Alsace Loraine

Continuing the series, I could not resist capturing this snap of some tall grass (or a bush?) with the leaves all covered in ice,

Continuing the series, this street art seems to be an homage to hungry people, but to be honest I never stopped to see if there was a sign that described it.

Cernay in the eastern French part of Alsace known as Haut-Rhine is an interesting village for two reasons. First, apparently the German SS used this village as an “indoctrination” center during the second world war; and second, because the Thur river flows through it, and there was a river of the exact same name flowing through Winterthur when I lived there. (Note: it flowed through Winterthur before I moved there, and it probably still flows there today.)

Anyway, here’s the church:

Sadly it is a bit difficult to find information about these things on the Internet. I took this snap from the parking lot of IKEA in Mulhouse, in Alsace.

I took this snap after getting off the tram that transports you up to the mountain to Crans-Montana – but then I stopped to think, this must be a very difficult garden to maintain in good condition:

I love Switzerland. I have a é key right on my keyboard!  Voilà – yup, I’ve got one of those keys, too!

Bit sad, would have been wonderful to get this snap in exactly the right light, but I didn’t feel like coming back mid-day.

While walking around the northeastern Lorraine city of Metz I stumbled across a street called Rue de la Manufacture, with a small sign that tobacco was produced here many years ago. Although there were no signs, I wondered if this building was used as a shed for storing the leaves? It was very similar to sheds that I’ve seen in the southern US, where the leaves are hung and allowed to ferment or dry out of whatever it is they want to happen to the leaves:

It sounded like an interesting historical topic (producing tobacco in France!), so I did a little research on Wikipedia and found out this might be the case. You can see the Rue de la Manufacture below, and just to the right and up you’ll see Imp. Belle-Isle, where the northeastern most building (with the grey roof) is the arial view of the snap I took:

I think it’s just wonderful how you can dovetail a photography hobby with an easy bit of historical research, to find out things like this!

[Note added on 06.09.2021] After discussing tobacco barns in Cleveland with my father it became apparent that most of the barns were painted black, since the extra heat would help in the curing process. Interestingly, the building above has a black/gray roof, whereas all the other buildings have red tile roofs – more circumstantial evidence that this may very well have been a barn for storing tobacco!

You have to look and think about this one a little bit:

There are mask signs sprayed all over the streets in the northeaster Lorraine city of Metz, but it struck me as interesting how this one was juxtaposed with a deviation sign. It made me think, I hope these times are just is “Covid deviation.”

I took this snap while walking around the historic northeast Lorraine city of Metz:

Nothing special, just what I thought was a very interesting snap of a tree in Mulhouse, France,

Continuing the series, it is just amazing how the colors looked in the winter sunlight,