Hagen's Vacations: Niederbronn-Les-Baines

Well, a couple of days off took me to the Alsace region of France, which is the part that after world war one was given to France by Germany as war compensation.

Located near Strassbourg, this is a wine region, and that was evident in the prices of wine for example.  One paid 3+ euro for a coke, but only about 1.5 euro for wine...

We travelled to our destination over Luxembourg and then into Germany, as passing the Mosel region and then onwards to Saarbrucken is faster and easier then doing the road by Metz, but first we did a small stop in Belgian town of Bastogne, remember "NUTS"...

The drive through the region is dominated by wide forests as you pass the Ardennes first, to go to the Vogezes next.  Including a stop near the german border where they had a Dunkin Donuts... Boston Cream for the win.

Arriving some 8 hours later (we did some detours, stops and where stuck behind a mortal accident... not fun) at our destination, the Hotel du Parc had clean (albeit a bit smallish) rooms, and was located in the small town of Niederbronn-Les-Baines.

But the local bar was very cosy, and it had Erdinger ;-)

In the middle of a small parc, this had a very idyllic setting.

On our full day there, we went to do a trip to Haguenau, which was a beloved vacation location of the middle ages royalty of France, most of the buildings originating from the 1700 - 1750 era.

This gives a LOT of inspiration for future builds, as the place had a lot of facades that just cried out "make me".

I also learned the local specialty of the Alasace region here, 'Flammenkuchen', which is like a very thin pizza bottom with coverings, mine pictured here being cream, lard, onions and the local Munster cheese.

On our way back home, we visited another significant WW2 place, namely St Vith (of the 106th Airborne fame of General Jones, and the St Vith saillant).

And then the short but intense holiday was over and I slept like a rock (and snoared like a bear) the past night ;-)