We had established yesterday that 8.30am was a good time for breakfast because our host has to deliver children to school. It was the usual French breakfast with fresh baguette and nice jam. It had rained overnight and was still drizzly but we hoped the gentle wind would help the weather clear. We sorted out things on the computer and left at 10am for Colmar. Colmar is about 30 minutes away but we went the (very) slow way.

The drive took us through a series of villages with historic houses, window boxes and wine cellars . We think there were slightly fewer window boxes as some places still seem closed up but otherwise it was as attractive as we remembered it from 8 years ago. We went a bit further into a couple of the villages and the roads were incredibly narrow. Most of these roads do have a 30 k speed limit but as soon as you get out of the town it is up to 100. The roads are also shared by farm vehicles.

We stopped for a picnic lunch in the slight drizzle and found a cache nearby, one of only 2 for the day. We did try another but the clue in French didn't help us enough although we did work out it was in the middle of something (les Coeur).

We took nearly 5 hours to get to Colmar. It was a bit disappointing. The information centre was advertising 'wifi’ (wireless internet) but it didn’t have it and the internet café provided it’s own computers so we couldn’t download our blog from our own machine. We considered doing the town tourist train but luckily we didn’t because when we walked part of the route all the main buildings appeared to be closed. We left feeling pleased we had found the place in Mittelbergheim rather than staying in Colmar.

We stopped in one town because at the top of the city wall there was a stork’s nest and I had seen a stork in it on the way south. There was no bird on our return but we walked over to find the wall was a war memorial for the US 3rd division and that the town looked new because it had been largely destroyed in the war . The fighting near ‘the Colmar pocket’ was particularly brutal. As is often the way there were a number of repeated surnames killed (literally brothers in arms) and also the names of some civilians.

To date we have found people very helpful when we have stumbled though our limited vocabulary in other languages. However we stopped for coffee and somehow our request for coffee au lait was greeted with scorn and the comment that they only had coffee. We found another place and bought soft drinks….

In spite of that we had a lovely day, doing nothing in particular and just admiring the historic villages.

After yesterday we have realised it is no good looking for a place for dinner at 6pm as they all seem totally shut and seem to open about 7pm. So we went back to the Chambres (BnB) and had a break before venturing out again.

8 years ago we ate in the local hotel so we walked down there again. It is now the Quelle Horror (sp) – (a name change) and was now in the Michelin Guide. So we had the Menu de Terriore (local specialties) as it was the cheapest, easiest to understand (we thought) and should be fine as it was the local specialties. We had onion tart with salad (I had worked that out), pork or ham hock with cabbage (I was expecting chicken) and the dessert of the day which was Crème Brulee. The ham was a bit salty for my taste but it was an experience. We had excellent service but not a word of English was spoken by anyone but us. Mind you as there were 4 customers and we were 2 of them it would have been hard to do poor service. There were 2 waiting staff and we presume a chef so not a lot of money would have been made tonight. High season we think starts in July. (The waitress reminded me of a 16-17 year old Jennifer Gillin – JB)

As we walked back up the hill it started to rain but the temperature was so refreshing. Now it is teaming so it was a good time to return.