Benedictines, Prussians and a nice cup of tea - 29-05-2009
Wissembourg is a pretty and historic town of some 8,000 inhabitants lying on the northern edge of Alsace. It is also the place where Monique Douté grew up and she kindly agreed to guide a group of fellow ESC members around the sights and sites of her home patch on a holiday Friday in May.
We met at Surbourg, a village a few miles south of Wissembourg and briefly visited the handsome Romanesque church before moving off to inspect war memorials dating from the Franco Prussian war in 1870. On 4th August in that year, a French garrison was defeated by a much larger Prussian force at Geisberg overlooking the town. Over 5,000 men died in a battle which, viewed with the hindsight of 140 years from a lovely May afternoon, seemed impossibly pointless.
We then had a short walk on hills on the other side of Wissembourg, in idyllic spring woodlands above vineyards, before descending to wander round the town which was established around a Benedictine monastery dating from the 7th century. The church of St Pierre and St Paul ,the second largest in Alsace, dominates the area, but it seems that there are fascinating and picturesque surprises round every corner. We were given privileged access to a courtyard and barn packed with historical artefacts-the oldest from Roman times- collected locally by the owner of the adjoining house.
And lastly a nice cup of tea and a slice of cake on a café terrace heavy with the perfume of wisteria. And only when we had finished did the thunder clouds roll over to send us packing back to the cars.
Mike Wraith
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