IV
COLMAR TO OBERAMMERGAU
Had we crossed a sea instead of an imaginary dividing line we could hardly have found a more abrupt change in the characteristics of people and country than we discover when we descend into the broad green valley of the Rhine. We have a series of fine views as we glide down the easy grades and around the sweeping curves of the splendid road that leads from the crest to the wide plain along the river—glimpses of towns and villages lying far beneath, beyond long stretches of wooded hills. On our way we meet peasants driving teams of huge horses hitched to heavy logging wagons. The horses go into a panic at the sight of the car and the drivers seem even more panicky than the brutes; it is quite apparent that the motor is not so common in Germany as in England and France.
The province of Alsace, by which we enter Germany, was held by France from the time of Napoleon until 1871, but it never entirely lost its German peculiarities during the French occupation. Its villages and farmhouses are distinctly Teutonic, though the larger towns show more traces of French influence. Colmar, some twenty miles from the border, is the first city—a place of about forty thousand people and interesting to Americans as the birthplace of the sculptor, Bartholdi, who designed the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. It is a substantially built town with an enormous Gothic church and its museum has a famous collection of pictures by early German masters.
A few miles from Colmar we come to the Rhine, so famed in German song and story, a green, rushing flood that seems momentarily to threaten the destruction of the pontoon bridge which bears us across. Beyond the river the level but poorly surfaced road leads to Freiburg, a handsome city of about seventy-five thousand people. It is a noted manufacturing town and has an ancient university with about two thousand students. Its cathedral is one of the finest Gothic structures in Germany, the great tower, three hundred and eighty feet in height, being the earliest and most perfect of its kind. The windows of fourteenth-century glass are particularly fine and there are many remarkable paintings of a little later date. The city has other important churches and many beautiful public buildings and monuments. Indeed, Freiburg is a good example of the neatness, cleanliness and civic pride that prevails in most of the larger German cities. It has many excellent hotels and we have a well-served luncheon at the Victoria. We should stop for the day at Freiburg were it not for our unexpected delay at Dijon; we must hasten if we are to reach Oberammergau in time for our reservations. In the three remaining daylight hours we make a swift run to Tuttlingen, some sixty miles eastward, passing several small villages and two good-sized towns, Neustadt and Donaueschingen, on the way. The latter is near the head waters of the Danube, and from here we follow the river to Tuttlingen. We pass through a beautifully wooded country and several inns along the way indicate that this section is a frequented pleasure resort. There are many charming panoramas from the road, which in places swings around the hillsides some distance above the river.
Had we known the fate in store for us at Tuttlingen, we should surely have stopped at one of the hotels which we hastily passed in our dash for that town. But we reach it just at dusk—a place of about fifteen thousand people—and turn in rather dubiously at the unattractive Post Hotel. If the Post is a fair sample of the country inns of Germany, the tourist should keep clear of country inns when possible. On entering we meet an assortment of odors not especially conducive to good appetite for the evening meal, and this proves of the kind that requires a good appetite. We are hungry, but not hungry enough to eat the Post’s fare with anything like relish and we are haunted by considerable misgivings about the little we do consume. The Post, however, does not lack patronage, though it seems to come mainly from German commercial men who are seeking trade in the thriving town.
We are away early in the morning, following a rough, neglected road some dozen miles to Ludwigshaven at the head of Lake Constance, or the Boden See, as the Germans style it. A new highway leading down to the lake shore is not yet open, though nearly ready, and we descend over a temporary road which winds among tree stumps and drops down twenty per cent grades for a couple of miles. We are thankful that we have only the descent to make; I doubt whether our forty-horse engine would ever have pulled us up the “bank,” as a Yorkshire man would describe it.
But having reached the level of the lake, we find a splendid road closely following the shore for forty miles and affording views of some of the finest and most famous scenery in Europe. In all our journeyings we have had few more glorious runs. The clear balmy June day floods everything with light and color. The lake lies still and blue as the heavens above, and beyond its shining expanse rise the snow-capped forms of the Swiss Alps, their rugged ranks standing sharply against the silvery horizon. At their feet stretches the green line of the shore and above it the dense shadows of the pines that cover the slopes to the snow line. It is a scene of inspiring beauty that one sees to best advantage from the open road. Near at hand green fields stretch to the hills, no great distance away, and the belated fruit-tree blossoms load the air with perfume. Hay-making is in progress in the little fields—women swing the scythes or handle the rakes and pitchforks while staid old cows draw the heavy, awkward carts. There are several pleasant little towns along the shore, rather neater and cleaner than the average German village, though even these are not free from occasional touches of filthiness. Near the center of the lake is Friedrichshafen, a popular resort with numerous hotels. There is a beautiful drive along the lake, bordered with shrubs and trees, and fronting on this is the comfortable-looking Deutsches Haus, surrounded by gardens which extend to the shore. We remember the Deutsches Haus particularly, since on its glass-enclosed veranda we are served with an excellent luncheon. As we resume our journey, feeling at peace with the world, and open up a little on the smooth lakeside road, the Captain exclaims:
“If I had all the money I could possibly want, do you know what I’d do? I’d just buy a motor, don’t you know, and do nothing on earth but tour about Europe!”
And we all agree that under such conditions and on such a day his proposed vocation seems an ideal one.