Syndicate
So this ends our stay in Europe ☹ and as you have read the hot water didn’t work for the last two nights we were in Paris and to top it off we couldn’t get a shared airport transfer to the airport, they were all booked out! We recommended if you using one in Paris, make sure you book at least 3-4 days in advance, so in the end we had to pay for a private transfer, while nice was a bit more than we budgeted for but we got to the airport which is really all that matters in the end.
So after almost 6,400km’s on the road, we are almost at our final destination. Our last stop in Chateau Thierry located only 90km from Paris on the A4 Autoroute so it’s an easy drive into the city to the apartment we had booked near the Gare de East train station in the 10th assortment, a truly immigrant area of Paris. The drive into Paris went smoothly and we found the apartment in its small side street, which was blocked by bollards so we unloaded on the main road.
The cathedral at Reims has played a very important role in French history, as it was the place where the kings of France were crowned, with the most famous and cherished of these events, was the coronation of Charles VII in the company of Joan of Arc. The Cathedral, built from 1211 to replace the earlier one destroyed by fire, is a huge gothic design, and certainly suitable for the crowning of the royalty, and as you turn the corner into the road leading up to the cathedral you get your first glimpse, it’s an impressive sight indeed.
The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg also not on our pre-planned route but it was so close, only 40km from Trier and we found on the Internet an impressive looking Chateau we could visit. It’s a small country wedge between Germany, France and Belgium with a population of only a few hundred thousand people. We located the area the Chateau de Bourscheid was in and set off along the nice “autoroute” (Freeways) as they were called there, only to find that the road marked in our 4-year-old road atlas still hadn’t been built!!
From Koblenz you can follow the winding Mosel River through the Mosel Valley to its origins in France. I have to say it was much more impressive than the Rhine valley we drove through previously but I’m sure the sunny weather might have helped. It’s dotted with picturesque little towns and castles dominating the high ground and numerous lochs breaking up the river flow along the Mosel. With the locals planting vines on every available space including up the steep valley sides.
From the Northern Vosges we had some additional time as we had arrived at this point sooner than expected. We decided that a visit to the Rhine River valley would be a good choice and set off in that direction. Unfortunately the day we choose was one of the few wet days we experienced on the trip, so while the drive along the banks of the Rhine River wasn’t bathed in sunshine, like our previous trip 10 years earlier, it didn’t take away seeing the impressive castles and towns dotted along the banks.
So we continue our journey North past Strasbourg to Niederbronn-des-bains in the Northern Vosges National Park. A very nice little town with its own casino (which we wondered why being a small town), we stayed here to have a bit of a rest and visit part of the Maginot Line and one of the local castle ruins. Like the Vosges further South this area is built with half-timber houses and look likes something from a fairy tale. We found we were certainly off the normal English speaking tourist track as no one in town spoke English except the Mercure Hotel staff, where we were staying.
So into France we go from Switzerland to the Vosges in the Alsace region of France along the German border. This region is covered in vineyards, in some areas as far as the eye can see, with the town of Colmar and its wonderful old centre containing half -timber houses, built during the 16th and 17th centuries. With styles more reminiscent of what is found in fairytales with a mixture of colour and design. Our walking tour took us past many of these buildings, and yummy bakeries, which we really enjoyed.
We didn’t plan to visit Switzerland but if you don’t plan something Lucern is a great place to end up. We were going stay in Beautiful lake Como, but found when we arrived that most of the smog from Italy had decided to visit as well and it was pretty dreadful. Hopefully none of the many stars that own homes there, weren’t there either, for their own health.
On arriving in Bologna we had no accommodation booked so we were following hotel street signs trying to find one we could afford and we followed on to a brand new four-star hotel. It was so new that when we went to dinner the menu was hand written and the waiter wasn’t sure what they could cook. One bathroom was still missing it taps but we got a good rate and the bed was wonderful.
Urbino’s just North of Umbria and is a small university town and the location of a Renaissance palace that was built for Duke Federigo da Montefeltro. We arrived in the city just before siesta so the streets were full of students leaving class and chasing food in the various cafes. Luckily we could get into the palace before it closed as it now houses the art gallery, besides viewing the palace and its impressive interior we became a little more cultured as well.
Umbria to some is the true Italy, being Italy’s only region that does not touch the sea or another country and like Tuscany, it bloomed during the Renaissance period and many of the sites we visited are from that period. For our stay in Umbria we had booked a country house near the tiny village (if you can even call it that) of Torre Del Colle from which you could see Assisi on a distant hill above the valley.
Not far from the Amalfi Coast and under the watchful eye of Mount Vesuvius is the famous Roman City of Pompeii, as most people know Pompeii was totally buried by the Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Its now a tourist mecca and a very interesting place to visit. And funny enough it’s not far from the start of the autostrada which is a toll road in that section, you pay your 1.50 euro, travel about 150 meters to the Pompeii exit and then get off!
Ahhh... the Amalfi Coast the playground of the rich and famous and some of the most expensive real estate in the world, as there is so little of it. The towns and villages are crammed between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the cliffs that climb almost vertically up from the water. The towns that do exist are in the ravines between to the hills, with many others clinging to any flat sections they can find. Needless to say it’s a beautiful place to visit. And the roads, if we had driven on the Amalfi Coast before going to Croatia the drive to Dubrovnik would have seemed like a four lane highway.