Visiting the Chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg in Alsace (France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
The Château
du Haut-Koenigsbourg in Alsace, France is a fort and not a palace, which
requires much steep climbing to visit: be forewarned.
German
rulers beginning with Frederick von Hohenstaufen in the 12th century have used this mountaintop location
to survey the wheat and wine road (running north to south) and the salt and
silver road (running west to east) on the plain outside the modern town
of Kintzheim.
The masonry
of the holding walls along the way up to the Château reflects German
construction methods rather than English and French ones. The stones on the holding wall did not have
mortar between them to hold them up like the massive stonework masonry that you
find in Incan construction. Moss and
plants have grown between the cracks to form a sort of mortar.
Germanic
masonry here differs from English masonry in the way that stones are laid down
upon one another. The base row of stones
is covered by stones that are placed at regular intervals that fall in what
appears to be at 1/5 intervals of the stone below.
The effect
of this mathematical scheme on the entire wall is to see diagonal, parallel
lines in the wall of German masonry.
This type of construction is very solid and could hold one side of a
tunnel wall in a mountainside.
The effect
of English and French masonry when you can see it under stucco is to have a
series of parallel lines perpendicular to the base row of stones or
bricks. The base row is covered by
stones or bricks that fall upon the base at ½ intervals. The pressure point on the bricks is on the
center and may be easier to break down for this reason.
German
masonry is found on all three levels of the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
fort. The view from this solid perch has
been in peacetime as well as in war.
Jean Renoir filmed La Grande
Illusion here and used the interior as well as the exterior for shots.
The day my
husband and I visited, there were two busloads of Italian schoolchildren from
the Veneto region of northern Italy doing a tour. German rulers have been very influential in
the politics of Italy, which probably explained the children’s educational tour
before a visit to Kintzheim’s monkey zoo and the preserve for storks, the symbolic
bird of Alsace.
I somewhat
envied the children’s field trip.
By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
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| Laurent Paget Photography |
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| Laurent Paget Photography |
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| Laurent Paget Photography |
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