France

As some of you may know my plan to go to Bordeaux didn't work out, but I made it to France nevertheless. The main reason for my not going to south-west France was lack of time as well as the looming possibility of having to go to Stockholm again before eventually moving there.

As I'm writing this I'm in Nancy in the north-east, in the Lorraine region not known, as far as I know, for anything in particular. But even though I've only been here a half a day it's safe to say that this place has lots of charme.

Let's go a few days back, though. On late Tuesday morning I left Kufstein and arrived in Bergheim (Alsace) in the afternoon, a postcard village along the route du vin, not one but several roads going from just south of Colmar to west of Strasbourg. To give myself (and my rusty French) a gentle start I had pre-booked a fairly expensive studio appartment in the heart of Bergheim. From there I explored beautiful Colmar and even managed to throw in this season's first golf round against the backdrop of Alsace's vineyards. For those of you who've seen the movie "Sideways" you'll know what I'm talking about. (Those of you who haven't seen it, do it).

I didn't choose Bergheim for its German-sounding name but rather becaused it provided a practical starting point for bike journeys along the route du vin. Alsace is mainly known for white wines and the Riesling grape is probably the most common as well as highly regarded. On average I'd say there's about 200-300 meters between each place offering degustation, ie wine tasting (sorry for the lack of an "accent" but for some strange reason I've managed to find a non-French keyboard). Actually, the place I stayed at had its own vineyards, or rather, several. Therefore I could consider myself invited for the tasting of 7-8 wines, even a red. A standard grape "repertoire" in Alsace includes Riesling, Muscat, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer as well as diffenrent blends such as Edelzwicker or just plain "cuvee". Ok, I won't rabbit on about wines all night. I'll post the names of the wines I've bought on my wine page, www.mywinepage.blogspot.com.

As mentioned earlier I'm in Nancy right now. I'll stay here the whole day tomorrow to check out various Art Noveau buildings and possibly a museum or two. If the weather's nice I'll probably spend much time sitting outside somewhere enjoying something to drink while watching French people pass by.

My initial plan for going to France (Bordeaux) was to learn French perhaps attending a French course there for a week or two. I'll not be attending any course but try to pick up words and phrases as I go and revise the all-important grammer before going to sleep. The fact that I'm doing this trip alone means that when I speak it'll have to be in French. But as the (at least here) much-loved Sartre once claimed, "hell is other people". I wouldn't go that far personally but he has a point of course. What I'm trying to say is that unless I want to be very lonely over the coming weeks I have to speak French and that was my initial goal, so there. However, to make this voyage even more worthwhile I've chipped in sightseeing, wines and golf. And I'm very much enjoying it so far.

I'll keep posting for the rest of the journey. Have fun reading.