remiremont is a small town that is called 'the entrance to the hautes-vosges' - a region in the vosges mountains. this town dates back to the 7th century & is famous for its abbey & religious history.
remiremont abbey. the former collegiate church st. pierre.
the palace of the abbesses. nowadays it's the city hall, court and library.
the ladies' square.
inside the abbey church.
in the crypt of the church. it seems to be some kind of romanic chapel.
everything looked like a sacrifice room, haha. a litte bit haunted.
gargoyles! that's really typical for french church buildings.
the entry to the city hall.
covered pavements! it really looked beautiful.
a beautiful cat showing off her tongue. a woman passed us and scolded us for photographing her house ( we only wanted to photograph the cat ) and said we should do something else than creeping up on her. talk about being paranoid.
after that incident we went to small rose garden nearby.
the olive's garden of the abbess palace. no olives of course.
more gargoyles.
when we returned to our car we discovered stairs up on a platform with a jesus statue standing there. you had a fantastic view from up there over the town of remiremont.
my parents in front of the church tower.
we decided to drive to the ballon d'alsace - a mountain that has an altitude of 1247 metres. we were greeted by the sounds of bells that the cows up there had around their necks. it was a very special melody.
a lot of cows with horns :)
a small calf :)
when we climbed up on the highest point of the mountain fog came up. soon we saw close to nothing. we only heard the bells of the cows, the chirping of several birds & the neighing of horses. sometimes the fog gave way to cliffy abysses. it was a haunting experience to walk through the fog.
the temperatures were really cold up there! when we finally ended our tour & went back to the car i was already on the verge of being a chunk of ice. this is my mother wearing my poncho.
i loved the crippled trees everywhere.
horses! i had a special encounter with one of them later on.
you could walk through a horse meadow up on the mountain & that was when we met these three companions. the fair horse on the left discovered me & immediately walked towards me. i thought, oh no, it's going to attack me, but it did nothing. we were facing each other, looking at one another for a very long time, it snorted & nudged me. i caressed its nose for quite some time until it had enough, went back to its pals and carried on with grazing. what an experience. i remember thinking how beautiful this scene was.
more cows in the fog!
after our visit to the ballon d'alsace we drove to ramonchamp to pay our french landlords & friends a visit. they took us for a walk to get some vegetables & salad & we got to meet more of the people that are part of the town twinning activities betweent my home village & theirs. drinking crème de cassis & chatting was involved. oh, and of course, discovering cats in all circumstances of life ;)
this one was really cuddly. she reminded me of a little bandit with her messy hair & her whimsical face :)
on the farm we got the vegetables from i discovered calves! i remembered the way i used to offer them my thumb to suck on it when i was little ( there's a cow farm in my home village ) and decided i'd give it a go again. it was hilarious & the calf's sucking is so soft & tender! you just have to deal with their saliva afterwards, but that's the price you have to pay when you want to have this funny experience :)
this one was in love with my thumb :)
all in all, i think this day was my favourite!
Comments