In this heat the Rhine flows the wrong way. I burn precious clothes in a tumble dryer and run out at noon, crossing little streams and out through the suburbs. I watch a Crane sweep the sky from the deep heat grass of a field, my fingers ripe red with Cherry juice.
In the morning I sit in the campsite in Turkheim for a little while, today is one of my shortest days, its only 5km or so to Colmar, I sit and watch an elderly dutch campervan camper feed crisps by hand to one of the local Cranes. These birds are huge. Somewhat larger than swans with square wings like a herons. Atop the local church there is a nest built for them, a shallow dish like a giant tea light holder that they then fill with twigs and baby Cranes which are also massive and have an awful lot of trouble trying to stand up. Tourists gawk at them. So do I I guess. All the tourist shops sell little cuddly Cranes, or tea towels with Cranes on. I set off down the river that runs through the town, the bakeries compete to sell me my breakfast and I eat bananas all along the footpath. Kids skate past on their way to school and I have to go for a piss beneath a very windy willow tree that nearly causes me some problems. The path arches round the local college and some vineyards that are sliced in half by the single train line. Kids playing truant, or perhaps high school drop outs hang about by the platform. I enjoy looking at all the tiny grapes just starting to take their forms. Pretty much at the end of these fields is the edge of Colmar. A huge dog untied lounges in a driveway and I hope to heaven its not the aggresive type due to its apparent freedom. Its placid and I scamper past onto roads looking for a route into Colmar. If I head directly East I shouldn’t miss the town centre. This sort of works. I buy thin socks and a clean t-shirt in a hypermarche on the skirt of town, one of massive places where the ceiling is miles away and you can’t really see the edges of the shop floor. Outside I eventually figure out that I can follow a small stream into the heart of town and find the tourist information after little effort. Then I find out where the hostel is and walk back the way I came only to find it doesnt open for another hour. I sit down and eat the rest of my Comte and bread, drink all my water.
The hostel front man is a bit of an oddity, I am forced to buy a memebership card and he kindly informs me that it is valid everywhere, even apparently, someone once told him, on the moon and into the depths of space. I am just relieved Im allowed my own room, I further infuriate him by not wanting to pay for the breakfast because I don’t want to get up before 9am. Then I go off and buy a box of special K which I eat for dinner and breakfast. The next day is the usual civilisation challenge, find a launderette, exchange travellers cheques and try and buy some more meths for my stove. These three things don’t quite go to plan. The launderette seems to be going well but after almost an hour of using the dryer my clothes are still decidedly wet due to the machines lack of heat, I switch to another machine which refuses to work so I try the third machine which does produce heat and does work. I am starting to feel like Goldilocks at this point, first too cold, then too hot. It then procedes to produce far too much heat and burns all my precious base layers to high heaven, or perhaps hell is more fitting. They come out scarred and tight, very very tight. I am not very happy at all.
Something odd is going on in town, nearly all the shops are in the process of changing their window displays, naked mannequins stare across the street at each other. Its a subtle but surreal little oddity. They have those big saucers for cranes to nest in here too and I join a gaggle of tourists near the cathedral to stare at some of this years brood attempting to stand on their gangly legs without falling out of the nest and down the side of the cathedral. Colmar is a beautiful place, a medieval city, all crooked buildings painted in technicolour, eccentric buskers play bizarre little instruments wearing odd little hats to people enjoying bowls of ice cream on coobled squares. Fountains here and there, a canal running through a part of town called little venice. Houses that can only be reached by the water and a vague recollection of reading about one of the kings of France that hid in this quarter for a while.
The next morning I walk out of town at midday, through its centre and out east, and ah ha! the reason for the mannequins is explained to some extent. Like some cartel the entire town has started is summer sale on the same day! All the mannequins are now happily draped in red sale t-shirts and 50% off flags. But the entire town, in one go. Im sure this doesn’t happen at home in quite the same way. Who knows. I don’t find any meths either though I do manage to change some travellers cheques. I leave town by way of the river L’ll that turns south for a while to run parrallel to the Rhine that flows north to my surprise. I remember being a child and looking at maps, thinking that all rivers must run south because thats kind of downhill, down the earth, how could rivers possibly run up the earth? On the banks I find a little spot that is for naturists though there are no naturists at the time I visit. I collapse in a field of deep grass under the midday heat, attempting to relax in the sun is a foolish idea when you have to get up and walk 20km with 20kg on your back.
bramthomasarnold
