Well it's been a few days since I've updated the blog as a result of a day's driving and a much needed day of rest to follow that...but we're back on the horse now and have had a great day out in the Alsace region of France.
On Wednesday morning Georgia and I arose early on our last morning in Paris to head down to the Eiffel Tower before day break - it was a bit of an anticlimax as you can't really see the sun rising in Paris at this time of year in any case! Nevertheless, it was lovely to spend some one on one time with my Georgie!
The French countryside is so beautiful and every few minutes there was another village or church or castle or monument that was well and truly worth stopping for...but we had 400km to travel so we pushed on.
We arrived at our home for the next week - a little cottage in Brumath (outside of Strasbourg) and were greeted by the most welcoming hosts you could ever hope to find. Andre and Fabienne greeted us with local wine, home made Christmas cookies and Christmas marmalade (soooooo good!) and even had their daughter waiting to help with translation. They have made us so welcome it is quite overwhelming.
For some reason I can't upload the photos of the cottage we're staying in so you'll have to wait for another day! Suffice to say it is absolutely delightful - a newly renovated end of the main house in what used to be a farm yard compound. Brumath itself is like a French village straight out of the movies with very old houses lining the streets with their wonky roofs and out of square walls. It's just delightful.
On Thursday we had a quiet day, resting up in the morning and supermarket shopping in the arvo. We were amazed at the variety on offer at the supermarket and the prices and quality were fantastic. Beer and wine sat at the end of nearly every row and it was great to see that the supermarket is very proactive in encouraging people to buy local - not just French grown and produced, but even down to the region. I wonder if our big 2 supermarkets will ever wise up to such a thing??
The beer choice had me stumped - should I drink Ancre (Anker) Beer, Biere de Noel or Duff Beer?? The solution - buy them all! at about 1.30 euro for a long neck it wasn't that hard a decision! The local breweries make a special Christmas beer and the one pictured above had a subtle flavour of orange and spices making it quite different.
Today we headed out in the car to look around and found ourselves driving around tiny French laneways through village after village.
After looking like tourists in every village within cooee, we ended up in Hagenau - a larger town that has already begun it's Christmas markets. How refreshing to see stalls selling Christian art to help people meditate on the true meaning of Christmas, to hear Christmas carols proclaiming Christ being played through the streets and even seeing nativity scenes set up in very public places. It looks as though the PC police haven't ruined Christmas for everyone just yet!
The girls were happy as they finally have some decent boots to wear in this freezing weather, and I was happy because we got back home and I didn't drive on the left side of the road a single time!
Dinners now in the oven, we've just enjoyed a nice bottle of Cremant D'Alsace and who knows what tomorrow will bring! Praying that you are all well.
On Wednesday morning Georgia and I arose early on our last morning in Paris to head down to the Eiffel Tower before day break - it was a bit of an anticlimax as you can't really see the sun rising in Paris at this time of year in any case! Nevertheless, it was lovely to spend some one on one time with my Georgie!
After packing up our bags and bags and bags of gear and straightening out our apartment, we headed to Montparnasse where we were scheduled to pick up our rental car for the next 6 days. To my delight the car they had assigned us was a BMW 520d which ironically, made dealing with Paris traffic even more stressful as I was paranoid I was going to ding it!
A wonderful bonus was the sat nav system built into the car which not only told me where to go, but also alerted me to speed limits the whole way - including the limits for roadworks! Why can't we get our act together like that in Australia?
Anyway, after a handful of wrong turns the GPS lady got me onto the motorway and we were away. At times the GPS map looked a whole lot more like a three year old's scribble than any sort of logically planned out road system, but we survived and I managed to get through the most anxiously awaited aspect of this trip. Once out of Paris, the motorway was a breeze, cruising at 130km/h and not having to turn off until we were about 5km from our destination.
Stopping for lunch we discovered that the white stuff we'd been seeing on the side of the road was in fact snow and a little pond outside the roadhouse had ice forming on it's surface...man, it was really getting cold!
We arrived at our home for the next week - a little cottage in Brumath (outside of Strasbourg) and were greeted by the most welcoming hosts you could ever hope to find. Andre and Fabienne greeted us with local wine, home made Christmas cookies and Christmas marmalade (soooooo good!) and even had their daughter waiting to help with translation. They have made us so welcome it is quite overwhelming.
For some reason I can't upload the photos of the cottage we're staying in so you'll have to wait for another day! Suffice to say it is absolutely delightful - a newly renovated end of the main house in what used to be a farm yard compound. Brumath itself is like a French village straight out of the movies with very old houses lining the streets with their wonky roofs and out of square walls. It's just delightful.
On Thursday we had a quiet day, resting up in the morning and supermarket shopping in the arvo. We were amazed at the variety on offer at the supermarket and the prices and quality were fantastic. Beer and wine sat at the end of nearly every row and it was great to see that the supermarket is very proactive in encouraging people to buy local - not just French grown and produced, but even down to the region. I wonder if our big 2 supermarkets will ever wise up to such a thing??
The beer choice had me stumped - should I drink Ancre (Anker) Beer, Biere de Noel or Duff Beer?? The solution - buy them all! at about 1.30 euro for a long neck it wasn't that hard a decision! The local breweries make a special Christmas beer and the one pictured above had a subtle flavour of orange and spices making it quite different.
Today we headed out in the car to look around and found ourselves driving around tiny French laneways through village after village.
After looking like tourists in every village within cooee, we ended up in Hagenau - a larger town that has already begun it's Christmas markets. How refreshing to see stalls selling Christian art to help people meditate on the true meaning of Christmas, to hear Christmas carols proclaiming Christ being played through the streets and even seeing nativity scenes set up in very public places. It looks as though the PC police haven't ruined Christmas for everyone just yet!
The girls were happy as they finally have some decent boots to wear in this freezing weather, and I was happy because we got back home and I didn't drive on the left side of the road a single time!
Dinners now in the oven, we've just enjoyed a nice bottle of Cremant D'Alsace and who knows what tomorrow will bring! Praying that you are all well.
