May 5, 2013
Whew! It’s tired out!
Let’s see… we last left you on Friday. Friday was another cool, windy day. We went on a bus to Strasbourg. We drove by the European Union
buildings. Strasbourg France is the
location of the EU Parliament. We got off
the bus in Petite France and walked through the charming streets to the
Cathedral. This is a beautiful
church. It took them 300 years to build
this Cathedral. They started in 1176 and
their astronomical clock was added in the 14th century. We were able to see the clock and we were
amazed that they had the abilities to develop a clock that knows not just the
time, but the seasons, the weather and so much more, and it still works!
More random Gothic stuff on the Cathedral!
After the Cathedral we spent time walking the streets of
lovely Strasbourg. We had lunch at a
nice place. We were walking along and I
see a big button hanging over a doorway.
Sure enough, it was a fabric and notions store. That was fun!
Then on our walk back to catch a ride with the shuttle bus I found an
embroidery store. Diana, this one is for
you! Can you imagine? Two fabric/embroidery stores in one day?
Back to the boat for a nap and then a nice dinner with new
friends.
Saturday we didn't go on the Black Forest tour to the
cuckoo-clock factory. We were so
tired! A morning to sleep in was very
nice. We then went for a walk in the
city of Breisach. And we found another
fabric shop! What are the chances?
Then a walk up the big hill to see the
church. However, it stopped spitting and
actually started raining. We were weary
and stopped for a minute. I turned
around and said to bc “This looks like a nice place. Let’s go in here.” What a find!
It was a very cool little tapas restaurant hung over the cliff with a
marvelous view of the Rhine. We had a very
good glass of red wine, caprese, bread and Parma ham. Perfect lunch! This place had the most unusual art.
We went back to the boat rest a little before our afternoon
tour. Promptly at 2pm we went to the
reception desk to turn in our keys to get our bus ticket. The program director was a little put out
with us because we hadn't heard the news!
(We were having a lovely lunch in town and didn't hear the latest lecture.) We weren't going to Basal, Switzerland as the
river was too high. Ok… How do we get to
Basal tomorrow morning? They’ll bus
us! It’s about an hour’s drive. Perfect.
Actually, it’s pretty much the way this vacation has gone!
At 2:15 we got on the bus for the WWII memorial tour. I’m so glad we did this. It was amazing. We went to a small but really
nice museum, then to the memorial where the guide showed us how the Germans,
French and Americans fought the battle in Alsace. There were many, many casualties. The area went from French, to German, back to
France, back to Germany and finally the Americans liberated the villages that
we were driving through. We saw the spot
where Audie Murphy held off the Germans and pushed them back into retreat. It was very emotional. We walked from the bus to the Audie Murphy
memorial walking by a couple of soccer fields filled with young people playing
soccer. Imagine, the Germans were within
yards of Audie Murphy when he jumped up on a burning tank, turning the big guns
on the Germans, pushing them back. And
now, kids are happily playing soccer in the calm, beautiful fields….
We had a lovely final dinner with our new friends. We hope to see them again in future travels.
Today was a long day.
We got up at 6am (!!) to get a bus to Basal, Switzerland. At the airport we rented a car, after finally
passing through customs, with no checks of our luggage or passports, from
France to Switzerland. Bc started
driving and luckily we have Francine our GPS gal. The names of streets are hard to pronounce
let alone read as this is the German area of Switzerland! We headed to Wynau and Murgenthal to see if
we could find the graves of my ancestors.
My great grandparents, who I knew very well, emigrated from Switzerland
in the early 1900s to Galveston, later settling in Santa Barbara. We found two cemeteries but they were very
“new”. Most graves held people who had
died in the last 20 years or so.
However, it did feel very special to walk on the streets that my great
grandparents must have walked. Their last names were Pluss and Lemp.
Here's a covered bridge built in 1863. About 20 years before my great grandparents were born and probably used this bridge!
Here's a view of the scenery as we drove from Basal to Geneve.
We had a lovely lunch at a restaurant. They all speak German in that part of
Switzerland. It’s hard for us to
understand German. But people are very
nice and help us out. We had a great cup
of soup and a salad sitting at a communal table with the locals.
Back on the road to drive to Geneva. Francine said we would be at our hotel by
3:30pm. Perfect! We can write the blog, rest and enjoy the
evening! We made great time and were
very close to Geneva when we found our freeway had been closed due to an
accident. Francine recalculated and took
us to Geneva via back city roads. We
followed her instructions to go over the bridge to our hotel (about a half a
mile away) but the bridge was closed due to a marathon! There were many Gendarmes (police) guarding
the blockades, so bc pulled up and I rolled down the window to ask one of them
how to get to the Hotel Longemalle. He
said “that was a red light.” I said
“huh?” Yup, we had not only gone through
a red light, but pulled up next to a cop and asked for help! He told us how to get back around to another
bridge to get to our hotel. The traffic
was horrible! We waited sometimes
through 3 signals to get through an intersection. The streets are not in a grid formation. They are all X's and Y's with lots of one way streets thrown in. Then add all the confusing signals and it was overwhelming! Then Francine started getting all huffy
because we wouldn't go over the bridge that was closed. Long, long story short, we drove for almost 2
hours in a 15 block radius until they finally opened the closed bridge. We went around and around. Guess what?
We couldn't find our hotel because they had closed the street in front
of the hotel for construction. Ok,
closed freeway detour, marathon closed bridge detour and closed street
construction detour. We finally called
the hotel and said “Where are you?” We
pulled the car over (parking is impossible!) and a guy from the hotel walked
over to us. We gave him the keys, he
moved the barricades, drove our car through the construction mess, unloaded our
bags and then took the car somewhere to park it. For only $50.00 a day! By this time it was 5:30, we were exhausted,
so that actually sounded like a good deal.
So, mom, you are right!
You can’t get there from here!
Here is the view of our hotel.
And what makes you feel less stressed out after a day like
that? A walk along the lake and this:
All I can say is good night!
Love to all… bc and gc
