7/5 Le Hohwald to Andlau

In the morning Cieras feet were still quite painful - inquiring about bus / taxi options with our proprietress resulted in a generous offer to drive her 20 minutes down valley to the town. Very Generous! Over breakfast she gave us a wonderful recitation of the towns history, and personages of note. Tillys is quite decorated and there is  piano with a cigar burn from where a GI sat and played during the second war. With her fluent English it was hard to leave as I had amassed quite a few questions about the area but the route called. These are wonderful warm people! We paid a visit to the humanist fountain memorializing a woman who survived 2 Nazi camps and was know as the White Angel for her works there. She eventually became a notable humanist and psychiatrist.
The GR climbs steeply out of the valley and reaches a contour where the walking the becomes easy through wonderful woods - very pleasurable! Approaching the monastery of Mt St Odile you cross the ancient megalithic wall of speculative history. Here a sign to the Druids Grotto drew us off the GR and also it suggested it would go to Mt St O. To future walkers I can say Don't Go This Way!!! I didn't understand the size of the plateau here or how Mt St O. is situated on a sliver stretching north and below the main hilltop. We ended up wasting more then an hour running into the GR coming out from Mt St O and after a long walk backwards finally reaching the monastery. Now pressed for time we saw little of it, had soft serve ice cream and ice tea before heading back the way we came. The fastest way across the plateau is to go directly to the site of huge Airbus crash and walk past it out the other side where it junctions with the GR heading down hill. At this point distant thunder motivated us to move it! There is a fantastic Club Vosiegn day shelter we took a minute to view. But very very worth while is the castle ruin 5 minutes off trail about half way to Barr. Finally we emerged in the beautiful scenery of the vineyards approaching Barr. Located on the famous wine road, the half timbered homes are amazingly picturesque. Late in the day with  another hour to Andlau our days destination, we bailed and the local tourist info ordered a taxi which whisked us there in 10 minutes. Reunited with Ciera, we dined at the hotel. The menu options repetitive over the last couple days. A massive wild downpour / thunderstorm was a brief worthwhile interruption to sleep.