Vineyard to Vineyard

Hello again! 

Before I go on, I need to explain some background. My best friend and her husband planned a trip to Europe so we arranged to meet them in Paris. Fads (that’s her nickname) and Mark arrived in Paris a few days before us and had lots of fun exploring the city.

We had had some challenging driving in Europe but John driving and me navigating through Paris was a whole new ball game! Anyway, we did make it safely to the apartment and Fads and Mark met us outside. It was very exciting to see them after five months away!

We took a selfie for prosperity. Courtney, Dad thought you’d like the literature they had in the apartment!

We caught up with each other’s news over dinner. I had forgotten how wonderful real French onion soup is!

We then did the touristy thing and headed out to see the Eiffel Tower lights.

The next day we left Paris and began what turned out to be our vineyard tour. We made it safely out of the city (phew!) then drove through beautiful country to the Champagne region. We randomly picked a small village for lunch and found that the season’s picking had begun. Everyone was flat out but we managed to fit in a small champagne tasting. Sadly, John was driving so Fads and I had to drink most of his champagne! The champers was lovely and we ate lunch at a roadside van. I also loved the champagne cork stools they had at the winery!

We then headed to the Alsace region near the German border. The village we stayed in was called Saint-Hippolyte and it was absolutely gorgeous. The old buildings were very German in style and were colourfully painted. 

Our B & B was wonderful. It was in a winery and to get to our rooms we had to walk through the wine making area. The windows of our rooms were decorated with flower boxes.

We had a gorgeous view from our rooms.

In an effort to burn off some of the calories we were consuming, we drove part-way to a nearby castle then walked up the hill the rest of the way. The forest we walked through was beautiful.

We explored the Haut-Koenigsbourg castle which was first recorded in the 12th century. It still amazes us how old everything is here. The castle had been restored a number of times over the centuries.

I loved these cute guys decorating one room.

Cheeky!

And now, just for a bit of tacky fun that is completely out of keeping with the seriousness and age of the castle..... I think John's goatee co-ordinates perfectly with his suit of armour!

We ate at a restaurant that night and experienced the incredibly heavy local food. One of the dishes consisted of potatoes with bacon and slabs of cheese on top. I like my cheese but I discovered there's a limit to how much I can actually eat in one sitting!

The next day we drove and walked around the area. The vineyards looked stunning.

You don't often see three castles as close as these to each other.

We found other villages along the Alsace Wine Route that were just as gorgeous as ours, however they were much more touristy.

Even though they were touristy, these were still working villages. We loved seeing tractors make their way through the tourists as they brought in the freshly picked grapes.

As we walked past a house, someone ahead of us looked up and laughed. We all looked up to find this cat scowling grumpily at everyone that walked past the balcony it was sitting on. What a classic!

We began our last night here with a tasting of about eight wines from the place we were staying at. They were all fantastic!

And we finished the evening with a wonderful meal at a very classy but inexpensive restaurant. Gosh, this is a tough life!

The next day we dragged ourselves away from this beautiful place and headed into Switzerland. We had a laugh at some of the Swiss road signs.

Switzerland is very expensive so it had taken us ages to find a good place to stay. We settled on a hotel overlooking Lake Geneva. We were blown away by the views from our balconies!

We bought food at the local supermarket for lunches cos everything was so expensive. Who needs fancy cafes when there's a comfortable bit of concrete to sit on and yummy salads to eat?

Lake Geneva is surrounded by vineyards. We didn't stay here for this reason, it just happened to be that way. Seriously! We went for a walk through the vineyards and along the lake. It was truly beautiful.

Those of you who have been following this blog since the start of our trip will have seen many photos of John's back as we walk. I thought I'd give you a change of scenery and put in photo's of other backs!

The grapes looked almost ready for picking.

As soon as saw the views from our balconies, we decided to get takeaway pizzas for tea and eat them on the balconies. We were a bit early to order the pizzas so we had some drinks in this fantastic bar while we waited. John and Mark ordered beers - they were massive!

We could also have bought beer with 5% cannabis extract! The drug part had been removed though so it was a weird concept!

We had pizzas, wine and cheese and biscuits on our balconies while we watched the sun set. Can life get more perfect?

Mark seems a by excited by the super-smelly cheese!

We had to check out by 10am the next day but John's mighty football team was playing at about 11.30.  He charmed the hotel receptionist into letting us use a meeting room to watch the game on his computer. Much to our delight, his team won. It's the first finals game they've won in 16 years and they're now down to the last two games. Go Tiges!!!!

Hooroo from the four amigos.

A Cross-Country Journey

After travelling north for the past couple of weeks, we turned west and began the long journey to Paris to pick up our friends. On day one we drove all the way to Alba in Italy. It was a long drive but we had fabulous accommodation waiting for us. We had an apartment in a really old farmhouse. The floor tiles were really worn in places and old books lined the shelves. We had a gorgeous claw-foot bath and a stunning four-poster bed. It was all very atmospheric. Unfortunately, the bloody village church bells rang all night and even earplugs couldn't help! 

We were recommended a place to eat so we went there for dinner. The drive there was along a narrow, windy road which tested my driving skills out but the views were stupendous! This is wine growing area and it was so pretty. The view from the restaurant was beautiful.

We had a really fantastic meal and John found a wine he adored. It was a great night!

We had arranged to leave Bruce the bike at our accommodation until our return in a month, so we tucked him safely away the next morning and headed off again. We drove through some wonderful country. It's weird how modern highways can go past such ancient places sometimes.

The highways certainly weren't freeways though. We paid about $100 worth of tolls this day! Towards the end of the day, we pulled up at one toll booth and the lady asked for over 44 euros. Fed up with forking out money I asked what it was for. She told us that it was some sort of tunnel. Reluctantly we handed over the money and drove on. It turned out that we were driving into the Mont Blanc Tunnel. This tunnel is 11.6 kms long and goes underneath Mont Blanc. We drove into the tunnel in Italy and came out in France!

I've shown you SatNav shots of windy roads before. Here's what a very long, very straight tunnel looks like on the Sat Nav!

In France, we had some wonderful views of mountains.

We finally pulled into Burgundy late in the afternoon. We stayed in a really great town called Beaune. It was very old. It had beautiful medieval buildings and cobble-stone streets.

We ate at a small restaurant that John had booked months before. Again, John really enjoyed the wine!

John was knackered after driving all day, so he went back to the room while I continued on to see the light shows the town has. They were just like White Night at home. They were great! 

This building had lots of different light shows on it. My favourite was where a cat appeared to chase a light all over the building then finally jumped through a window. It was really well done but the photos are a bit dark to show here. The photos below show a series of different light effects on the same building.

The light displays on this building were all about garden scenes.

The next day we went to see the famous hospital here. It was built in 1443 by a wealthy couple as a place where the poor could get treated. It was an incredible building. Why the poor needed so much money spent on a lavish building when it could have been spent on treatments is beyond me. Anyway, I'm sure that many lives were saved.

One interesting thing we learned was that this site was chosen for the hospital because it was over a river. The waste from the bedpans could be conveniently disposed of in the river! You wouldn't want to live downstream.......

The special feature of the building is the unusual tiled roofs. They're stunning!

Inside the massive main hall, which had no heating, hospital beds were lined up along the walls. Nuns used to treat the sick here right up until the 1960's when the needs of the hospital finally outgrew the site.

Au revoir!

Heather and John