2022 - Spring in France

I visited Strasbourg the first time in 1979 and fell in love with it.  That "affair" has now lasted over 40 years.  It is a magical city for many reasons and it a wonderful combination of old medieval buildings and the modern complex where the buildings of the EU Headquarters are located.  The Grand Ile and Neustadt, together, are a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.   Over the years, I have driven into the city and parked in one of the underground parkades under the main squares like Place Kleber or Place Guttenberg.  Then, a few years ago, following the advice of my friend who lives here, I started using the "Park and Ride" where the fee to park was very reasonable and included tram tickets for the driver and passengers to go into the city.  Another option my friend has been using - which makes significantly more sense, particularly because of gas prices - is to take a train into the city.  So, yesterday, we drove to Benfeld, about a 15 minu...

Today was our first foray into the Alsatian countryside as we have really been taking it easy the last few days while we recovered from the journey here - guess we aren't quite as young as we used to be when I could bounce back from an overseas flight in less than a day.  The wonderful thing about today was that it was sunny without a single cloud in the sky with a high forecast of 21'.  Bliss! With my sister's interest in religion (okay, much more than merely an "interest"), today we headed to Mont Sainte-Odile, a pilgrimage site which is considered to be emblematic of the Catholic church in Alsace, along with the cathedral in Strasbourg.  It dates from more than 1300 years ago.  The legend of Sainte-Odile is as follows: Odile de Hohenbourg was born in 620 to the Duke of Alsace Adalric, better known as Etichon.  She was born blind and denied by her father.  Her mother then placed her in the monastery of Baume-les-Dames. The young woman regained her sight w...

We arrived in Alsace late Monday afternoon after some unexpected minor glitches.  Passport Control took no time at all as the hall there was almost empty.  You are not questioned about being vaccinated when you go through because all the airlines have already checked passengers.  So, it makes the entry easy .  The first glitch was we waited more than one hour for our bags to arrive .  Usually, it takes about 15 minutes or less.  The second issue was the line-up for Avis had more than 15 people ahead of us so it took over another 1/2 hour to get to the counter and sort out the car.  Once that was done, things went smoothly and the roughly 2 hour drive on the autobahn from the airport to Kappel (Germany) where the ferry crosses the Rhine to Rhinau in France was unexpectedly good.  The traffic wasn't too bad and, while there are still those cars in the fast lane going well over 160kph, it was all manageable and I averaged around 110kph most of the wa...