there. We couldn't believe it was August.
Luckily we weren't in the back-country and there was an inn at the summit. So, we took a minute to check the map and have a much needed coffee.
The rest of the hike took us past two small lakes:
We were keeping an eye out for berries all day, as we knew the family we were staying with would love to have some fresh jam the next day. Lucky for us, we found a ton of raspberries. We picked for an hour and gathered enough for a large jar of jam, which Whit and I learned to make later that afternoon. Delicious.
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