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.

April 29. Took a ride to Portofino today, a lovely village about 25 miles north of where we're staying in Moneglia. At breakfast the weather took a turn for the worse, with thunder, lightening and hail - no less! We decided to wait it out to see if it'd clear up, and thankfully it did. We drove along some beautiful coastline, reaching Portofino around 1pm. The sun was out by then so made our 2 hours there just right. The name it seems comes from the Roman Portus Delphini, or Port of the Dolphins. I'm not sure they are in the area any more. It was once a sleeply little fishing village until it was discovered by tourists in the 1950's. It became the playground of the rich and famous in the 60's and 70's, and I gather some who still visit there. Many of the shops reflect that, with the really high end(read $$$)named stores in the very small 2 kilometer area. Still it was lovely to see.

Apr 28. We’re now in the seaside town of Moneglia, on the Mediterranean in the region of Liguria. We arrived here last night. Today after breakfast, we headed in land to the city of Parma, from where the famous Parmagiano cheese, and Parma prosciutto (Ham)  originates.  We tried to find one of the many factories where the cheese is made, to buy some cheese to bring home, but by the time we got there, drove around for a while to see the main points of interest, specifically the cathedral, with it’s very rich, painted interior, had lunch (a 2-1/2 hour affair) we ran out of time so sadly - no cheese to bring home.  Cheese-making here is a very well respected industry. Cows are imported and specially bred for the richness and quantity of their milk. The whey byproduct of the cheese is fed to the huge Parma pigs which provide the Prosciutto, nothing wasted here!!

Apr 27, Today we  visited the town of San Gimingano, which from a distance looks like a town with skyscrapers, but once there, turn out to be towers. From the year 1000 to the end of the 13th century noble families from the surrounding countryside vied with each other in the construction of these towers as residences, some as high as 175 feet.  Only 13 remain standing today.

Apr 26,

After Gubbio, on to Tuscany for 3 days, and a marked change in scenery. Umbria was somewhat mountainous. Here we’re surrounded by delightful, very green, rolling hills covered in olive groves, vineyards, and a variety of crops. Still see the hillside and occasional hill top villages, again dating back several centuries. Some of the towns are still encompassed by high stone walls, still in good condition. 

We’ continue to  enjoy some very delicious meals, and quite different from the Italian restaurants in the US, and I might add, the meals not nearly as huge, a welcome change.

Apr 25- ready for a visit to Gubbio, in Umbria, another of the beautiful medieval towns on our itinerary. It’s also one of the towns that Franco Zefferelli used when he made the movie of ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Last night we stayed in the village of Branca, a short distance from Gubbio, at the first of some of the ‘agriturismo’ accomodations on our trip.  This is similar to bed and breakfast places in the rest of the world, except that they are located in the countryside, hence the ‘agri’ part of the term, and turismo - being tourism. It was a bit of a hair raising drive up a very steep dirt road, but oh the view!  Gubbio like other hill towns, features architecture dating back to single digit centuries, and increasing in size as each war and subsequent occupation resulted in expansion. Narrow streets make driving very difficult, and require some pretty clever maneuvering to make some of the turns, and some white knuckle driving thrown in. A small car is the smartest thing, but given that we will be driving some 2500 miles before we’re done, it didn’t seem to be the most comfortable vehicle to consider. So far so good, tho - no scrapes, or dents! We’re also going today to see the farmhouse a few miles outside Gubbio which is owned by some friends of mine. They haven’t used much of late. I’ve heard about it for some time now, and just had to see for myself, and take a few pictures for them

Now in Spoleto, in the region of Umbria, north east of Rome. It's another of the so-called 'hill towns'. These towns seem to just hang on the sides of hills, and are usually built on the tops of the hills, like the one to the left, of the village of Casperia which we visited on the way here yesterday.
- security I'm sure against marauding hordes of ancient times.
Our hotel -Palazzo Dragoni, picture at top - the former home of a nobleman, is beautifully decorated with high - at least 12'- ceilings painted in typical Italian design, and has a wonderful view of the 12th century cathedral and belltower, and the interesting lines of rooftops of the town. The picture on the right is the view from our room.

Ready to roll.

April 14, Just a week away from arriving in Italy. Hotels are all booked, car rental set up - well a short term lease to be more accurate. Seems - at least with the company we booked thru - that if you're renting a car for longer that 17 days, a lease is a better deal that straight rental....haven't quite figured out why, but ...hey...saving $500 seemed to make sense. We will of course have the trusty GPS to guide us. Thank goodness we decided to use it on the trip around France in 2007. We'd never have found some of the places we went - specially hotels in some towns and cities- without it.

The other part of 'we' I refer to is my friend Natalie, who lives in New York City. We've been friends for over 25 years, and she's the friend who invited me to join her on the France trip. She has a love of medieval architecture, and there are so many towns in Europe still in existence from that period, which, for those of us with 'rusty history' were the years from approximately the 5th to the 16th century AD. We'll be seeing and staying in a number of those old towns.

Our travels this time will take us thru several regions of Italy - starting in Spoleto in Lazio, Gubbio in Umbria, several 'hill' towns - including Moltepulicano, Voterra Follinca, and passing thru Siena, Pisa all in Tuscany, Moneglia, Portofino on the Italian Riviera in Liguria before we head into France. There, some of the towns we will be visiting include Eze, Nice on the Riviera, St Paul de Vence in the Alpes Maritime, before heading north to Annecy, Besancon, Strasbourg then west to Epernay. We return on May 12. So......Monday nite April 20...up, up and away!!!