Pope vs Antipope: Mecha-pope's revenge!

_{The Palace of the Pope's in Avignon}

Back to Provence…

The big attraction for me in Provence was the city of Avignon. Back in the day (1300s) Avignon was Pope City, as the Papal States being constantly at war and therefore too dangerous for the Bishop of Rome and his considerable treasure.

In those days, being Pope was more than funny hats and Papal Bulls – it was funny hats, Papal Bulls, and sending your army to crush your enemies. The Palace of the Popes is therefore not a refined dome stuffed to rafters with priceless artistic treasures. Instead, it is an enormous fort, designed to assert Papal suzerienty over the surrounding region, and holding off any attacks from ambitious neighbours.

Due to the inexplicable politics of the 14th century, in later years Avignon became the seat of possibly the coolest job title in history. The Antipope was a French-sponsored answer to Urban VI, who had been elected Pope in Rome.

_{You might think this was a chapel. It's the dining hall (funny angle due to security guard telling me I couldn't take photos}

Pope and Antipope both believed utterly in their legitimacy and therefore excommunicated anyone who followed the other. As people followed whatever Pope their King told them to, and their Kings followed whoever was convenient, there was no particular theological reason for the schism. So for nearly four decades, all of Western Christiandom couldn’t be certain that it wasn’t condemned to hell by virtue of backing the wrong pontifical horse.

_{You might think this was a chapel, but it was actually a basement room where they kept the Papal auditors}

The castle itself was a little bare – the French Revolution and several anti-clerical uprising stripped the formidable palace of its tapestries and gold. That didn’t stop the audioguide from supplying seemingly endless detail to aid us in imagining what it used to look like. Also helpful were items in the gift shop, which sold bathing items modeled on the Pontiff’s former bedchamber tiles.

Yep: Pope Soap.

Called to the Barr

_{Spesbourg castle}

Yesterday was a holiday in France, and we had company. And so, we rented a car and ventured into the countryside to hit the usual Alsatian countryside highlights: Mont St Odile, Kaysersberg, and the Wine Route, and one of my favourite local castles, Spesbourg.

The castle itself isn't all that interesting - it was built in the 12th century, and occupied by the Andlau family, local nobility. It is smaller, and less well preserved than many other castles decorating the Vosges mountains.

It does have an interesting story though - the knights of the Andlau family were supposed to protect the peasants of the nearby villages. In the 1400s, the villagers of Barr, were scandalized that one of the village girls - who worked as a servant in the castle - had been "dishonoured" by a scion of the Andlau family.


_{The village of Barr as seen from the castle. Imagine sitting here, watching the mob draw closer...}

The villagers grabbed their pitchforks, lit their torches, and marched up the hill, and burned down the castle, mob justice being the only kind they could hope for against the local dukes. Discretion being the better part of valour, the family removed themselves to one of their many other castles, where the neighbours might be a little friendlier.

Cunegonde's revenge

_{Chateau St Ulrich; Cunegonde lies in wait}

I swear to God, I will eventually write about something other than hiking here soon. Right after this one.

When Amynah and I first arrived here in France, some of our earliest social events were visits to the countryside. Julie (another post-doc in Amynah’s lab) and her boyfriend Sebastien, a couple recently arrived from Bordeaux via England, took us out to visit some of the prettier villages on the Wine Route that winds its way through the Vosges near here. Shortly thereafter Dom, another colleague of Amynah’s, invited us to join his family and their friends on a hike near Saverne, an experience I was able to spin into my first story for the Globe and Mail.

These experiences meant a lot for us: not only because we were being made to feel welcomed in our new country, but also because we were able to familiarize ourselves with the local geography. Once the deluge of visitors we have hosted over the last two years began, we were confident in our ability to show people around Alsace, a confidence that has gone a long way to making us feel at home here.


_{Some of the local geogrphy}

What proved to be the biggest boost for us, proved to be my former French teacher, Danielle. Danielle is one of those people that makes friends the way other people breathe. Together, she and her husband David are one of those couples who have an innate ability to spread the wealth of friendship around: if you meet a friend of Danielle and David’s, chances are very good that you will have made a new friend in the process.

Danielle would occasionally organize outings into the countryside (usually in the Black Forest, across the border) for her pupils from Amynah’s institute. All were foreigners like Amynah and I, and came from all over the world. Though those outings, Amynah and I have made some of our best friends in France, (including the famous Sami the Finn).

Sadly, Danielle and David have since moved to England. However, since Amynah and I have, thanks to Sami the Finn, our many guests, and Amynah’s lab-mates, traveled extensively through the Vosges, we felt we had the wherewithal to duplicate Danielle’s magic, and organize a hike of our own.


_{Ribeauvillé. This is as close as I would get}

I picked the three castles hike near Ribeauvillé, which is about 80km south of Strasbourg. I had done variations on this hike a few times before. The first time, I took the wrong path and wandered aimlessly over the mountain, failing to find any of the three castles. The second time, I found St Ulrich and Girsberg, but was thwarted in my attempt to ascend to Haute Ribeaupierre by an “access interdit” sign at the beginning of the trail. The third time, we ran out of time to tackle the third castle. All of which has led me to conclude that the trail is cursed. Events would bear out my theory.


_{I look healthy, don't I?}

I invited a number of people from my French class, and the beginner’s class – they, in turn, invited their friends. We ended up with 14 people – Germans, Spaniards, Romanians, Argentinians, French, Chinese and Australian, all depending on my questionable trail-guiding skills.

We set off a little later than planned – the time change was this weekend, and one of the drivers thought the clocks needed to move an hour ahead – but still made it to Ribeavillé by about 11 AM.


_{Qi is not supposed to be up there}

It was very busy on the trail to the first castle, and the trail was very steep. I had woken up that morning feeling extremely stiff and poorly rested for some reason, and as I struggled up the trail, I began to break out into a cold-sweat as well. By the time we made it to Chateau St Ulrich, I also began to develop a cast-iron headache.

I should point out that St Ulrich is quite possibly haunted: it was famously used to imprison Cunegonde of Hungerstein, a noblewoman who had decided to end her marriage through the unorthodox but not-yet-legal means of murdering him. Prison life not agreeing with her, she seduced her guard, who helped her escape. She was never seen again – especially not by the guard, who was executed for his complicity shortly thereafter. Other possible specters in residence include the scion of the Ribeaupierre family, whose construction of a monastery nearby was unlikely to outweigh, in St Peter’s book, looting the Holy Land of holy artifacts during the Crusades, or possibly even the poor souls from the colony of lepers isolated here in the 17th century.

In any case, one of those candidates obviously had it in for me, because by the time we stopped for lunch, I was full-blown sick – unable to ingest more than half a sandwichm - meaning I missed out on Amynah’s cake, Qi’s cookies, and the strange Argentinian “matas” tea that Carolina and Danilo had brought.


_{I'm not sure not drinking this was such a loss}

Cunegonde and her ghostly cohort may have had it in for me, but I had numbers on my side this time. Nothing was going to stop us from reaching our final destination: Chateau de Haute Ribeaupierre, the giant castle atop the mountain that I had missed on my three previous attempts.

It was, of course, barred by a thin wire fence and a sign warning us that entry was forbidden, due to the danger of falling medieval masonry. Carolina, having no particular use for anyone telling her what not to do, especially some vandalized French sign, simply climbed up a ruined wall next to the gate and hopped over. Soon, the barbarians were swarming the walls of Ribeaupierre, and it fell to our onslaught. Amusingly, another group arrived at the castle as we were doing this. One of them looked at me an said – “I’m a guide.” I stopped, thinking that we were going to get ratted out to the French-ruined-castle-police. “Are you a guide?” she asked me. “Sort of” I replied. She then turned and told her charges that it must be ok to enter.


_{Barbarians at the Gate}

The third castle conquered, we set back down the hill to where we’d parked the cars. I was feeling increasingly worse, but everyone else was chattering, making new friends, and enjoying the near-perfect Autumn weather. On our arrival at the cars, it was decided that a celebratory coffee was in order, and so we paraded into the village. Or rather, they did: I was too sick at this point, and elected to stay in Carlos’ and Merixtell’s car for a nap. Matters were even worse on the drive home: we had to make an emergency stop in the parking lot of the Ribeauvillé casino, so that I could inspect the ground behind the bordering hedges.

However, everyone else had a great time. Perhaps I should just skip the next one of these things I organize.

_{NB: All the photos, except the one in which she appears, were taken by my friend Qi}

Summertime, and the living's easy

_{What? This thing again?}

A point-form summation of a near-perfect weekend:

- Friday afternoon, biking through the Illkirch forest, then into Germany and up the Rhine to Kehl.

- Being hailed, in Kehl, by a street-side flower seller desperate to unload the last of his merchandise so that he could catch the Turkey-Croat match in the Euro Cup. We walked away with five bouquets for 11 Euros.

- Watching a three-person German bar band do a Robbie Williams cover in the pre-match party by the giant outdoor screen. Star of the show: the bongo-playing Jessica Simpson look-alike, complete with cowboy boots and Stetson.

- The band was followed by a pair of 12-year old bellydancers, who took it well in stride with the beatnik-cowgirl tried to steal their moment in the sun by returning to the stage with a live boa constrictor draped over her shoulders. All class, that one.

- Saturday we hit the local farmer’s market, then hopped on our bikes to hit an even larger farmer’s market not far from the university.

- Spent the afternoon napping and reading Le Monde which came with a supplement from the New York Times. The latter came with an index explaining such mysteries of the English language like “to hit the wall.”

- In the evening, we wandered the town, taking in the sights and sounds of the Fêtes de musique, in which every village in France is turned into a stage for every semi-talented bar band that ever plugged in a Stratocaster. We saw bands that sounded like The Cure, The Talking Heads, Thomas Dolby, The Pointer Sisters, Steppenwolf, The Rolling Stones, The Sex Pistols and Hole. We did not manage to hear anything that sounded like it had been recorded in this century* (or, for that matter, anything French) but the aural walk through my youth was refreshing nonetheless. Or at least it was, until about midnight, at which point I could have done with some sleep. It was not to be, as two of the main stages were set up in front of the Cathedral and on Place Gutenberg, thus ensuring that we got to hear U2 battling it out with Aretha Franklin all night long.

- Bleary eyed and ill-rested, we hopped on our bikes first thing Sunday morning, in order to rendez-vous with Amynah’s boss Brigitte and her husband for a hike. We ended up doing the same route as I had with Tasha and Travis a few weeks before, largely because Brigitte was tickled by the name my guidebook had breathlessly given it: “Witches and Bloody Sacrifices.” The hike was a delight (I will never tire of being able to picnic in the ruins of a 13th century castle) but the return home was even better. The temperatures reached 33 degrees Celsius yesterday, and so we were all quite happy to don our fancy Euro-Speedos (or their gender appropriate equivalents) and splash around in Brigitte’s pool for the remains of the afternoon. This was followed by a dinner of loup marin and rosé taken poolside.


_{* We did hear a cover of the White Strips' “Seven Nation Army,” but it sounded like something Bruce Springsteen would have done with the E-Street Band, complete with saxophone solo. This group also won the fun French-ism of the night award: “…I’m going to Wee-shee-taw.”}

Holy hike!

_{The Fall of France}

So, this past weekend we decided to go for a short hike with our friend Sami the Finn. Sami the Finn is a pretty active guy – our most ambitious and delicious ventures into the local countryside tend to be at his instigation.

This time, he suggested a relatively moderate three-hour hike near Saverne, slightly to the north of here. This in itself would not provide sufficient “extremosity” to qualify as a true Sami the Finn hike. However, I believe our dour Nordic friend was counting on the forecast fifteen centimeters of snow to provide the challenge he requires for such endeavours.

Sadly, it was not to be. The day dawned as pretty much all days dawn when we’re doing something that will require us to be outside a lot: cold and foggy.


_{Don't leave me here!}

While I was delighted with the fog, Amynah pointed out that there was hardly any point in climbing a big ole hill in order to see a thick mist that would be equally well viewed from the interior of a cozy restaurant.

Nonetheless, we came to climb, and climb we did. Due in part to the fog, and in part to somewhat unclear trail markings, we ended up taking a shortcut that effectively eliminated most of the actual trail.


_{We weren't the only ones confused, apparently}

We saw fog enshrouded trees and fog enshrouded rocks, and a few fog-enshrouded trails, none of which were those that we were supposed to be on. Eventually, roughly at the moment we were going to give up, we stumbled upon the fog-enshrouded castle that was supposed to mark the last 1/8 of the planned hike. At this point, we’d only done, by my estimation, 1/4 of the distance we were supposed to so evidently the local fog was the result of a rip in the space-time continuum.


_{Yawn. Another romantic castle ruin.}

We hiked up to the castle, snapped some photos, and then decided to wander a little further along a side trail which turned out to be the tail end of the trail we were supposed to have been on all along.

Here we stumbled upon the Grotto of St Vitus, a medieval pilgrimage site for those seeking the Saint’s protection against epilepsy. The site is still very much in use, with a well-tended garden and pond. The grotto itself contains a small chapel, which holds services right up until September.


_{It's a trap, I tell you! A trap!}

This is a risk of hiking in the forest around Alsace. I have, by my count gone on at least four pilgrimages since coming here, all quite by accident. You never know when you’re going to stumble onto one of these things – chapels litter the forest like bear-traps, baited with the promise of redemption for the unwary. I don’t think it’s quite right that one should be at risk of having one’s soul saved when all one wants is a nice walk in the woods, do you?

Waiting for Ottrott

Amynah and I have had a lot of visitors here in the 15 or so months we’ve been in France – well over twenty in fact. Right now I’m catching a breather between my younger sister’s visit and that of my parents, who are expected in about a week’s time.

Most of the time when people come to visit, I give them my Strasbourg city tour, a harrowing ordeal that has left more than one participant in need of first aid by its end. I like to describe it as “being hit over the head repeatedly with a fact hammer.” I intend to put up a pictorial version of this before I leave, but not before, lest I spoil the joy for others. Past visitors are required to swear a strict oath of secrecy to not reveal the tour’s details, should they remember any through their haze of pain and exhaustion.

Outside of Strasbourg, things get a little dicey – I like exploring the region, but get a little bored hitting the same highlights again and again. Thus, when I discovered Val and Andy have recently taken up biking, I was happy to lead them on an exploratory bike tour.

My goal was a place called Ottrott, which has the nearest medieval castle to Strasbourg in the region. We started late, having a hardy breakfast in the local café before wandering down to my favoured bike shop to pick up Val and Andy’s steeds.

They were not pleased. Turns out when Val told me they were into biking, she meant the kind you might see on the Tour de France - narrow tires, thin seats, frames that were not constructed from recycled Panzers.

That’s not quite what they got.



The beasts with which I saddled them were large, and decorated with baskets in which a family of four could, if not live, then store a year’s worth of groceries. Undeterred, we hit the trail, and were soon on our way to Ottrott, via the Rainbows and Ponies Trail.

After about 18 km, Val started to complain she was thirsty, so we made a quick detour into Ergursheim. I asked a passerby for directions to a store where I might by water, and he directed me to a tobacconiste up the street. It was closed. We wandered on a little further and I asked some guy on a scooter leaving the village town hall the same question. He directed me to a hose behind the building, the water from which we slurped straight from the tap. This, and some apples we picked up from a local farmer, proved to be the only nourishment we’d get for the next five hours.

I won’t bore you with details of the bike trip. My repeated claims that Ottrott “was just around the corner” “just over this hill” “it’s only one village away” were met at first by cheers, then frowns, then sneers. As our protein reserves and hydration petered out my claims of Ottrott’s proximity were met only with grunts. At the end, these had given way to piteous cries for mercy. Needless to say, that while we made it to Ottrott the town, by the time we got there we were too tired to actually climb up to the castle. *

Rather than bike back, we coasted downhill into nearby Obernai and caught the commuter train back to Strasbourg, on which poor Andy was mercilessly mocked by French teenagers for his horribly square bike and plus pas chic Bermuda shorts.

Despite this ordeal, and the five-hour walking tour of Strasbourg we took the next day, I refused to give up. So on their last day in town we rented a car and drove out to Ottrott once more. That it was pouring rain didn’t deter me, nor did Val and Andy’s disingenuous claims of not being that interested in the castle – I do not suffer defeat lightly.

Therefore, we set up the mountain, mud running in rivers around our feet, in quest of the chateaux. It took an hour and a half (not including the inadvertent detour where we managed to walk right past it (fine medieval marauders we would be!) and by the time we got there – disoriented, shivering, legs trembling, clothed in muddy, sopping rags - it was closed. Which is to say, it is always closed – it had been sealed off for fear of collapse for years, a handy fact my guidebook had utterly failed to mention.

That my sister was still speaking to me is a testament either to her inherently forgiving nature or the fact that I had the keys to our only means off the mountain.

* To be fair, there were a lot of unexpected detours on the bike trip, one of which was to a village called Klingenthal, that prides itself as being a manufacturer of "armes blanches (swords) for the King of France. Way to pick a stable, long-term industry there, Klingenthal town fathers!



_{This I'm just throwing in here on the principal that blogs should have entertainment. The singer's name is Camille - she's like a French Bjork, but less aggressively weird. I think I'm becoming a fan, but am reserving judgement until I get a tranlsation of the lyrics to confirm she's not singing "Hit me baby one more time" or something.}

Plantagenets, plants, castles and caves

_{The cloister, Abbey of Fontevraud}

All righty – last post on this...

Technically, this is end of day one, for one we realized we couldn’t get into the castle of Saumur, we hopped in the car and made our way to “Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud” (translation: Royal Abbey of Fontevraud).

Sadly, it was closed when we arrived, so we booked a hotel in the village and stayed there for the night (La Croix Blanche, which I highly recommend to anyone who finds themselves in Fontevraud l’Abbaye in need of a bed. Hey, it could happen). The place has been around since 1696 according to their card.

I won’t go into to much detail about the hotel, but they were extremely courteous, sitting Amynah and I in a separate dining area because they were afraid that the large group of people celebrating a family reunion would disturb us. They also had parking, which as a relief, as it meant I didn’t have to leave the car in the weird little Potempkin suburb that lay on the village outskirts.

All of the villages and towns we saw on our journey were of the same kind of beige limestone with black slate roofs (the slate roof is supposed to be a local trademark. Black slate roofs – you sure you want to go with that as your distinctive local selling point? Okay…). In the rain, the unrelenting limestone looks soul-suckingly drab. In the sun, it looks warm and inviting.

Fortunately, we got a bit of sun for our visit to the Abbey. The place has a fascinating history. It was founded by a hermit who, apparently not understanding what “hermit” means, decided to found a large religious community on a large hill not far from the Vienne river, a tributary of the Loire.

The huge complex ended up hosting a community of nuns, another of monks, lay brothers, lepers and repentant sinners. All of it – even the men folk – was under the authority of an Abbess. The holder of that office was usually related to royalty in one fashion or another, and so the Abbey was pretty good at attracting some fairly influential patrons.
_{Richard, Couer de lion}

These include a couple of historical Mega-Celebs: Eleanor of Aquitaine and Richard the Lionheart. Ricky spent very little time in England – most of realm was in fact in France and he was much more interested in looting his way around the Holy Land. In any case he is buried here, along with his Plantagenet parents, all of whose effigies are in the Abbey Minster.
_{Eleanor of Aquitaine, catching up on her reading}

After the Revolution, the Nuns were dispersed and the place became a prison, holding some 1800 prisoners in some pretty horrible conditions (though, presumably not much more horrible than what the nuns endured, given that only one room in the whole complex was ever heated). In the 1960s it became a meeting facility and historic site.
_{The Judas Kiss - note the Nuns on either side. It was customary to depict the donors in religious art, sort of like "American Idol is brought to you by Chevrolet."}

Abbey done, and faced with a debilitating long list of potential chateaux to visit, we asked our innkeeper for a recommendation. Without hesitating, he recommended Vilandry – “It has the most beautiful gardens – even this time of year, they are amazing.”
_{Vilandry Chateau}

Ok then, Vilandry it is. Driving there was an adventure – Amynah foolishly recommended we take the highway route that was direct and recommended by our hotelier. I, using navigational skills honed in my numerous backwoods adventures, was confident that if we just followed the river we’d be fine. As if we were in the Rockies and I was Simon Fraser in an Opel or something.

When we arrived at Vilandry in the mid-afternoon; me, tense and communicating in monosyllables, Amynah grinding her teeth with the effort of not saying, “I told you so.” It was a pretty drive though – French highways are amazing.


The sky looked particularly changeable when we arrived, so we decided to hit Vilandry’s garden’s first. They were amazing, to say the least. I’d just finished reading a book in which Frederick Olmstead’s (he of New York’s Central Park and Montreal’s Mont Royal) landscaping theories were featured prominently. He would have hated this thing.

Everywhere, nature was controlled, boxed, categorized and slammed into little green cupboards. The hedges were perfectly shaped – I saw exactly one twig that was out of line.
_{Note the Maltese Cross in the centre}

The gardens had various parts to them – some were purely decorative, though the flowers hadn’t grown in yet, the postcard we bought makes me want to return in two months time. Others were for herbs and medicines. There was even a hedge maze. Amynah, remembering the lessons from Carol Shields’ “Larry’s Party” better than I, turned left at the entrance. I turned right. She thus made it to the central viewing platform to mock me from on high as I floundered about, reduced to looking for trails of crumbs to find my way out.

The most interesting patch was the “garden of love” which consisted of four large squares, each designed to represent a different kind of love: passionate love (with a pattern of wounded hearts), while adulterous loves features horns and fans and is dominated by yellow flowers in season. Tender love has flames and ballroom masks while tragic love gets swords and blood red flowers, representing duels.
_{Garden of Love}

All of this was due to Joachim Carvallo, a Spainard who purchased the place in the 1900s. He brought his considerable art collection and poured much of his American heiress wife’s money into the gardens. The family still owns the place, though they no longer live there. They did leave the art though, and much of it was spectacular, including an Islamic (or Islamic inspired) ceiling imported from Spain and painstakingly reconstructed.
_{Fancy ceiling}

Next on the list (he said, breezily skipping the driving to Tours debacle) was the troglodyte village of Rochemenier. Turns out these are quite common here in France – we picked up a freebie magazine where one of the stories was a Better Homes and Gardens-style “I love my trogdo!” complete with all the glossy photos and Bauhaus type furniture that implies, only in a cave. Hole-based living is quite common – we saw a row of quite modern-looking dwellings whose facades were right in the middle of a cliff face.


Rochemenier, strangely enough, is nowhere near a cliff. Rather, one drives though the kind of rolling French countryside one sees in the movies before seeing a few scattered homes in the distance.

This is Rochemenier – or rather, the above ground portions of it. Two thirds of the town is below ground, even today. Probably this is a good idea – during the Thirty Years War this place was spared the incendiary fate of its neighbours because, after all, you cannot raze that which is not raised.
_{Trogdo village}

The museum itself was not all that different than the “Here’s how the old timers did it” farm museums you might find in North America: a lot of old photos, farm implements, old cloths and the like. In addition, there was a small section debunking the negative connotation the word “troglodyte” has acquired, which they depicted with a couple of panels of a sputtering Captain Haddock from the Tintin books. Charmingly unpretentious.
<sub>Chapel nave

Chapel stairs</sub>

The most interesting spot was the underground chapel, converted in the 1600s into a chapel. It came complete with a staircase to the surface, a bell “tower” and a floor plan in the rough shape of a cross. There was no word as to whether it, like its above ground cousin, was dedicated to St Emerance, patron saint of the village and reputed to be able to forestall thunder and hail.

In addition, if you had diarrhea, she was supposedly the one to run to.