Everything and everyone turns blue in the small Alsatian town of Guebwiller, 12 miles northwest of Mulhouse, 25 southwest of Colmar and five from Le Grand Ballon, the highest point of the Vosges mountain range with its eight ski slopes, says Kevin Pilley
If you fear climate change will prevent you from enjoying a white Christmas, for a seasonal Alsatian alternative you need only follow northwest France’s Roman Route, its Route des Crêtes (summits) or Route des Orgues – the route of church organs and sacred music.
They all end up in the Florival or Launch Valley of the Est region of the Haut Rhin of south Alsace where, if you time your arrival for December, you will guarantee yourself to have a uniquely blue Christmas. And it’s nothing to do with the British general election.
Everything and everyone turns blue in the small Alsatian town of Guebwiller, 12 miles northwest of Mulhouse, 25 southwest of Colmar and five from Le Grand Ballon, the highest point of the Vosges mountain range with its eight ski slopes.
Every year, around Christmas, people turn blue. Faces are turned turquoise and hands and fingers a sickly shade of manganese violet.
Not because of the cold, windburn or an off-piste ski tan but in tribute to a local Art Deco potter. And his famous pioneering glaze.
Theodore Deck (1823-1891) became renowned for his ceramic vessels made by traditional Islamic processes like the Iznik style, used to decorate many of Istanbul’s mosques designed by Mimar Sinan, the chief architect to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, Selim 11 and Murad 11 of the Ottoman period.
Deck included white alkaline to create his signature ‘bleu de Deck’, a distinctive glaze mix of potash, soda carbonate, and chalk, which produces a lavish, deep turquoise blue after firing. In 1887, Deck published a treatise on tin-glazed pottery entitled ‘La Faïence’.
In the 19th century in the UK, Minton similarly revived tin-glazed pottery in the style of Renaissance Italian majolica and the Great Exhibition of 1851 produced earthenware pottery with coloured translucent. Majolica ware was later also made by the Wedgwood factory.
Théodore Deck made his living from making tile stoves in a factory in Paris. He revived the lost art of transparent enamelling and, working at Sevres, passed on the new aesthetics to ceramicists Edmond Lachenal and Émile Decoeur. Deck’s Faïence work was inspired by Saint-Porchaire wares as well as Assyrian, Hispano-Moresque, Chinese, Japanese, Italian Renaissance and Persian ceramics.
Until the 12th night after Christmas Day, Guebwiller’s neo-classical red sandstone 1761 Eglise Notre-Dame is lit blue in celebration of the ceramicist. So is the town hall and other buildings. Besides the church, the museum – in an old canonical building and home of a family of silk ribbon makers – has a collection of 500 of Denk’s famous Faïence pieces.
Guebwiller’s history is linked to the Abbey of Murbach, founded in 727. Most of the current city is built around the Romanesque church of Saint-Leger and Burgstall castle. Enclosed by ramparts between 1270 and 1287, Guebwiller dates largely from the 13th century. During the Revolution, the abbey’s assets were sold to industrial developers and Guebwiller became the second industrial centre after high-Rhin Mulhouse.
Local Art Deco potter Theodore Deck became renowned for his ceramic vessels
Its former Dominican monastery dates to the 14th century. The nave is decorated with murals. The acoustics are reputed to be among the best in Europe, which can be verified if you have a heavy cold and are suffering from bouts of sneezing.
Or have eaten too much sauerkraut too quickly.
As well as Deck’s masterpieces, the town – at the southerly end of the Alsace Wine Route – has four Grand Crus (Spiegel, Kessel, Kitterle, Saering) and all the local vineyards offer tastings of their own masterpieces of viticultural art – moulleux, Cremant sparkling, sweet vendanges tardives (late harvest) and ‘selections of des grains’. The best include Schlumberger Domaine, the Ollwiller vineyard at Wuenheim, Orschwir, Bollenburg and the Noble Valley, as well as the cellars Leon Boesch, Renee Flack, Camille Braun and Materne Haegelin.
Thann on the river Thur is the start or finish of the Route des Vins. It’s well-known for its stork nests, 1411 Witches’ Tower and late Middle Ages Collegiale Saint-Thiebaut. Eguisheim is the definitive Alsatian town with half-timbered buildings, ‘winstubs’, year-round window boxes, cobblestone streets and Christmas market.
It could be a backcloth for any Christmas pantomime.
A good base to tour southern Alsace is Dominique and William Pralong’s 1858 Domaine de Beaupre, once the De Bay family mansion. They were textile manufacturers in Guebwiller. Now it is an ‘artistic space’, holding concerts, recitals and art events. It’s also an art gallery displaying the works of lesser known artists like Kissinger, Ambrogiani, Bagdon, Barrilot, Chabaud, Marchaisseau and Plok. Even the paintings in your room are for sale.
The hotel also boasts a huge collection of digestifs and aperitifs to further help with your Alsace-inspired winter complexion.
Bertrand and Florence Gelly’s Caveau Heuhaus in Eguisheim is a good cellar restaurant offering regional specialties like tartes flambées or flammekueche (Alsatian pizza). In Guebwiller there’s the family-run Taverna des Vignerons and Jardin des Sens, which offers lighter, easier-on-the-colon options to hearty pork shin, pork knuckle, stuffed pigs trotters and beef slabs with an alp of sauerkraut and a pair lengthy, bendy sausages.
In Soultz, a few miles from Guebwiller, there’s Gregory Rominger’s Metzgerstuwa (‘butcher’s table) restaurant which adjoins and was once in a butcher’s shop. One of its specialities is lamb kidneys flambeed in brandy. Liquorice-scented gluhwein is served nightly at Guebwiller’s Christmas market along with roasted chesnuts.
So there’s no excuse whatsoever in going to Alsace and not coming back glowing with the good life.
And looking like you’ve had a great Noel Bleu.
www.ville-guebwiller.fr
www.tourisme-alsace.com
www.domainedebeaupre.com