A Bitche of a Journey - Saturday 9th - Sunday 10th May 2009

As we have with all our holidays, a REALLY early start. This one was an 0530hrs get-up. We got out of the flat as quickly as possible and left to get our new travel buddies Katie and Andy. It was Andy’s first trip outside of the United Kingdom and there was some apprehension as we approached the Channel Tunnel as Andy did not have a passport. We won’t go into it but after a traumatic series of events, he did not have one.

As usual, it didn’t pose a problem at all. Waved through by French border control we continued our onward journey down thorough France, a bit into Luxembourg, a bit into Germany and finally ending up back in France at the beautiful city of Bitche.

Bitche is a lovely town on the eastern fringes of France. The town which was formed by the joining of the villages of Rohr and Kaltenhausen in the 17th century, gets its name from the old stronghold Bytis Castrum. This stood on the rocky hillside 80m above the town.

This stronghold was destroyed by the French and a new Citadel was built in its place in 1740. This citadel was proved impregnable until WW2 when it was occupied by the Germans as a control centre for the area.

The city was liberated by the yanks at the end of the war – History Done!

The city today is very quaint and more akin to being occupied by coach tours of elderly people from all over the region. There is only one decent hotel in the city centre, Hotel l’Strasbourg. We stayed there and it was lovely, expensive, but lovely. The hotel backs onto the gardens that sit in the shadow of the citadel.

We had a quick wander through these gardens, a quick walk that turned into a long stroll with loads of photos! The colours were amazing and there were a number of small art type gardens with lots of different themes.

After the gardens everyone was getting a little hungry so we went in search of food…. Worryingly there was very little to do of an evening in Bitche. There was the over-priced restaurant at the hotel and apart from that there was only a kebab shop in town,.. so,… dirty burgers it was! It was such a shame, the place really needs a nice place to eat and drink of an evening, there is so much potential but it was generally rubbish.

We retired for the evening and the next day we decided to storm the citadel.

Now, the citadel is completely ACE! It is really high up and you can see for miles around, it is a perfect place to defend the town and the local area. The place could exist for months on end under siege; it had a massive reservoir for drinking water and huge grain stores. On site was a bakery and a network of underground tunnels meant there was ample room for cold stores.

We were amazed by the local inhabitants, not the people but the Herons. Circling the citadel, coming into land and having a wander around, I have never been so close to these amazing birds, they are huge and look incredibly powerful.

We collected a quick Geocache and then left the city behind us to make our way over to our home away from home, Titisee!

Titisee on first glance is a lovely little german town, on the edge of lake Titisee and, like Bitche, is FULL of tourists and coach parties. In the heart of the Black Forest, people come from miles around to go on walking, driving and spa holidays, also to row and sail on the lake.

We were staying at the Hotel Alemannenhof, they have some blocks of apartments just up the hill from the main hotel that would be our base for the week. The appartment was huge as they go and the views from the balcony were astounding. You could see all the way left to town, to the right into the Black Forest with the lake stretching from one side to the other in front. With mountains and hills on each side the air was pretty still and and reflections off the water were beautiful.

We explored a little and walked down to the waters edge, where i made a promise to go for a swim, a promise that i would later fail to keep.

We had a quick beer and a bit of cake at the hotel before heading up to the room for a sleep.