Alsace Wine Route - France

On Tuesday, with Dave in the back seat sleeping, we finally crossed the border into France. We stopped to get gas on the highway and Dave had his first rude European encounter. Thankfully that was out of the way.

We finally arrived in the medium size town of Colmar, France, at the south end of the Alsace Wine Route.

This town is well known for being the home of the man who designed the Statue of Liberty, of which they have a small replica on the edge of town.

This area is a very wide valley between two mountain ranges. It has also long been disputed territory between France and Germany, hence many of the towns have German sounding names and the architecture is a unique blend of the two cultures.

We were delighted with another wonderful hotel. It was within walking distance of the old "centre ville" town center. This hotel was recommended by a fun travel guide I had gotten before the trip, which I wish I had had the first time I went to Europe. The hotel would have been completely missed otherwise. As I always do I love to throw open the windows and shutters and peer out into the streets below. I am not sure why I always find that so delightful, but there is a certain sense of freedom with the act.

Originally we were going to stay for just one night, but since Dave was still a bit under the weather we decided to stay for two nights rather than heading into Paris with him not feeling well. It was certainly relaxing to put roots down for two nights.

We had a couple of wonderful strolls around town including a trip to a grocery store for bread and cheese for dinner one night.

On the full day we had there we drove north up the valley on the highway, with the mountains on our right. On the entire trip north there were castles all along the mountains. this vantage point was of great benefit in protecting the valley below.

We finally got off the main road and into one of the many enchanting towns in Alsace.

One of the other things that Alsace is well know for is storks. It was fun to see their huge nests atop the churches and buildings.

From there we went to visit a castle: Chateau du Haut -Koenigsbourg. We did a tour there and got to go through the entire castle including the beautiful view from the top. It was beautifully restored and cared for.

After leaving there we drove south through the many little towns and vineyards. An interesting thing, that for some reason we did not get a picture of, was the huge crucifixes on the edgesw of many of the vineyards. most of them were about 15 feet tall, and clearly quite old.

Each village proved more and more beautiful. It is hard to even capture in pictures the beauty and explosion of flowers everywhere alongside the ancient buildings. Thankfully most of these towns were not huge tourist attractions, and the tourists that were there were mostly French and German. We did met a retired couple from Australia on one of our roadside stops for pictures. They were staying in one of the towns and he was drawing pictures of all the beauty.

In one of the most beautiful towns we spent some time wandering around looking at all the intriguing little house (more like townhouses) that were for rent and imagining a longer stay there with the whole family.

Who really lives in a place like this?
What is their life like?

It doesn't seem quite real - though it is.

We also went inside a small church there. It was mainly an attraction for people to see. We both went in and sat down and were both left alone with our thoughts. There is something deeply moving to think about a place being used for worship for about 900 years. Some candles were burning and there was a box for coins if you wanted to light your own. A woman came in and lit a candle, and there was something holy in that moment. Dave and I both went and lit our own and then left, both having been moved by the presence of God there.

Along the way back we also visited the ruins of a castle that was a little hike into the woods to get to. It was interesting to contrast that with the restored castle. Something melancholy about it.

Then back to our hotel for another evening of strolling through the town, and being paralyzed with fear of even trying to speak some French- though at times I actually did know what to say. How strange a phenomenon that always is.

We got up early the next morning (Thursday) and went down to check out at 5:30am so that we could get an early start to Paris. The people working at the hotel had all spoken English well, but apparently the night shift did not. We could not communicate with the man well enough to check out, and finally he and another women someone communicated for us to call later when the other people came on duty. That meant that they actually let us go without paying for the room. How astonishing! (We actually never got to call until that evening and they had never called us about it in typical French fashion - so as not to be rude.)

So back in the car for the long ride to Paris. Everyone we had talked to in the US and in France had told us not to drive a car into Paris. Since we were already a day behind we decided to go in. How bad could it be?

Next stop Switzerland...

It was a great deal of fun just getting to Switzerland... on the Autobahn (no speed limits)!

I had always wondered how Switzerland had been able to remain neutral and also to stay out of the many European wars. After visiting there it became clear that basically it would be impossible to take over Switzerland.... there are so many mountains and remote valleys.

Back to our visit. We arrived at our hotel in Thun to find to our great delight that the hotel was in a more beautiful than the pictures showed. The hotel was right on the bank of a beautiful river with milky aqua water. it is hard to describe. (The photo is out the hotel window.) The river joined two lakes and the mountains were visible from the hotel. We were both convinced that if it wasn't so cold there that the place would be overrun with tourists. (It was quite chilly there.)

After taking a brief walk around town we set off for a remote area where my great grandmother came from (on my father's side of the family - he was half Swiss).

The strange thing is that there are still people living there with the same last names. These were really remote valleys, so likely the people were related. Most of the villages had maybe 10-20 houses with a lot of farm land around them. It was strange to think of family there.

Many of the buildings has intricate carvings in wood and were several hundred years old. No doubt things look pretty much the same as always. And yes there was the sound of tinking bells in the hills and amazing Swiss cows.

After driving through several small towns we stopped at a tourist office and asked about a place to eat. The girl there spoke English well and gave us directions to a restaurant that ended up being in a very remote area. She assured us that it had excellent food. We drove up a small road literally only wide enough for one car, which when going around curves up a mountain even had me a bit unnerved. Clearly this was a place that only locals or hikers went!

What we found there was really outstanding food and a beautiful view. No one spoke any English and we knew nothing of Swiss German so it was very entertaining. We were the only ones there until some local couples arrived. They were very friendly despite the language barrier.

The drive home was breathtaking including a couple of rainbows.




Our plan had been to visit some very large mountains the next morning before heading to France, but unfortunately Dave/Dad ended up being really really sick all night.

In the morning we put him in the back seat for the trip to France.

More to come....

BTW it is very important to click on the images to get the full effect!

Germany First

Location: Outside a small town, outside of Frankfurt, in the Black Forest of Germany.
Time: Saturday morning (or Friday night for those of you that didn't come) until Monday morning.

The dog show that I judged at was fairly small, and was on the grounds of the hotel, so it was a relaxing weekend. The only place we really went was for some walks in the woods, since there was also a restaurant at the hotel.

The hotel was in a delightful part of the Black Forest, with its own special chorus of birds perpetually singing. One of the other great things about hotels in Europe is that you can open the windows and there are never screens, so you can really appreciate the outdoors.

Those of you that haven't been to Europe may not appreciate the amazing room we had in Germany. usually rooms at nice hotels are barely bigger than a twin bed plus a bathroom.

We ended up getting the honeymoon suite in a small tower - thanks to the club's generosity. (And yes, I was the princess.)


One of the other fun things about the hotel was the man, named Dieter, that ran the hotel. He was there to check us in, he was there in the morning to cook breakfast, and he was still there late into the night during dinner (until at least 10ish). He was one of those amazing perpetually cheerful persons - which is hard to fathom for someone running a hotel. He lived at the hotel and was very proud of his Chevy truck.

We had a small Fiat about the size and shape of my Mini. Dieter thought that was very funny and said that the Germans called those cars the Mafia Mouse.

So after leaving some of our luggage at the hotel, we set out in the Mafia Mouse on Monday morning for a fun trip to Switzerland on the Autobahn, which to my great delight, truly has no speed limits.

More to come...

(click on the pictures for larger images)

More to come...

Yes it was all amazing...

Adventures in the Night

In the middle of the night last night, rather than hearing the melodious song of the mockingbird that sings every night, I heard a loud metallic grinding sound on the deck loud enough to wake the dead (and obviously me as well). After coming to my senses I realized that something was inside the grill destroying its teeth either trying to get out or in trying to eat the grill. Well there was no going back to sleep – too loud and of course the mystery of what it might be was too much to bear. So armed with a broom, I went out and opened the grill to discover what I had hoped would be there – a possum. I was relieved that it was a possum since they aren’t prone to leaping at you and things like that. Tempting as it was I decided that eating him was probably not what I wanted to do, so began to try to chase him away. It took a little convincing to get him to leave, since possums like to freeze, but finally he fled down the stairs with me on his heels. Thankfully he did not return. Hopefully he does not come back.

Nous allons à Paris !

These are the lyrics of a song we used to listen to when our children were young. It was written by a couple with small children, and captures the joy of having children, and also sometimes the secret longings that are there.

As we get ready to meet for a week in Paris, I think perhaps we got the best of both worlds....

So We Never Got to Paris

Young lovers, without much
Save each other, isn't that enough
Paint the future, a little day by day
Making plans with no regard for what might come our way

This cup fills up so quickly
There's so much on our plate
Between the living and the learning
Some things must wait

So we never got to Paris
And found the café of our dreams
But our table holds a whole world of memories
No, we never went to Venice
And strolled the streets alone
But we built our worlds together and we got the best of both

There's still wonder in our eyes
But we see each other in a different light
Yet the future isn't always clear
Now the question is where do we go from here

This cup fills up so quickly
There's too much on our plate
Between the living and the dying
Some things must wait

So we never got to Paris
And found the café of our dreams
But our table holds a whole world of memories
No, we never went to Venice
And strolled the streets alone
But we built our worlds together and we got the best of both

This cup fills up so quickly
There's too much on our plate
Between the living and the dying
Some things must wait

So we never got to Paris
And found the café of our dreams
But our table holds a whole wide world of memories
No, we never went to Venice
And strolled the streets alone
But we built our worlds together and we got the best

We may never get to Paris
And find the café of our dreams
But our table still will hold a world of memories
If we never get to Venice
And roam the streets alone
We'll hold our worlds together and we'll keep the best of both

Day One