Beginning our Trip Home

Early this morning, Betsy, Dave, and Mike left Lyon on a train to Paris. Steve left later to travel by train back to Angouleme, and Greg, Andrew and Diana left in the early afternoon for Geneva, Switzerland.

We arrived in Paris at about 9:30 am, so decided to put our luggage in some lockers and spend some more time walking around Paris. The weather was cool, but not rainy (yeah!), so we eventually made it over to the Luxembourg Gardens that are really beautiful.

We had lunch at an outside cafe and then meandered back to the train station stopping at several markets along the way to look. We took a combination of metro, train, and shuttle bus to finally arrive at our hotel near the airport at about 5:30 pm.

We had a good day to talk about the trip some more and now we're excited to take our final leg of the trip tomorrow morning and get back home to Minnesota.

Our Last Night Together

After resting awhile from our busy day, we left our hotel at about 8 p.m. to look for a place to eat. Lyon is the gastronomic capital of France and is renown for its Bouchons, a type of restaurant found in Lyon that serves traditional Lyonnaise cuisine, such as sausages, duck pâté or roast pork. Compared to other forms of French cooking, these traditional dishes are quite fatty and heavily oriented around meat, especially organ meats. Needless to say, finding vegetarian options was a little challenging, and we walked and checked out many of the menus that are all posted outside before settling on one.

We all enjoyed our last meal together - Steve was the most adventurous of our group ordering a traditional Lyonnaise meal that included andouilles, sausages made from a pig's stomach.

In addition to enjoying our food, we had a chance to talk about our success in traveling together with 7 adults for two weeks! We did so many different things and we will all remember the this wonderful experience in the years to come!

We talked and talked and then realized that it was almost 11 pm! Time to walk back to our hotel as Betsy, Dave, and Mike had to leave at 6:30 am the next morning.

Our Day in Lyon

After the rain last night and the forecast for more rain today, we were thrilled to wake up to a morning with no rain! Since we basically only have one full day in Lyon, we decided to split up in the morning to see different things.

Dave, Steve and Greg went off to the Musee Lumiere, a museum about the invention early cinema. The Lumiere brothers got started with producing the prototype of films in the late 1800's.




Meanwhile, Andrew, Diana, Mike, and I headed off to Parc de la Tete d'Or, a huge city park that was highly rated online. The guys figured out some good ways for us to navigate - we looked up directions on our IPad and then Mike takes a photo of the directions on his phone.

We walked through the park for about an hour only getting to a fraction of it - went to the conservatory and then to part of the zoo.
















We then all took various buses and metros across town to meet at the Museum of Gallo-Roman Civilization. Lyon is the site of an important Roman Empire City and in addition to the museum with lots of artifacts unearthed in Lyon, there are the remains of several Roman amphitheaters.

The walk up to the museum took us through the old part of the city with it's very steep, narrow, cobble-stoned streets. The museum sits at the top of a hill that looks out over the city - once again, the decent weather helped us really enjoy the sights.

Our Trip to Lyon

We left apartments in Colmar and walked to the train station - I definitely don't feel like I got to see Colmar fully and would go back there again.


We took a four-hour train trip to Lyon arriving there about 3:30 p.m. We then had to figure out how to get to our hotel - we ended up taking a bus.

It was raining (again!) in Lyon - oh well, it makes me all the more grateful for the nice day we had in the Black Forest in Germany!

After getting settled in our hotel rooms, we set out to explore a little and find some place to eat. We settled on a cafe that seemed to have a good variety of French specialities. Our dinners were excellent - Dave even tried Foie Gras, a French delicacy made from "fattened duck or goose liver." It was nice to be able to sit inside out of the rain during our meal.

After our meal, since it was still raining hard, we walked back to the hotel. Diana and the guys all played Hearts, and Greg and I relaxed and worked on our final travel plans. David, Mike, and I are leaving Lyon very early Saturday morning, so tomorrow, Friday, is our last day all together!

Freiburg - Famous For Being a "Green City"

Our next stop in Germany was Freiburg. Long famous for its cathedral, university, and cuckoo clocks, Freiburg is now also famous as a “Green City.”




Freiburg was heavily bombed during World War II; little remained of the city center besides the cathedral. It was decided to rebuild without altering the city’s character, following the old street plan and architectural style. As the roads were rebuilt, they were widened just enough for a tram track, not for more lanes of cars.

In 1969, Freiburg devised its first integrated traffic management plan and cycle path network. It gives preference to environment-friendly modes of transport such as walking, cycling, and public transit.

In 1973, the entire city center was converted to a pedestrian zone with over 400 km of cycle paths. This includes bike-friendly streets, streetside bikepaths, and separate bikepaths, e.g., along the river Dreisam. About 9,000 bicycle parking spaces were also developed, including “bike and ride” lots at transit stations. Cycling is promoted with free maps and other information. It was truly amazing to see the number of bikes everywhere and cyclists!

We finished our evening with a traditional German dinner at a cafe along with Warsteiner beer before heading back to Colmar.

Black Forest in Germany

We decided to use our second day of the car rental to explore the Black Forest in Germany. The German border is only about 30 minutes from Colmar. The great thing about the car is that it allowed us to see some of the beautiful countryside. After doing a little research, we headed off to Belchen Mountain, the 3rd highest peak in the Black Forest, with the idea of doing some hiking.
















When we got there, however, we decided since we didn't want to spend our whole day hiking, we'd take the cable car to the top and then hike. Luckily, we now could rely on Diana's German to negotiate the ticket purchase since the rest of us had very limited German.

Once at the top, we all enjoyed the beautiful views - my camera just doesn't do it justice. There all kinds of German hikers - it is certainly apparent how much hiking is part of the German culture. We enjoyed a picnic lunch at the top that included some of the Munster cheese we had purchases at the cheese factory.














After we finished enjoying the sights at Belchen Mountain, we drove a little further into the Black Forest to the alpine lake, Lake Schluchsee. Luckily, we've had the best weather today so far on our trip for our outdoor adventure.

Our Evening in Colmar

We cooked a French dinner at our apartment and then wandered around Colmar for awhile. We definitely haven't spent enough time here yet - it is vey picturesque! There is an area call "Little Venice" due to the canals - beautiful! We finished the evening with relaxing and a competitive game of Farkel ( a dice game).

Exploring the Alsace Wine Road

Part of the reason we wanted to rent a car was to be able to explore some of the countryside surrounding the Alsace Wine Road which runs south of Strasbourg past Colmar. Even by as early as the middle ages, the wines of Alsace were among the most prized in Europe. The area of Alsace has the lowest rainfall in France and is sunny, hot, and dry making it ideal for growing grapes.

The Wine Road meanders through more than 20 quaint, medieval towns - the scenery was spectacular. Along the way, we stopped to take photos and taste some wine before ending up at a cheese factory where we sample more than 10 varieties of Munster cheese, a specialty of the region. We brought back a couple bottles wine and several kinds of cheese to enjoy!