Celebrating Easter in Alsace

We began our day in a tiny village called Turckheim where we attended mass to celebrate Easter. There is something that feels extra spiritual about hearing mass in a very old and beautiful church with a fabulous choir singing and someone playing the organ with skill. And Easter is a lovely time of celebration and rejoicing in the church.

Turckheim is another cute village but less well known. There were some easter markets just by the church and some decorations livening up the village. It also had the characteristic coloured houses of the region

Miles, our host of the cottage we are staying in, had suggested we visit Eguisheim, another traditional village which he said was less touristy than the one we visited the day before so we headed there. It certainly was less crowded with tourists, although the damp weather may have helped with that too. Before we got to the old original part of the village we spotted this modern sculpture which took our fancy. We found out it commemorates the millenium of the birth of Brunon of Eguisheim-Dabo who became Pope St Leo IX.

Eguisheim is interesting as the streets radiate in circles around the centre. Again, there are the characteristic timber houses painted in different colours. Over many door ways are the initials of the people who first owned the house, the year they were built and symbols indicating their profession. We wandered around in the rain and also visited the church in the centre of the village which was beautifully decorated with painted holy images.

I enjoyed this far more than the previous village as it was less crowded and had a lot fewer touristy shops and restaurants. We did duck down into a restaurant out of the cold to enjoy a lovely lunch and warm up and dry out a bit. It was down some stairs in the lower region of a building and buzzing with people. The menu was only in French and I ordered a dish which I understood from my very limited understanding of French to have aspragus and ham as the starring ingredients, with 2 different sauces. That is exactly what I got. A whole heap of asparagus and a separated plate of ham with sauces. I was taken aback at the huge amount of the serving but it was delicious. Stephen had a dish which looked like what I expected the night before rather than the 'boil up' I got. He followed up with creme brulee, flambeed at the table - spectacular, but I was way too full after all my asparagus for dessert.

On our way out of the villsge we went back to a little glassware shop where we had spotted some lovely glasses to treat ourselves to a souvenier (or six, who needs one wine glass?). The owner decorates the glass himself and also does other creations with glass. We admired and chatted to him about his work and as he packed up our glasses he asked if we would like to see how he etched the glass. Of couse we said we would so got a demonstration. I was amazed that he can etch the images without tracing a pattern on the glass or marking any positioning. And he can do that on different shapes of glasses and makes many different designs, all free hand, amazing. What a nice guy, he asked where were from and when we said NZ he wrapped up a spare glass for us in case we broke one as 'its too far for us to order replacements and get them sent'

The last part of our day was spent at an open air museum which gave us a bit of insight into traditional life in the country for farmers, blacksmiths etc which was interesting as we had only visited villages and built up areas (and winemakers). As it was Easter Sunday they had some events for children happening such as competitions to see whose egg did not smash when bashed against someone else's egg. Also some reenactments of the past which we could not understand being in French but one ended in a young man being carted away and thrown into the trough where the village women would have done the washing

We also saw someone fashioning some kind of traditional headwear, a barber using a cut throat razor (I was disappointed Stephen did not line up for that) and how the farmers houses often opened right into the barn, stinky. A peacock also spread his tail for us, beautiful.