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Alsace: The France of the Germanic Spirit

By hollisterclothingoutlet 16/01/2023 442 Views

Alsace is one of the most interesting regions of France and Europe, for its historical complexity and its bridge status between Latin and Germanic cultures.The visitor offers extraordinary landscape beauty because it combines the mountain (Los Vosgos), with the Rhine Valley, monumental cities, such as Strasbourg or Colmar, picturesque villages (Obernai), castles (haut-koenigsbourg) and fortified villas (Neuf-Brisach).

A magic period to tour Alsace is Advent weeks, as there is a centenary tradition of beautiful Christmas markets, as in neighboring Germany.If it goes in spring, the show is provided by the storks, which nest even in the L’Orangerie Park, the largest in Strasbourg, next to European institutions.

Since the legions of Julio César established the border in the RIN, in the year 58 BC, the territory we know today as Alsace has been a point of contact- or violent conflict- between civilizations.First were the Romans and the barbarians.Centuries later became a battlefield between French and Germans.The Alsatians have changed nationality several times.

In 1871, after the Franco -Prussian war, Alsace was part of the loot that achieved the newly created German Reich.In 1919 the situation was invested.After the German defeat in World War I, France recovered Alsacia.In 1940, new cataclysm: Hitler annexed the region, incorporated it into the III Reich and proceeded to an intensive and implacable nazification.In 1944, De Gaulle convinced Eisenhower to be not the Americans who released Strasbourg but French troops.Question of dignity.

From the Mount of Santa Otilia they can reach the old Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in a short time, the only one in French territory

The infernal dialectic of conquests and reconquests managed.Strasbourg became, for this reason, an emblem.Hence, it was decided to install the headquarters of the Council of Europe in the city and, years later, of the European Parliament.

A mute witness of the dramatic Avatares Alsatianos has been the Mount of Santa Otilia-patron of the region and of the view-, an ideal site to contemplate an endless forest landscape, with the Rin Valley to the background and, in clear days,The silhouette of the black jungle in the distance.It is one hour by Strasbourg car.Almost 800 meters altitude, the mountain has an abbey that is subject to pilgrimage, a kind of Montserrat, but without the massification or tourist exploitation of the Catalan sanctuary.

Alsacia: la Francia del espíritu germánico

Near the Mount of Santa Otilia is Obernai, one of the most stereotypical and visited peoples of Alsace, for its medieval core and its market.Obernai is an inevitable stage on the Wine Route, although it is also famous for beer, since there is the headquarters of the Kronenbourg brand, one of the most popular in France.

For those interested in World War II, from the Mount of Santa Otilia they can arrive in a short time the old Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, the only installation of this type in French territory.The Germans located the field near a granite quarry.The prisoners extracted the rock in exhausting days.The countryside, today converted into a museum, is an essential lesson on that black time in European history.An experimental gas chamber, gallows and a crematory oven are preserved.Visit it in silence, in a mountain environment, it is overwhelming.

Strasbourg is, of course, forced stop and one of the greatest attractions of a trip to Alsacia.The city is about 500 kilometers from Paris, well communicated by highway and high -speed trains that use less than two hours on the way.It is a European relevance capital but, at the same time, retains a human dimension.

Among its treasures are the cathedral of Notre Dame, with its magnificent biblical frescoes and its tapestries, the medieval district of the Petite France, which can be traveled on foot or boat- by its channels- and the German neighborhood, Neustadt, very well preserved.It is a total contrast to the area of European institutions, open to visits, with its avant -garde buildings.

About 70 kilometers south of Strasbourg is filled, the capital of the wine route, with numerous wine exploits and wineries to visit in the vicinity.It is discovered on foot or, in boat, by the channels of the petite venise.Colmar has hundreds of very well preserved houses of wooden framework.The Museum of Unterlinden, the main city, is located in an old convent of the Dominicans.

Its archaeological collection-prehistoric and Roman-stands out, the final paintings of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as well as contemporary and popular art.A place forced where to go during the stay in Colmar is long des têtes (street of the heads), for its beautiful buildings, especially one, the house of the heads, built in 1609, whose facade is covered by 106 burlescas masks.

Going down to the southernmost alsia, 42 kilometers south of Colmar, is Mulhouse, the second most populous city in the region, of strong industrial tradition, at the crossroads between France, Switzerland and Germany.It is less tourist than Strasbourg and Colmar, but also interesting.According to legend, a water mill was founded around.It houses a museum dedicated to the car, I quoted L’Automobile-the major in the world in its kind-another to the railroads and a third to electricity.These attributes of industriality and industrial spirit may be due to Calvinism, the strict version of Protestantism that the city adopted in 1524.

In Mulhouse, by the way, Alfred Dreyfus was born, the captain of the army victim of a case of anti -Semitism that shook France during more than one decade, between 1894 and 1906, and that became a universal paradigm of unfair persecution motivated by racist prejudices.A plaque remembers it in the house where Dreyfus saw the light.

By decision of the National Parliament, as of January 2021, the two current Alsian departments, Alto Rin and Bajo Rin will merger

Alsacia, in short, is attractive to the visitor for sociological and political reasons.The vast majority of Alsatians does not want to remove history and looks comfortable as French, although there is a small independence minority (within the User Land party).Yes there is a strong feeling in favor of preserving regional singularity and the Alsacian language-German of German-, something that is not always easy in a uniform pulse France.

The Alsatian leaders welcomed the administrative reform of 2016 very badly-impulsed by President François Hollande and his prime minister Manuel Valls-who incorporated Alsacia in the region of the Great East, partly diluting his identity and his own attributions.

That decision has been corrected in part.By decision of the National Parliament, as of January 2021, the two current Alsian departments, Alto Rin and Bajo Rin will merger.The new entity will be called "European Collectivity of Alsace".Although the territory will continue, administratively, within the great east, the fact that Alsace recovers its name is a moral victory, a necessary relief for a border town that does not want to lose their soul.

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