Does Your Golf Course Have Swans?

The Garden Golf de Metz Technopôle, right near GTL, is more elegant than most!

Textures

Colmar

Nature Walks

The Metz metropolitan area publishes a terrific guide, map included, of 20 nature walks, with suggestions for additional walks. The walks all have little markers along their respective routes, although that didn't keep us from getting off track when we tried one of the walks on Sunday.

I invited students from my classes to come with Susie and me on a hike from the village of Lessy onto the western slopes of Mount St-Quentin, which is on the other side of the Moselle River from downtown Metz. Six students met us at the Georgia Tech - Lorraine parking lot; we caravaned to Lessy and parked in the center of the village. Lessy turned out to be interesting in itself; sights included steep narrow streets, Renaissance washing basins, and a fortified church.

Our hike, which was "Ballade 4: Les Secrets du Mont Saint-Quentin," was complicated by the unanticipated fact that a massive public hike in exactly this area had been organized for Sunday. So we arrived in Lessy to find dozens of hikers all going in our direction. Luckily, it turned out that these hikers had a different route from ours; unluckily, we didn't figure that out fully until they had led us off course somewhat. But whatever the route, we enjoyed walking through the forests and along the fields.

Our half-guided, half-impromptu walk took us through forested slopes on the west side of Mount St-Quentin, over small roads and up dirt trails. We eventually emerged to find a wide grassy area above the forest, and we walked along the side of this huge field for a while.

These upper slopes gave us great views of the Moselle and its surrounding hills.

On the way back down we descended through alleys of flowering trees.

And along the road winding its way back to Lessy we passed an organic vineyard. A sign indicated that they controlled pests with, among other things, nettle tea.

To end the walk, which took about an hour and 15 minutes, Joe, Hari, Gong, Sylvain, Susie, Auriane, Marshall and I climbed back up the streets of Lessy to reach our cars.

After Susie and I dropped off students at GTL, we capitalized on our enthusiasm by, after a quick lunch, trying another walk from the book. We drove south of GTL to reach the village of Augny, the starting point for our walk, "Ballade 17: La Croix de Vignes." Early in this walk we passed another great field, amazing for its intense color of spring green.

The area once supported a great wine-growing activity. Until the end of the 19th Century villagers tended 163 acres of vines, but this ended following the devastation wrought by phylloxera. On the hillsides now stand scruffy orchards, whose blossoms framed our view of the valley below.

After reaching the Croix des Vignes, an ancient religious monument for the grape-growers, we followed the trail as it plunged into a forest. The forest floor drew our attention with its carpet of flowers.

These excursions can have an element of serendipity. We'd left the car parked at Augny's sport and events building. We came back to find that the village's artists and quilters had a show there, so we had a fun time looking at what the villagers had painted and sewn.

Contrasts

Longwy

Textures

Chateau de Prény

Longwy

On Saturday Susie and I drove up to Longwy, which is right next to the Belgian border. We wanted to explore the source of the Longwy enamel ware that we'd seen at the brocantes and the antiques fair. Plus, Vauban had constructed major fortifications there. Given its cultural history, I think we had imagined that Longwy would feature lots of little antique shops, interspersed around rampart walls. Instead, we found a pretty typical city of far northern France, suffering economically from loss of its steel industry and not yet that strong in helping tourists explore its heritage.

Longwy comprises two neighborhood distinguished by elevation. Upper Longwy developed within the ridgetop Vauban ramparts. There's a central square, where the biggest commercial activity seems to be bank branches. When we visited, the square was chock-a-block full of carnival rides--a kind of county fair without the vegetables and livestock. Many of the rides had American themes and names, like one that had mine cars rolling through Wild West scenery.

The fortifications were extensive but not all that well maintained. They gave a feeling less like the sharply maintained stonework of Besancon's citadel and more like an atmospheric 18th Century engraving of tumbling walls overgrown with ivy. In some ways this was interesting--you could walk right up to edge of high, unfenced walls. Susie and I walked on the upper ramparts for a while and got what I think was a pretty good impression of at least that part of the fortress. Longwy's Vauban fortress is a UNESCO world heritage site.

The Musée Municipal des Emaux (City Museum of Enamels) is housed in the former military bakery, inside the upper ramparts. The museum, through a video and a beautiful collection of Longwy enamelware, traces the history of faience and ceramics in the area. The person staffing the museum was exceptionally helpful, offering to let us continue looking at the exhibits even though the museum would be closing for lunch. The ceramics industry began here in the late 18th Century; it got a big boost when Napoleon I ordered a set of dinnerware for the Legion of Honor. Later, Longwy dinnerware would serve the president of the republic at the Elysee Palace.


The big advance for Longwy pottery involved development of a technique in enamel that gave the impression of cloisonné. Among the best-known patterns of this kind is the apple-blossom pattern, shown here on an octagonal plate.

For the Exposition Coloniale Internationale, a vast highly popular exhibition held in Paris in 1931, Longwy created a unique enamel bowl decorated in the colors and forms of France's tropical colonies.

We also spent a some time in Lower Longwy, which has a marché on Saturday mornings. In this view from the marché, you can see the city hall on the right and part of the upper city on the ridgetop.

For me, the most interesting part of the marché was the section with vendors of prepared foods. There must have been a half-dozen stands selling chickens that they were roasting on the spot. One stand sold halal roasted chickens. And this elaborate truck featured not only chickens and other meats but also an enticing selection of prepared dishes including paella.


This stand sold 15 kinds of olives, in addition to sausages and, I think, sausage sandwiches made to order.

Sellers of vegetables were grouped toward to the north end of the square, and most were under this canopy, watched over by a large dog who rose only when another dog would pass by.


Taking a highly circuitous route home, we detoured ten miles into Belgium to have lunch in Arlon, a city of Roman origins symbolized by this column on the main shopping street.


In the 11th Century, a chateau surmounted Arlon's highest point. The chateau was destroyed in 1558, but in 1621 the Capuchins built a monastery on the ruins. In 1681 the hilltop was subsequently fortified by none other than Vauban, transforming the monastery into a citadel. Although the monastery was suppressed in the wake of the French Revolution, when Revolutionary troops battling Austria occupied the city, its church, St-Donat, still exists.

On the way home we passed through the French town of Briey, which also boasts striking fortifications.

The heritage of fortifications makes it clear that this area, where France, Belgium and Luxembourg meet, had a long history of military conflict. The countryside, though, still has many less martial views. Here's part of our drive home, through springtime fields outside St-Leger, Belgium, just north of the border with France.

Contrasts

Colmar