2 Exhausted 2 Write Quint-ennial
Vacation
"Sometimes
it's better to lose your map anyway
You may end up where you were going
Instead of where you thought you were"
– kendall brown
I printed 42-page itineraries for Gramma, the twins, and Alan and I so everyone would know where we were going and where we had been. The first page was headlined with the above quote. When I told people about the itineraries I was pouring so many hours and effort into, I said I knew God was laughing as I laid our plans. What I didn't know was that the angels watching me over God's shoulder as I laid our plans were laughing so hard they wet themselves.
April
28 - April 30, 2006 | May
1 - 3, 2006 | May 4 - 5, 2006 | May
6 - 7, 2006 | May 8 - 9, 2006
May
10 -11, 2006 |
May 12, 2006 | May
13, 2006 | Mother's
Day, May 14, 2006 | May
15, 2006 | May
16 -17, 2006
European
Hitchhikers We Picked Up '06 | Europe
2006 Archive | Newsletter Archive
So here's how it went down from May 4 to May 5 (You don't have to read any of the words! You can just look at the pictures. There will be no test.) :
THURSDAY MAY 4
"The world
is a book and those who do not travel read only one page."
-- St. Augustine
Colmar
was the home of the sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (Liberty
Enlightening the World, aka the Statue of Liberty). And a copy of The Statue
stood in a traffic circle next to our Formule 1 motel. Over my shoulder is
visible the yellow and red F1 sign. 
Colmar
is a city in northeastern France, on a plain near the Vosges Mountains, on
the Lauch River, in Alsace. It is a port (linked by canal with the nearby
Rhine River) and a manufacturing center.
And right smack-dab next to it is the tiny town of Durrenentzen, France, from which Alan's maternal great-grandparents hailed.
Ha! You thought he was pure German! Fooled you!
Nikki
and Kilory's paternal great-great-grandfather Mathias
[mat-TEE-Ass] Gantz was born in Durrenentzen, Alsace [ahl-zahS] Lorraine,
France.
The eventual father of 12, Mathias graduated from college in Bern, Switzerland; had 20 acres of vineyard from which he made wine and vinegar; had a job with the city government; and had served 18 months in Napoleon III's army during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 (described in Emile Zola's The Debaclé).
It
is said in one of the family accounts I was given, that when the Alsace switched
back to German hands, Mathias decided it was time to leave.
S.S. France, the transportation to America for the Mathias Gantz family (click for larger image -- many thanks to Nona Jones)
Mathias
and his family came to the United States in 1883.
Frederick William Gantz (right), the twelfth child of Mathias and Margaurette Gantz (left; click for larger image -- many thanks to Nona Jones), was born May 10, 1883, weeks after arriving in America in April.
On May 7, 1924, Will Gantz (right) married Ella Wolf*, a recent immigrant to the United States from Germany. Ella already had a daughter, Marianna. Some of you reading this may know Randy (or Debi, or Jimmy) Chastain. Marianna was their grandmother. One of Will and Ella's children was Ruth, Alan's mother.
Ruth
Gantz Weis confessed to me three weeks before I married Alan that a German
female ancestor of hers had married a Frenchman -- in unsolicited explanation
as to why Alan had so many pure black hairs in his blond head. She told me
that she couldn't understand how a German could "betray" The Family
by marrying somebody French.
"It's a disgrace," she told Christine LaPreal Cummings,
who wasn't, isn't, and never will be German. I did not at that time choose
to disclose that my maternal great-great-great-grandmother, Charlotte Perrit-Gentil
was born in 1834 in Sainte-Suzanne, France. I wish I had. I wish I'd said,
"I'm an American. How 'bout you?"
I laughed when I discovered Mathias Gantz's war record, hometown, birthplace, and reason for leaving for America. I laughed when it occurred to me that Will Gantz had been named Frederick William Gantz, not Friedrich Wilhelm Gantz.
I laughed in between taking photographs of the adorably shabby, lilac-perfumed French town in France from which Ruth's, Alan's, and my daughters' relatives hail. Regarding genealogical pursuits, it has been said not to shake the family tree too hard -- you never know what nuts will fall out. Don't shake the family tree too hard -- Vous pourriez découvrir que vous êtes Français! Sacré bleu!
The
graveyard next to the Durrenentzen church, which was standing when Mathias
and Marguerite Gantz lived there, is chock full of Gantz (and Wolf) graves.
Will Gantz* married a Wolf*.
Makes
me wonder just how German Wolfs are. . .
German, French -- who cares?! We're earthlings. Well, most of us are...
Built from 1847-1848 the church has a heart crossed by an anchor and a cross. I guess because next door Colmar is a port linked to the nearby Rhine River via canal.
*Not too far away was a town called Wolfgantzen. No significance there, just fun.
We didn't go to Wolfgantzen as I would have liked, but sped on our way to Zürich [tzoo-RI@#HK], which was just as well.
Biesheim
(9 minutes from Durrenentzen) was just as lilac-infused, and where the photo
at right was taken, right next to the Grand Canal d'Alsace complete with locks.
Then we were in Germany.
We
ate lunch in Staufen im Breisgau below a ruined fortress atop a crag covered
with vineyards and dandelions. Elementary school kids were trooping down the
hill after a field trip to the ruins. Two saucy young men hailed Gramma and/or
me with "Ciao, bella!"
The castle ruins, that may be seen far into the Rhine Valley was most likely built in the 11 th century – to protect the rich silver mines in the Muenster Valley (Münstertal), as they were the main source of income for the Lords of Staufen. During the 30 Year Wars – Swedish* troops occupied Staufen, burning the castle down to the ground in 1632.
*Not an error. Swedish troops, not Swiss.
The best known citizen of Staufen was Johann Georg Faust, the legendary alchemist and magician, who wasn’t just famous through Goethe, but also through many well known works of world literature.
We
traveled through green valleys and up and down green mountains, through Untermünstertal,
Wieden, Utzenfeld, Schönau im Schwarzwald, Schopfheim, Wehr, and Bad
Säckingen, Germany. The church (or university?) at left is in Untermünstertal.
The
golden forsythia next to the stream is between Untermünstertal and Krumlinden.
Or it might be in Krumlinden. It's all a blur now...
Then
we re-entered Switzerland and zipped past Baden, Neuenhof, and Dietikon, and
into Zürich.
At the Zürich Formule 1 (Heidi-Abel-Weg 7, whatever that means) we found cows grazing downtown next to the F1. These cows weren't unusual in that they were grazing amongst skyscrapers. We were shocked to find that only a few of the bovines in the bevy bore a bell! A Swiss cow without a bell? No kidding here -- it was shocking. I'm not kidding. Serious as a head wound.
We
made our way to the other side of Zürich and in the twilight found our
second Geocache under a bridge, next to a cemetery. It
was the first cache big enough to leave a Travel Bug. We left mine and picked
up a hitchhiking dwarf TB. Dinner was a gourmet feast plucked from the
grocery section of a gas station. It included mustard and mayonnaise in tubes.
FRIDAY MAY 5
Thomas Gray (1739) on viewing the Alps: "There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief, without the help of other argument."
(Kilory
took the goat and cow pictures with the date imprints. Alice Cummings took
all other May 5 photos here.)
We drove through the rain, past cloud-hidden Alps to Maienfeld where there is much ado about Heidi.
One walks a path from the Heidihof hotel to the Heidi museum. Gramma and Nikki opted to go into the museum.
We other three opted to walk and climb around looking for a Geocache without the aid of a GPS unit, using only the hints. Twice it has worked. This time it did not. We thought the road going past the gift shop was the trail going past the museum, so we took it -- right down The Garden Path.
(At
left is Nikki inside the museum of alpine life circa 1870s. Out the window
you see us returning from The Garden Path, minutes before we discovered the
correct path.)
But we had a ball talking to cows and goats and seeing scenery that Gramma and Nikki didn't. At right are two of the dairy dames with whom we visited. The one on the left getting her ear scritched by Alan especially liked getting chin scritches.
At
left, the chicken crossing the road behind us and the goats -- don't ask me
why it's crossing the road -- looks to be heading up THE Garden Path, while
we are pointed up the CORRECT path. But Gramma and Nikki were finished in
the Heidi museum, and we had to get going.
Here's what you need to
know about "Heidi":
Johanna Spyri (1827-1901) was born in Hirzel, a village near Zürich.
She began writing during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) to raise money
for the newly founded Red Cross. Spyri's most enduring work is the novel "Heidi,"
which was originally published as two separate books, one in 1880 and one
in 1881. There you go!
After trying to spend
all of what was left of our Swiss Francs we took off through Lichtenstein.
We discovered Lichtenstein, too, uses the Swiss Franc, not the Euro. Good
thing Lichtenstein is only as big as a postage stamp.
We were into Austria and back to the Euro in two shakes of a goat's tail.
At left Nikki visits with two Lichtenstonian Clydesdales.
Dave Barry has this to
say about the supposed existence of Lichtenstein (and Luxembourg):"To
the best of our knowledge these are not European nations.
These are minor characters in William Shakespeare's famous play Hamlet II:
The Next Day."
Every time I pulled out the eye loupe to find Lichtenstein on the map, all I could think of was the movie "The Mouse That Roared." Of course, every time I see "The Mouse That Roared" all I can think of is Lichtenstein.
We stayed in Bregenz, Austria at the Ibis Hotel at Sankt Anna Strasse 11, just a block from the Bodensee (Lake Constance): "a lake in the Alps, with clear waters and rich in fish."
April
28 - April 30, 2006 | May
1 - 3, 2006 | May 4 - 5, 2006 | May
6 - 7, 2006 | May 8 - 9, 2006
May
10 -11, 2006 |
May 12, 2006 | May
13, 2006 | Mother's
Day, May 14, 2006 | May
15, 2006 | May
16 -17, 2006
European
Hitchhikers We Picked Up '06 | Europe
2006 Archive | Newsletter Archive
We hope you enjoy your visit.
