TRAVEL - 'TRAVAIL'

 

The word 'travel' comes from an old French word, 'travail,' or toilsome, laborious work.  If you've ever travelled with a group, or with a group of youth in any capacity you can start to understand the meaning.  Looking into the word a little more it probably originates from the Latin word, 'tripalium,' or torture and a painful, laborious effort.  If your accommodations have you crammed into a small European apartment in the damp winter with six people and zero space for sports or activity you start to understand the deeper meaning of the word.  As with work, there has to be an incentive to travel.  One incentive of 'travel' for an amateur historian is that it allows you to get a feel for the area and gain a deeper understanding without having to read an entire book.  

Travel day.  I can get us there and we'll eat food at some point.  The better half ensures theres a reasonable level of comfort along the way.

The WINE WORLD: Route des Vins d'Alsace  

The oak barrels of wine get bigger and bigger.  The vintage gets older and older.  A vintage 1472 white wine oak barrel in the cellar of the Hospices de Strasbourg in the Alsace region of France.  The wine has been moved to another oak barrel, but has in fact been tapped three times in celebrations.  The last time was in 1944 when General Leclerc of the Free French liberated Strasbourg from German control in World War II.  Being new to the wine world and ignorant when in Bourgogne, I have now acquired a taste for an Alsace Cremant la Grande Cuvee with a fine pale yellow colour and a fresh nose of white flowers and peach aromas. 

Fort Mutzig in the Alsace region.  Built during Kaiser Wilhelm II reign after the Franco-Prussian War. German asset taken by France after World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, later taken by the Wehrmacht and Germans in World War II and eventually bombed out by the German Luftwaffe on their way out of the region before vacating the Alsace to France again.  People in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France have switched nationalities four times between 1871-1945.  I guess people and nations will always fight over sweet land.  A machine gun turret lying in the vineyards along the Route de Vin in the Alsace.

You can have every 13th Century cobble-stoned street.  Every 12th Century chateau, half-timbered house, Cathedral, temple or pagoda.  I'll trade it all for a sandlot in the Caribbean any day. 

Dutch Caribbean - Curacao.  This is real beauty here.  Even a playground for the little ones.