Barnett Vicarious Adventures: Sunday, July 10-12, 2011 Paris, France to Strasbourg, France

July 10, 2011 - After the trip to Fontainbleau we rested a couple of days.

July 11, 2011 – Another rest day. We are planning the trip to Strasbourg to tour the Alsace Wine Region.

July 12, 2011 - We are leaving Paris on the TGV High Speed Train to Strasbourg, France and rent a car to tour the Alsace Wine Region. The Alsace Wine Route winds its way from north to south for more than 170 kilometers or about 105 miles along the eastern foothills of the mountains.

Security at the Train Station in Paris

July 12, 2011 - We are on the 11:24 am train Paris to Strasbourg. 2 hr 15 min. on the TGV High Speed train - 303 miles. Not bad time. We arrive and look for the car rental. We find National and ask about a car. First they tell us they don't have any car but some are due to come in shortly. In about 5 minutes they tell us they have one come in.

It is a Peugeot 107 (just a little bigger than a smart car) with 5 speed transmission. We tell them that should fine. I DROVE all the way down and back and Edward and Tom-Tom were navigators. Horst gave us a Tom-Tom they do not use now to use while we are in Europe. Sven set it up for us in English and it worked great. We were so glad to have it to drive through the narrow streets, with one way, and do not enter signs, only for bike, etc. It was hard to tell what was a street and what was an alley or pedestrian, etc. The Tom-Tom was right on with directions and I didn't have to search for every turn. As you can see from the pictures what I had to do to maneuver through the towns. It was a real challenge but fun and I really enjoyed it.

towns have medieval entrances

An Escagot Festival!

vineyards as far as we could see

Views on the road – breathtaking.

A drive up Wine Barrel – great idea

We stopped for the night in Obernai. We checked one place and it was full. Edward checked a small hotel in one of the plazas and they were full but the man said he knew someone who had a room. We said we would go see them. He said it was just 100 meters up the street - the house with all the flowers. WHAT!!! That is not a really good description as ALL the houses have lots of flowers. We ask him for a number and he showed us the street. It turned out the house DID have more flowers than anyone else around and they had a very nice small apartment in the attic. It was perfect! And a good price and the couple was so sweet. They said they spoke German but it was different than the German we knew with the Bentlages. It must have been an "Alsatian German".