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Alsace, France
June 8th, Tuesday - Haguenau, Alsacel, by TD
DW started our morning drive towards
Strasbourg in France. We expected the trip of under 250 km to
take under 3 hours. What we didn’t anticipate was the traffic
and road construction. Before reaching Stuttgart, a line
painting crew backed up the road for 30 minutes. We stopped at
the airport to make car arrangements with Avis. It is a
fabulous and huge airport serviced by most major international
lines. Amazing what corporate headquarters like
Daimler-Chrysler will do for an city’s airport. Avis informed
me “that I had to deal with the Berlin office over the phone”.
I’m not sure I agree but I accepted the answer.
Back on the highway again, we immediately encountered stopped
traffic. After 30 minutes of little movement, I took over
driving. We were beginning to wonder if there was any
construction, as we drove on and on. Finally a crew repairing
the center guard rail appeared. They are widening this roadway
to 6 lanes but that had nothing to do with our traffic delays.
I stopped to call Avis in Berlin from a rest stop. We are
trying to find a car in Germany that needs to be returned to
Holland. It will save the drop off charge, if we can. Avis is
now telling me that “I have to return this car to Berlin for
the price quoted”. My dander got raised by the person I was
dealing with, since I rented the car with no intention of ever
returning it to Berlin, and they knew it at the time.
Tomorrow, they will know if there is a vehicle in the north or
not.
 The route headed south from Karlsruhe toward Baden-Baden
before crossing over the Rhine into France. Alsace was a
German region from when it was lost during the Franco-Prussian
War until the end of WW I when France reclaimed it. The towns
all have German names and the architecture is all German
looking. You wonder what the people thought when they changed
nationalities depending on which side won the last war.
This Etap Hotel is located in the city of Haguenau. It appears
to be the oldest of the units, we have stayed in. For the most
part, they have been the best value in Europe. Even though
this room has a “no smoking” sign on the door, the room smells
of smoke. There’s no ventilation system in the room like many
of the others had. It’s very hot today and our south facing
room, means we can’t open the window.
After unloading the car, we drove into the city of Haguenau.
Tourist information for the Alsace region was readily
available at a center office. The region is heavily forested
with picturesque historic villages. Perfect for the tourist
industry to promote. We took a walking tour of the city center
while looking for an internet café. To our surprise we did
find a laundry mat and a number hair salons for a haircut in a
few days.
We have started playing “three handed” Bridge with AD. The few
games that we have been playing are tiring after all these
months. He’s caught on quickly since he’s a reasonably good
card player. He doesn’t like to count cards unfortunately and
needs to add that talent. It was so hot that after playing a
few hands at the outside table, we went into the breakfast
room. Seems that we’ve gone from winter to summer in a few
days. This afternoon, it was over 30C (86 F) and the sun
blistering hot.
June 9th, Wednesday - Strasbourg, France, by TD
This is the first Etap which we’ve eaten
breakfast. It’s not that I wanted to pay for it but the cable
was off yesterday. Free breakfast was the reward. Hot drinks,
bread and jam was all they provide for $6 pp. No wonder, we
don’t pay for it! After some math reviewing, we headed for
Strasbourg which is about 25 km south. The route was via
highway the entire trip, but heavy traffic slowed the road to
a crawl.
 Strasbourg is a city of about 250K people and the home of the
EU Parliament. It calls itself, the “Capital of Europe”. A
cathedral overshadows the city center. It is surrounded by a
pedestrian area filled with tourist shops. The Cathedral has
beautiful 900 year old stained glass windows and a nice
memorial to American soldiers who gave their lives liberating
the city in 1945. What we call “Tudor” style buildings dot the
city center. They date from the 16th and 17th century. This is
a rich agricultural area for Europe with a tradition of hops
production.
 Our main quest in Strasbourg and the Alsace region is to find
the village where Leon Dibling left from in the 1860’s moving
to Custar, Ohio in Wood County. The Tourist Information Bureau
suggested that I go the Archives Department. We walked around
the city center and ate lunch, waiting for the 2 hour lunch to
be over. It feels like we’re back in a Latin country finding
all the businesses closed from 12-2. Even Switzerland had 2
hour, lunch breaks because all the students come home to eat
at noon. After feeding more money in a parking machine, we
walked to the Archives. DW & AD waited in a nearby park while
I went to see what I could find. A very helpful clerk went to
an 1860 census book looking for Diblings. She told me “I’d be
lucky to find him”. What we did find was the village of
Eschbach with 8 Diblings recorded. She left me at a shelf with
books of immigration records but there was no record of a
Dibling leaving. I know that two brothers left for America and
that was enough for me. I’m not really looking for ancestral
linage as many people are.
DW & AD were sweating in the park when I came out. It’s over
30C again today. We returned to the car and blasted the A/C to
cool down. There was no traffic on the way back to Haguenau.
DW & AD visited the internet while I tried to call Avis in
Berlin. None of the pay phones accept coins, and I wasn’t
about to buy a French phone card, so we went to the local Avis
office. They called Berlin for me and I talked to that office
about our car. We have to take this car to Amsterdam and bite
the drop off charge. The local office also checked on our oil
problems and offered to have us change cars (in Strasbourg,
which we weren’t planning on revisiting).
We returned to the hotel after shopping at a nearby
hypermarket. A restaurant in the complex looked fine for
dinner. We returned to “Flunch” to eat after some down time in
the hotel. The manager found the Dibling village on the map
for me. The name has changed to Aschbach since the 1860’s.
Haguenau turned out to be a great accidental choice. Aschbach
is only about 15 km north of here in a farming area called
“beyond the forest”. Haguenau is in the largest forest area of
France. The Maginot Line, a series of block houses and forts,
were constructed to defend France from the East. Intense
fighting during WWII was centered across this area.
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AD Journal |
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June 8 - Walk around Strasbourg
Today we drove to the city of
Strasbourg. Right off the bat, we got a parking spot and
put money in the machine. We walked to the Cathedral and
looked inside. In it there was a cuckoo clock that we
thought would go cuckoo, but it didn’t do anything. We left
and walked in a square, and went to the information
office. We asked, "where we could find my dad’s family
village". Next we went, and my Mom and I waited until my
dad came back from finding his family information. He
did find a village where his family lived. We walked
back to our car and then to the hotel.
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Haguenau, France
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