Alsace Wine Tour – Around Rodemack

Previous day || Back to trip summary page. ¦¦ Next day

Givet to the walled city of Rodemack

The aire de camping cars here at Rodemack is very good, it’s free and huge, plenty of space. There is not a lot of shade, normally that does not trouble us, but in the middle of a heatwave we have spent a very warm night, so we keep an eye on the other motorhomes, especially the one that is near the trees. Sure enough just after breakfast that motorhome packs up and leaves, we waste no time in moving and taking the best place on the whole aire, near the trees, so as the sun moves around we will be in the shade.

The heat is making us feel tired and lazy, we don’t want to do a lot of hiking or climbing. Neither of us has the kind of skin that goes brown, in fact I (Alan) have the pale skin that burns easily, no matter how careful I am with gradual exposure to the sun I don’t go brown, just red, so I normally avoid the sun. Here and now that’s not going to be possible. We have breakfast then set off to explore Rodemack before the day becomes really hot. There is a path leading from the aire de camping cars down a hill onto a path that leads around the town walls, we take our time going down, it’s steps most of the way, and think ahead that we will be climbing these stairs later when we return.

At the bottom of the hill we are in trees that surround this part of the walls of Rodemack. The Friends of the Walls meet here annually and perform maintenance and restoration work on the walls. Into the town and along the main street where we find the old water supply and laundry facility, a covered pool where the women of the town would have brought clothes to wash them and collect water. A shady area with clear water flowing into a large central pool. Outside is a series of small washing pools. Life must have been harder in those days, but a lot less stressful. We find the boulangerie, but it’s closed by the time we arrive, we need to be here earlier. We walk around the walls, I pick greengages from a tree that overhangs the path, the garden where the tree is looks like it is abandoned, the greengages are delicious, I wonder why nobody has been to pick them.

We walk through the town to the old main entrance gate, the sun climbing in the sky and heating up the area. Then retrace our steps back to the main entrance to the ‘castle’ with gun ports. Free entrance to the castle area. At the top is a large building, it’s most recent use was as a private residence, now it’s a museum, not open today, that’s often the case when we visit. Excellent views over the town and surrounding countryside. We take photos then continue along the outside of the walls, find an old carved stone cross and other features, then make our way back to the path and slowly ascend back to the aire and the Hymer waiting there.

We have a lazy afternoon, the heat is building up, there are dire warnings from the weather people, the climate activists will have a lot to say about this, blaming everyone else. During our travels in France, this is day 5, I have seen one electric car and one charging point. France seems to be taking a much more relaxed view of climate change than the UK. The UK is speeding headlong into dumping proven technologies and coercing the population to leap into the unknown. Already the Uk is being told to expect power cuts and rationing of electric in the winter. Planning of new houses in parts of the south east is restricted because the power grid can not supply any more power. I wonder where are the electric for the cars and heat pumps is going to come from, a kind of magic I expect.

Mid afternoon a caravan arrives, with UK registration plates. The caravaners ignore the signs that show you how to park, are park across several parking bays. The caravaners are the only people with a television, up goes the aerial and they retire inside. Later they emerge with a huge dog, off lead it goes berserk. Caravans and motorhomes are best separated, they are for different types of holidays and travel.

Two black kites flew over. We sit out in the shade trying to avoid insects, even so I acquired a couple of rather painful bites. Tomorrow we plan a quick trip to buy bread from the boulangerie and then to move on, Gill has found a place in the forest, higher too, it looks like a good place for us and it’s on the way to the Alsace.