3. Alsace of Greater Germany

The view from our hotel window is not a volcano about to erupt, but a peak in the Vosges Mountains where the Castle Haut-Koenigsburg sits at the very top.  

The geomorphology of Alsace is simple, and can nearly be seen in this hazy photograph.  The eastern boundary is the Rhine with its very wide, very flat, very arable floodplain. The Vosges Mountains rise to the west of the floodplain. On the lower elevation hills bordering the floodplain, the vineyards  of the local wine industry spread up the hillsides. The high peaks rise steeply and vertically, dotted with the remains of medieval castles strategically placed to defend themselves against invasion.

Haut-Koenigsburg was built sometime in the middle of the 12th century, burned by its neighbours in 1462, and rebuilt in a "modern" defense style in 1479. During the 30 Years War, Sweden's Protestant  forces lay siege to the castle, held by the Catholic Hapsburgs, for 52 days in 1633. When Sweden prevailed, the castle was pillaged and burned and left as a ruin for 250 years.

Another of those highly forgettable wars, in this case the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, handily and unexpectedly won by the Prussians, resulted in a peace treaty that transferred Alsace and a bit of Lorraine to Prussia. At that time Germany, under the leadership of their strongest state Prussia, was busy drawing together all its small independent states and duchies and electorates into the unified nation of Germany. Having a castle that dated back to the earliest days of its powerful Holy Roman Empire history was a gift too good to not use as a symbol of the powerful new German state in the planning. In 1900, the Kaiser assigned restoration architect Bodo Ebhardt to rebuild the castle as historically accurate as he could through archaeological evidence, source evidence, and a bit of imagination.

If you have seen the Jean Renoir film you have already seen the results of Bodo's eight years of painstaking work because it was used as the location of the impregnable mountain fortress where the prisoners of war were held.

The scale of the work done on the castle is monumental . . .

. . . using archaeological finds. . .

. . . a bit of faux medieval imagination . . .

. . . and lots of whimsical detail.

This charming angel on a stairwell railing leads to my favorite room. . .

Can you think of a better setting to enjoy a Teutonic daydream listening to a bit of Wagner?

Surrounded by beautiful knights . . .

. . . marching battalions . . .

. . . under the Imperial Eagle. After reading about the history of the castle, I thought, how appropriate to use it as a setting for an anti-war film in 1937 when everyone in Europe knew a second war was imminent.

After spending much longer than anticipated at the castle, we found a restaurant willing to feed us a light lunch even though it was past two o'clock. Then we headed to our third concert in the series. De Caelis, five women from Normandy, with a mixed programme of medieval songs and modern commissions influenced by early music.