WEEK
7~8 NEWS - LORRAINE - the Vosges Mountains, cities of Nancy and Metz
and the Moselle valley:
We had
travelled the Alsace Wine Road ending close to the Swiss border, and
our
camp at Cernay was the furthest point of this trip. It was now time to
begin the return journey across the length of Lorraine, following
the Moselle river from its source in the Vosges Mountains, ultimately to
its confluence with the Rhine at Koblenz. This was to be our route for
the trip's final 2 stages, covered by this and the next edition.
Click on highlighted area
for details of Lorraine
But first we had to cross
the Vosges mountain chain whose rain shadow protects the Alsace vine
slopes from the prevailing wet westerly winds. We should follow the
so-called Route des Crêtes (Crests), which literally traverses the
south~north spine of the mountains, passing close to the peaks of
the Vosges. Although not high mountains, the highest point Grand Ballon
being just 1,424m/4,672 feet, they form a spectacular landscape with
sweeping moor-land and forested valleys to the west, and eastwards
craggy terrain dropping precipitously into glacial cirques filled with
mountain lakes. In clear weather, there ought to be spectacular views
across the Rhine valley to the distant Black Forests hills and even the
Swiss Alps. This was to be our route across the best of the Vosges, and
high wild-camps would give us an even more intimate feel of the
mountains.
After 2
more days' delay with yet more persistent rain, we made a start from Cernay
despite an unpromising météo. The Route des Crêtes had originally been
constructed by the French military during WW1 to supply munitions to the
front line where the Western Front ran down to the Swiss border. The
strategic
heights
of Vosges were fought over bitterly, settling to a static line of trench
warfare along the Vosges crest. It seemed that this trip, we were doomed
not to escape the horrors of WW1. The road gained height via dramatic
hair-pins, reaching the French National Necropolis Memorial near the
summit of Vieil Armand (Hautmannswillerkopf in Alsatian). Some 60,000
were killed fighting for possession of the mountain top between 1914~18.
Way-marked paths lead up the tree-covered heights which, even
today, are still zigzagged with a bewildering maze of trenches,
dugouts, reinforced concrete gun emplacements and rusty barbed wire (see
right). The 2 sets of front-line trenches were in places just 20m apart
- just a grenade's throw across no-man's-land. We climbed up to the
memorials at the summit, and although it was difficult to picture this
same landscape with its natural woodland stripped and shattered by
shell-fire, the trench systems were exactly as abandoned in 1918. In the
swirling cloud and misty drizzle, it was a chillingly realistic memorial
to the men who had fought and died here.
We continued
northwards along the Route des Crêtes for our first night's wild-camp
close to the summit of Grand Ballon. It was an exposed position for a
high camp, but we battened down and brewed tea. Cloud drifted around the
summit area, and despite occasional breaks in the cloud, distant views
were frustratingly limited. Dusk fell early, the sky cleared to give a
starry night, and the Route des Crêtes lived up to its name: the road
truly did pass along the crest-line, and way below us to the south, east
and west, we could see the twinkling lights of towns and villages in all
the surrounding valleys. We settled in for a cold night at 4,500 feet.
The following morning, we woke to misty cloud filling the valleys below
us; the sun was losing the battle to break through. We kitted up to
climb Grand Ballon but cloud persistently swirled around; it was
spectacular, but the glorious distant views again failed to appear (Photo
1).
The next
12 kms of the Route were the most impressive, the road seeming to
crest a narrow arête and the terrain falling away on both sides into deep
forest-covered valleys. Beyond the Col de la Schlucht, the road passed
through beech and birch woods, glorious with autumn colours; the land
opened up and a flat parking area offered the perfect spot for our 2nd
night's high camp. Temperatures fell rapidly again with dusk, but the
sunset and clear sky promised us a better day tomorrow. The nearby beech
woods were carpeted with bilberry bushes; despite being beyond their
seasonal best, here was breakfast. But a warning sign
quoted Prefectorial Decree No 1322/97 - I kid you not - which limited
the picking of bilberries to 3 litres per person per day. Were the
bilberries in such need
of regulation, we wondered, or was French society so intensely
over-administered? We suspected the latter, but enjoyed our bilberries
all the same! A clear sun eventually topped the tree-covered slope above
us, and the air warmed; it was at last going to be a good day for our
mountain walk. We crossed moor-land, carpeted with bilberry and ling and
dotted with wild raspberries and yellow gentians, to reach a ridge path
onto the intermediate summit of le Tanet (Photo 2). Here at last
we got the promised distant views even though hazy. Across deep cirques,
the lower slopes of distant hills were densely tree-covered, but the
higher plateau-tops opened out with Alpine meadows grazed by horses and
cattle. Along the Route, we passed a number of such characteristically Vosges
chaumes
(upland summer pastures) (Photo 3). We descended through pine
woods to a delightful mountain lake; the sun silhouetting the pines and
sparkling on the lake way down below us was one of the trip's highlights (Photo
4). But the price to pay was the long haul back up to the ridge to
retrace our steps to where we had camped, to complete our traverse of
the higher mountains.
Dropping
down from the Vosges into the upper Meuse valley, we camped that night in
the foothills by Lake Longemer near to Gerardmer. And the following morning, with the
early sun streaking across the mist-covered lake, we could look up towards the high Vosges skyline where we had been 24
hours earlier (Photo 5). We had now crossed into Lorraine, and
now began the more lowland journey across the region. The remainder of
the trip would broadly follow the line of the Moselle river which rises
in the Vosges, and flows northwards through Lorraine, on into Germany to
merge with the Rhine at Koblenz.
Our camp
that night was at the small town of Neufchateau. Some places seem to go
out of their way to make life difficult for visitors; others work hard
to make you feel welcome, and Neufchateau was one of the latter. There was
nothing startling about the town; it was not even mentioned in Rough
Guide, but the Office de
Tourisme could not have been more helpful, providing us with a town plan
and directing us to an internet café to upload our latest web edition.
Similarly the local municipal campsite, although due to close at
end-Sept was most welcoming. Next morning our continued progression
through Lorraine brought us to Domrémy-la-Pucelle, the birthplace of
Joan of Arc. It was here that in the 1420s, at the height of the 100
Years War, she heard her 'voices' bidding her to lead the
Dauphin's forces in the struggle to free France from the English
occupiers. Born in 1412 in a sturdy cottage (see left), and
baptised in the straightforward little village church of St Rémy (the
font is still there), she lived but 19 years, being executed in 1431
after her brief but successful campaign leading to the Dauphin's
coronation as Charles VII at Reims Cathedral in 1429. Whatever the truth
behind all the later legends surrounding Joan of Arc's life, the sense
of standing here at the birthplace of the simple peasant girl who shaped
the destiny of France was positively awe-inspiring. And close to the
village, we paused to photograph this quintessentially French rural
setting with its avenue of roadside trees (Photo 6).
While travelling on French autoroutes, have you ever seen signs to Metz-Nancy
somewhere in the eastern unknown of the country, and wondered where they
were? Our final 10 days in Lorraine were to take us there to find out.
Despite continuing dismally wet weather, we based ourselves at le Brabois on the heights above Nancy to explore Lorraine's 2 principal
cities. The name of Lorraine derives from the Lotharii regnum - the
Kingdom of Lothar, one of Charlemagne's 3 grandsons among whom the
Empire had been divided. The subsequent powerful Dukes of Lorraine adopted the
2-barred Cross of Lorraine as their heraldic emblem of their independent
status, a historical symbolism invoked by de Gaulle's Free French in
1940. Nancy developed as the capital city of the Dukes of Lorraine. In
the mid-18th century, the last of the Dukes, the deposed King of Poland
Stanislas Leszczynski, acquired the title as a gift from his son in law
Louis XV of France, on condition that on his death, Lorraine would be
incorporated into the French kingdom. During his 20 years of office,
Stanislas embellished the city with the most ordered of 18th century
urban cityscapes, including the magnificent square which now bears his
name. Stanislas Square must be one of Europe's most delightfully
charming urban spaces, surrounded by elegant neo-Classical buildings,
and in the centre, the portly statue of Stanislas himself presides over
all. The Square is enclosed by triumphalist gilded wrought iron gates
(see right), and the balconies of the Hôtel de Ville gave a wonderful
panorama across the Square, creating an almost Lowry-like scene of Sunday
afternoon strollers in the Square (Photo 7). We spent a rewarding day admiring
Nancy's attractions, including its many Art Nouveau buildings. The most
memorable visit was to the Musée de l'École de Nancy. Housed in an
opulent turn of 20th century town house, the collection presents the
works of the Art Nouveau movement of decorative arts which flourished in
Nancy between 1875 and 1914, led by Emile Gallé. The École de Nancy
brought together the works of various craftsmen - carved and inlaid
furniture, decorative leather book-binding, glass-work and ceramics. Art
Nouveau may not be to everyone's taste, but the collection could not
fail to impress; if you visit Nancy, be sure to include the Musée de l'École
de Nancy in your programme.
Just
beyond Nancy, the Moselle merges with its tributary the Meuthe to flow
northwards to Metz where we
travelled by train. But this stretch of the Moselle valley is not the
scenic route one might have imagined, passing derelict factories, coal
dumps, power stations and steel-works; and the gloomy wet weather made
the surroundings even more dismal. Metz had been a prosperous trading
city since Gallo-Roman times, and remained
independent until adsorbed into the French kingdom in 1552. It was here
that the French surrendered after ignominious defeat by the Prussians in
1870, ceding control of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. The city's
architecture reveals this history: the original French quarter clusters
around
the Cathedral on the hilltop and along the banks of the Moselle
which flows through the city. In contrast, the Ville Allemande,
epitomised by the monstrously Teutonic railway station built by the
Germans in 1905, reflects the post-1870 German determination to impose
their perverted sense of order and superiority on the city, and to use
the strategic value of the rail network for military transport to
suppress France. But 1918 brought Metz back under French control. On a
very wet day, we visited Metz, where the views from the florally
decorated bridges across the Moselle up to the Cathedral were glorious
even in poor light (Photo 8). The Gothic Cathedral is even more
spectacular,
towering upwards above the surrounding buildings. After
Amiens and Beauvais, it has the tallest nave in France, lit by superb
medieval lofty stained-glass windows and more modern ones by Chagall.
But the pouring rain defeated us; we were getting a soaking despite our
waterproofs, as we plodged around the city.
We have spent a few days in northern Lorraine, visiting the town of Thionville, once centre of the Lorraine
iron and steel industry. The blast-furnaces remain, but all of the
iron-ore mines have closed; 2 are preserved as museums. As in other
parts of Europe, it was thrilling to walk the tunnels and former
workings guided by a former miner. But rain and gloomy weather continue
to predominate. Right from the start, this trip has been
be-devilled by
consistently wet weather; mud and wet clothes have been constant
companions, perhaps fitting when more time than planned has been devoted
to WW1. As we reach northern Lorraine, continuous rain falling in the Vosges has swollen the river Moselle which is now running some 8 feet
higher than normal levels, flooding its valley and closing roads.
Standing on its banks watching the hurtling pace of the angrily engorged
river washing tree trunks downstream is frightening. We shall shortly be
moving on, following the swollen Moselle as it flows into Germany,
changing its name to Mosel, for the final stage of this trip.
Sheila
and Paul
Published: Thursday 12 October 2006
We had
travelled the Alsace Wine Road ending close to the Swiss border, and
our
camp at Cernay was the furthest point of this trip. It was now time to
begin the return journey across the length of Lorraine, following
the Moselle river from its source in the Vosges Mountains, ultimately to
its confluence with the Rhine at Koblenz. This was to be our route for
the trip's final 2 stages, covered by this and the next edition.
heights
of Vosges were fought over bitterly, settling to a static line of trench
warfare along the Vosges crest. It seemed that this trip, we were doomed
not to escape the horrors of WW1. The road gained height via dramatic
hair-pins, reaching the French National Necropolis Memorial near the
summit of Vieil Armand (Hautmannswillerkopf in Alsatian). Some 60,000
were killed fighting for possession of the mountain top between 1914~18.
Way-marked paths lead up the tree-covered heights which, even
today, are still zigzagged with a bewildering maze of trenches,
dugouts, reinforced concrete gun emplacements and rusty barbed wire (see
right). The 2 sets of front-line trenches were in places just 20m apart
- just a grenade's throw across no-man's-land. We climbed up to the
memorials at the summit, and although it was difficult to picture this
same landscape with its natural woodland stripped and shattered by
shell-fire, the trench systems were exactly as abandoned in 1918. In the
swirling cloud and misty drizzle, it was a chillingly realistic memorial
to the men who had fought and died here.
The next
12 kms of the Route were the most impressive, the road seeming to
crest a narrow arête and the terrain falling away on both sides into deep
forest-covered valleys. Beyond the Col de la Schlucht, the road passed
through beech and birch woods, glorious with autumn colours; the land
opened up and a flat parking area offered the perfect spot for our 2nd
night's high camp. Temperatures fell rapidly again with dusk, but the
sunset and clear sky promised us a better day tomorrow. The nearby beech
woods were carpeted with bilberry bushes; despite being beyond their
seasonal best, here was breakfast. But a warning sign
quoted Prefectorial Decree No 1322/97 - I kid you not - which limited
the picking of bilberries to 3 litres per person per day. Were the
bilberries in such need
of regulation, we wondered, or was French society so intensely
over-administered? We suspected the latter, but enjoyed our bilberries
all the same! A clear sun eventually topped the tree-covered slope above
us, and the air warmed; it was at last going to be a good day for our
mountain walk. We crossed moor-land, carpeted with bilberry and ling and
dotted with wild raspberries and yellow gentians, to reach a ridge path
onto the intermediate summit of le Tanet (Photo 2). Here at last
we got the promised distant views even though hazy. Across deep cirques,
the lower slopes of distant hills were densely tree-covered, but the
higher plateau-tops opened out with Alpine meadows grazed by horses and
cattle. Along the Route, we passed a number of such characteristically Vosges
chaumes
(upland summer pastures) (Photo 3). We descended through pine
woods to a delightful mountain lake; the sun silhouetting the pines and
sparkling on the lake way down below us was one of the trip's highlights (Photo
4). But the price to pay was the long haul back up to the ridge to
retrace our steps to where we had camped, to complete our traverse of
the higher mountains.
Our camp
that night was at the small town of Neufchateau. Some places seem to go
out of their way to make life difficult for visitors; others work hard
to make you feel welcome, and Neufchateau was one of the latter. There was
nothing startling about the town; it was not even mentioned in Rough
Guide, but the Office de
Tourisme could not have been more helpful, providing us with a town plan
and directing us to an internet café to upload our latest web edition.
Similarly the local municipal campsite, although due to close at
end-Sept was most welcoming. Next morning our continued progression
through Lorraine brought us to Domrémy-la-Pucelle, the birthplace of
Joan of Arc. It was here that in the 1420s, at the height of the 100
Years War, she heard her 'voices' bidding her to lead the
Dauphin's forces in the struggle to free France from the English
occupiers. Born in 1412 in a sturdy cottage (see left), and
baptised in the straightforward little village church of St Rémy (the
font is still there), she lived but 19 years, being executed in 1431
after her brief but successful campaign leading to the Dauphin's
coronation as Charles VII at Reims Cathedral in 1429. Whatever the truth
behind all the later legends surrounding Joan of Arc's life, the sense
of standing here at the birthplace of the simple peasant girl who shaped
the destiny of France was positively awe-inspiring. And close to the
village, we paused to photograph this quintessentially French rural
setting with its avenue of roadside trees (Photo 6).
While travelling on French autoroutes, have you ever seen signs to Metz-Nancy
somewhere in the eastern unknown of the country, and wondered where they
were? Our final 10 days in Lorraine were to take us there to find out.
Despite continuing dismally wet weather, we based ourselves at le Brabois on the heights above Nancy to explore Lorraine's 2 principal
cities. The name of Lorraine derives from the Lotharii regnum - the
Kingdom of Lothar, one of Charlemagne's 3 grandsons among whom the
Empire had been divided. The subsequent powerful Dukes of Lorraine adopted the
2-barred Cross of Lorraine as their heraldic emblem of their independent
status, a historical symbolism invoked by de Gaulle's Free French in
1940. Nancy developed as the capital city of the Dukes of Lorraine. In
the mid-18th century, the last of the Dukes, the deposed King of Poland
Stanislas Leszczynski, acquired the title as a gift from his son in law
Louis XV of France, on condition that on his death, Lorraine would be
incorporated into the French kingdom. During his 20 years of office,
Stanislas embellished the city with the most ordered of 18th century
urban cityscapes, including the magnificent square which now bears his
name.
Stanislas Square must be one of Europe's most delightfully
charming urban spaces, surrounded by elegant neo-Classical buildings,
and in the centre, the portly statue of Stanislas himself presides over
all. The Square is enclosed by triumphalist gilded wrought iron gates
(see right), and the balconies of the Hôtel de Ville gave a wonderful
panorama across the Square, creating an almost Lowry-like scene of Sunday
afternoon strollers in the Square (Photo 7). We spent a rewarding day admiring
Nancy's attractions, including its many Art Nouveau buildings. The most
memorable visit was to the Musée de l'École de Nancy. Housed in an
opulent turn of 20th century town house, the collection presents the
works of the Art Nouveau movement of decorative arts which flourished in
Nancy between 1875 and 1914, led by Emile Gallé. The École de Nancy
brought together the works of various craftsmen - carved and inlaid
furniture, decorative leather book-binding, glass-work and ceramics. Art
Nouveau may not be to everyone's taste, but the collection could not
fail to impress; if you visit Nancy, be sure to include the Musée de l'École
de Nancy in your programme.
Just
beyond Nancy, the Moselle merges with its tributary the Meuthe to flow
northwards to Metz where we
travelled by train. But this stretch of the Moselle valley is not the
scenic route one might have imagined, passing derelict factories, coal
dumps, power stations and steel-works; and the gloomy wet weather made
the surroundings even more dismal. Metz had been a prosperous trading
city since Gallo-Roman times, and remained
independent until adsorbed into the French kingdom in 1552. It was here
that the French surrendered after ignominious defeat by the Prussians in
1870, ceding control of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. The city's
architecture reveals this history: the original French quarter clusters
around
the Cathedral on the hilltop and along the banks of the Moselle
which flows through the city. In contrast, the Ville Allemande,
epitomised by the monstrously Teutonic railway station built by the
Germans in 1905, reflects the post-1870 German determination to impose
their perverted sense of order and superiority on the city, and to use
the strategic value of the rail network for military transport to
suppress France. But 1918 brought Metz back under French control. On a
very wet day, we visited Metz, where the views from the florally
decorated bridges across the Moselle up to the Cathedral were glorious
even in poor light (Photo 8). The Gothic Cathedral is even more
spectacular,
towering upwards above the surrounding buildings. After
Amiens and Beauvais, it has the tallest nave in France, lit by superb
medieval lofty stained-glass windows and more modern ones by Chagall.
But the pouring rain defeated us; we were getting a soaking despite our
waterproofs, as we plodged around the city.
