My Favourite Wood House

After Paris (my mom blogged about that), we drove to Alsace, France. The town we stayed in was called Hilsenheim. The first thing we did was eat supper. At supper we had delicious foods. I have pictures. Alsatian food is different from in Canada. Everything is so juicy. All the food is better here.

Ham, potatoes, and saurkraut cooked in a pot

Pork knuckle with gravy and potatoes

European weiners and Fries

The house that we stayed in was all made of wood. One of the people who lived there named Yves made the house. His wife Marie made breakfast for us everyday and she made me hot milk! The funny thing is that one day they made breakfast for another person staying there and it was all meat like ham and salami but then they found out that he was a vegetarian! I am not a vegetarian so I loved the breakfast including the nutella every day! On our first day at that house, we played in the pool the whole day! My mom did laundry and my dad worked on his computer.

Cole flipping

dad working

Jumping in the pool

playing in the pool

 

The next day we drove through wine country and stopped at a Christmas store in Riqueswhier on our way to a place called Titisee where there is a ropes course and a lake.

Wine road

Riqueswhier (a town)

At the ropes course, my mother was freaking out… and I was too because it was so hard and so stressful! We couldn’t even do all the levels – even my dad because it was so hard! It was really fun though and we spent 4 hours there! After the ropes course, we went to a lake and we rented a paddle boat there. The paddle boat had a slide built right into it! We had a lot of fun on it. The water was just in the middle of hot and cold.

There are  A LOT of castles in Germany that were mostly built in the 1300’s! We went to a castle called Haut Koenigsburg near the wood house. It was built very high up on a mountain so that they could see where the enemies were. We saw lots of cannons there too.

Alsace is a great place to visit. If you ever get a chance to go, you should visit here!

This Forest is Amazing!

When we were still in Belgium, we went to a place called Hill 62. There are trenches there and a very cool  museum. In the trenches there are tunnels and lots and lots of mud. It must have been very scary for the soldiers, but the soldiers could hide in the forest on Hill 62, that’s why they called it Sanctuary Wood.

The museum was filled with different kinds of guns that the soldiers used, and signs that told men that they should join the army. The signs had so much detail and I think I would join the army if I saw one of them. My mom says the signs are called propaganda.

We also visited the cemetery and the monument for Hill 62. The cemetery was called Sanctuary wood because that’s what the soldiers called that forest. It gave them a place to hide.

The monument was inspiring to me because it described the soldiers who died there. From the top of the hill, I could see the Hill 60 and the other hills that the Canadian soldiers fought on so that the Germans couldn’t get to Ypres. They did break through though.

After today, we are going to Caen, France. I’m not sure what I’ll have to tell you about from that place!

Castles are Cool!!

Hello! This is my first time writing this blog! I hope you like it!

So my family is on vacation in Europe. We live in Canada, so that is 9 hours away if you go on a plane… and a very long time by walking! … my mom’s blog tells everything about the first part of our trip.

Right now we are staying at a mans apartment in Caen, France called an Air B’n’B. It’s pretty cozy, but I have to sleep with my brother – in the same bed – FOR FIVE NIGHTS! Luckily we are very tired when we go to bed. Right now I want to tell you about last week.

Last week we went to a real castle in Bouillon, Belgium that was not bombed in WWI by the Germans.

My dad and my brother on the drawbridge of the castle

And… there is a jail too! I almost had to sleep there!

I almost was stuck in there for a week… and there was a torture room next door!

In the torture room, there was a stretcher – a human stretcher for prisoners where they would put the feet of the people on one end and put the hands on a roller on the other end to roll their hands around – I would not want to be in that! There was also a roller with nails sticking out of it that worked just like the stretcher, and a machine that broke fingers too! It was awful and cruel!

Next door to the jail on the other side there was a forgotten room for prisoners that would never get out of jail… so they just forgot about them!! And we saw a leg in there – it was pretend, but gross.

My favorite part of the castle was the top of the entire castle. You could see the entire city of Bouillon. Bouillon reminded me of a town from the Three Muskateers movie (the old fashioned one), and there were sausages hanging in the windows of the shops and you don’t see that everyday!

Another cool thing at this castle is that you can see real jousting, but we were too late for that, and you can see real Falconers, which we did see. The Falcons job was to fly to another castle or another place to warn them or to tell them to get ready for war, but sometimes a friendly greeting.

Falconers are cool!!

I loved the castle, and next I’m going to tell you about Hill 62 in Flanders Fields.

Let there be peace!