May 10 Left Colmar on the 7th and travelled north thru the Alsace wine region, to Strasbourg. Stayed in Strasbourg for 3 nites. Strasbourg, is on the border with Germany, on the eastern bank of the Rhine, and is the capital of the Alsace region in north eastern France. It's also the seat of the European parliament of the European Union which was created in 1993.

The historical part of the city is the first city centre to be classified in it’s entirety as a World Heritage site by UNESCO. There are many more examples of the half timbered buildings we saw in Colmar - unique to the Alsace region.
The cathedral, at 468’ was world’s tallest building from 1647 to 1874, now it’s the 6th tallest. Also a notable event in this city, Johannes Gutenberg who was born in Germany but was living in Strasbourg when he perfected and unveiled the secret of printing. We enjoyed a river boat tour of the city, some shopping in Galleries Lafayette, the Macys of France, and a meal in a restaurant with lovely art nouveau stained glass walls.
Tonite we are in Epernay, just west of Paris, tho we won't be going there this time. Tomorrow we head for the town of Beauvais, north of Paris for one day/night then off to the airport on Tuesday for the flight home.

May 6, in Colmar, in the Alsace region, for a couple of days. It’s just south of Strasbourg, which shares the Rhine river with Germany. Colmar is a very interesting town architecturally, has a very well preserved ‘old town’ and a multitude of half timber buildings which have survived several centuries. As a point of interest, it’s the birth place of sculptor Frederick Bartholdi, the man who designed the Statue of Liberty.
Our hotel was a former middle-class residence dating back to 1609, and is now a historical monument.

May 4. Not so far to travel today. about 165 miles, thru easy territory, again tho with several options for driving. We have GPS so I decided to let it tell us the route to take, and we ended up going thru Switzerland, via Geneva, along the lake to Lausanne and then back into France. Quite an unexpected treat for us. There's a fountain, or more accurately water jet, in Geneva in the lake. Water shoots up to almost 460 feet high, at 130 or gallons a second, and at a speed of 125 miles an hour.
We’re in the town of Besancon,more a stop to break the journey than for any specific sight seeing. It's very near Switzerland, in the Franche-Compte region. One of the more interesting things to see in Besancon is the Astronomical clock described as "is quite a mechanical marvel. Built in 1860, its inner workings are comprised of more than 30,000 interoperating pieces, driving 37 separate clockface gauges." It's huge, approx 18 feet hight and 6 feet wide. Quite a spectacle.

May 3, After breakfast on the lovely terrace of the hotel, a long travel day..from Nice to Annecy, near Geneva. There were a couple of options for getting there, the shorter distance - up thru mountains, not major highways and lots of curves or the longer way but quicker. In the end we took the long/quick way which was around 350 miles and 6 hours, average speed about 70mph. Max speed on most of the road is 85mph. The other way would’ve been about 300 miles but closer to 8 hours. Interesting scenery thru parts of France - specially the Provence area, high limestone, forested cliffs, and mountains, on thru some farm land, with the brilliant yellow flowers of the rapeseed crops, which when processed be chemically altered to make bio-diesel, which is likely to be a big substitute for fuel in the not too distant future in Europe. Speaking of fuel, it ain’t cheap here. We have a diesel Peugeot, and it costs approximately 1Euro per liter, or $4 gallon, tho we’ve been getting pretty good mileage I think. To date we’ve done 2600 kilometers (1800 miles) since we picked up the car in Rome on April 21.
Road tolls are incredibly expensive also. We arrived at our hotel, a former abbey, from the 13th century, lots of huge wooden posts and beams, and large comfortable rooms, with enough time to ride into the old city park and find a restaurant for dinner.....not an easy feat in Europe on a Sunday night, or for that matter on a Monday.....lots of places closed. Not enough business, at least until the summer hordes of tourists.
As for the old city being old.....the look of some of the buildings leaves no doubt about their age. In most of the oldest cities in and around the Italy and France we found that they’ve restricted auto traffic and made it all pedestrian only. Certainly much nicer sitting at an outside table when there isn’t the smell and sound of cars going by.

May 2. Last day in the south of France. We made the drive into Nice to go to the museums and actually found the first one, the Matisse, but never did figure out where to park. It is in a residential area of majestic large apartment buildings and private homes, but along with that comes the lack of public parking. So gave that a miss, and on to find the Chagall museum. Better success there; it was also in the same area, but more street parking. An interesting coincidence here is that Marc Chagall came from Vitebsk in Russia, the same town that Natalie's father also lived. The museum isn't really large, tho the paintings in it were huge. several feet high and wide. He also did some stained glass pieces, in the tradition of church windows, but very modern design. From there we drove along the waterfront of Nice, and headed back into the hills to see the little chapel designed by Matisse, an unusual undertaking for an artist. It took him 4 years to design the building and create the stained glass windows , again quite modern for a church.
Both Matisse and Chagall were 19th century painters. I gathered that Matisse started out in the tradition of the old masters but went on to the more modern style. Chagall has a very different style, a more primitive look I think. The pictures show the bright colors of the stained glass by Chagall, and a tapesty of one of his paintings, and the other is of Matisse in the chapel.
Last activity of the day was dinner at a restaurant near the hotel, also with a lovely view over the surrounding hills and looking towards Nice. Next on the itinerary, the drive -about 300 miles north to the town of Annecy.

May 1. A national holiday in France for Labor day, so the day of Museums we'd planned to see is not to be. I went into the village of St Paul de Vence and walked around...narrow cobblestoned streets..a bit too steep and hilly for Natalie. On one side of the village you can see the snow covered Alps in the north, and on the other the Mediterranean. It's another of the medieval villages I referenced before...tho in this case, as with Portofino discovered by artists - Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Renoir - and then those of other French fame, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret (they were married at the hotel) Roger Moore, Tony Curtis. There's a well known hotel/restaurant here, in which Picasso lived in earlier days, when he didn't have any money...so he paid his room and board with paintings. Don't know that we'll get a chance to eat there to see them - the hotel called to ask for a reservation but nothing available.
Our hotel is a former farm, and farmhouse.....tho you'd ever recognise it as such today. It's absolutely charming, and the most beautiful gardens I've seen in a long time. It actually has more of a spanish look....I've added some pics at the top here. )by the way you can see the pictures better if you click on them, they will open in larger size.

April 30. Drove about 180 miles from Italy to the south of France today. We're staying for a couple of days in a small town in the hills above Nice. The drive took us thru endless tunnels, but in between saw some spectacular coastal scenery. En route we stopped for lunch in the village of Eze, a tiny medieval village about 1400 feet above sea level. The pictures here show the village on the hill, and the view of the Riviera beyond, and the view from the restaurant, which sits atop a narrow rocky peak, and is quite a climb....and as you can see worth it! We enjoyed a leisurely 2 hour lunch, in his gorgeous sunny setting, then wended our way down along the Corniche to Nice, and on up in to St Paul de Vence, another medieval city.