June 7-9 —Raone-sur-Plaine

June 7-9 Raone-sur-Plaine

Sonia, Fabi’s sister, spends summers in the mountains of the Vosges. She stays with her partner, Jean, who has a house there. They invited me to spend the weekend with them at a village called Raone-sur-Plaine.

On Friday, I took the bus to Schiltigheim, where Sonia lives in the winter. Then we drove to Raone-sur-Plaine. It was about an hour or so to get there. This is a little village without even a store or business since they have all closed. there are a lot of BnBs, gîtes, and hotels though, so you’d think there would be something else. It’s a very quiet place right in the mountains. It’s the place where I spent News Years 2022 going into 2023, in a gîte with friends of Sonia’s. This time, I stayed in a little tiny house which I think at one time must have been an RV of some sort. There were great views of the area from this place on the way up a mountain.

Soon after arriving, Jean presented me with some flowers and we settled down for a picon before dinner. I was so surprised about the flowers. He said that he is a “romantic” and Sonia is a “pragmatist” so they get along well.

Dinner included a kind of pork croute with salad and an eclair for dessert. Or was that lunch!??

It was so nice to sit on the patio and enjoy the beautiful, calm country view of the mountains.

Later on in the evening, we went to a very large lake, Pierre Percée, with a dam that was developed to support the nuclear plants in that part of France. 

The next day, Saturday, was nice. We took a long drive through the mountains and valleys where I got a look at the pastures and the lakes and the trees. Really! I’ve missed seeing real nature so it was a pleasant drive. We ended up at another lake in a place called Gérardmer. This one is a natural lake.

We also went to visit a store that was part of the Baccarat Crystal Factory. This unicorn horse can be yours for €33,000 (+8 to 10% for the exchange rate). 

Or perhaps you’d like this chandelier for €130,000,000 (+8 to 10%). Yes, count the zeros on that one. It is truly gorgeous.

The highlight of the day was when we went up up up over a pass and ended up at an auberge for dinner. This is an old dairy farm with cows and pigs and what-have-you. To keep afloat, they’ve opened up their home to people for dinner. There were probably about 50-60 people there when we arrived. The rooms were set up with long tables and diners all sat together and were brought their meal family-style. Everyone ate the same thing. We sat with another group of 3 who were quite talkative so that was interesting and I again realized how much French I can understand —if people speak slow enough.

Here’s a photo of one of the rooms after almost everyone had left.

The meal was 4 courses—- soup, meat pie and salad, smoked pork and mashed potatoes, and dessert. It was all very good but the dessert was dynamite. It was called Siesskas and was a kind of fromage blanc with kirsch sauce. It was incredible.

The only downer was that the almost-daily storm moved in about the time we started up the mountain so by the time we got settled inside the farmhouse, it was pouring rain. We couldn’t see the beautiful views from the top of the mountain where we sat. It was sort of clearing up as we left. The entire area reminded me of the Swiss mountains in the story Heidi by Johanna Spyri, one of my favorite childhood books.

On Sunday, I took a long walk around the village and around the next village too. Here are some pics of that.

This is the gîte where I stayed to celebrate the New Year, 2022 into 2023.

These are stairs that go down to the creek. I wonder…..??

In the afternoon, we went to a neighbor’s house for a BBQ. It was pretty interesting. The man who lives there, David, has two young kids. He also has an online language school business. This is a good thing since he lives so far away from civilization. Several languages are taught online, one-to-one, not classes. You can take a look here at the English site….

https://englishclassviaskype.com/

His father-in-law was also there, along with his mother-in-law. He is a lawyer in Colmar who defends criminals. He’s lived and taught in the US and other places and is really interesting. Here’s a photo of the BBQ. I forgot to take others….

Before long, it was time to return to Strasbourg so I grabbed my little bag and my flowers and returned with Sonia. It was such a nice little adventure  to end my 3-month sojourn in France.

My next entry to this blog will probably be in Spokane. I return on Thursday.