This wonderful hotel, Le Régent Contades, was the destination for this leg of our trip. It was located at 8, Avenue de la Liberté, in Stasbourg.
Our room had a nice tall ceiling and a view of a nice cathedral.
This is another view out the window. Our car is parked across the street, the black MB.
They like large, heavy keys in Europe.
This is the Saint-Paul cathedral, located interestingly enough, on Place du Général Eisenhower. It was conmpleted in 1897 and stands about 250 feet tall.
The Citröen C3 is a great little compact seen often in Europe.
This is for my Sister Laura who loves fresh produce.
This is a Citröen 2CV, a car from the 1950s. It was great to see one on the street! They made 8,756,688 of these over 42 years. It was France's answer to the Volkswagen Beetle.
This house is on the Quai des Pécheurs or Quai des bateliers along a river just SE of our hotel.
This is Volkswagen's great little mini van/wagon/SUV called the Touran. The common diesel models get 35 mpg in the city and 53 mpg on the highway. Why on earth do they not sell these in America? Great family vehicle seating up to 7 for about 25000 Euros.
Another view of one of the many tributaries of the Rhine River which snake around the city center.
They have tour/commute boats that have a low profile so they can go under the many bridges.
A French phone booth...
... which we had to get into, as France is a place of romance!
Somewhat like Venice with all of the rivers and bridges, Stasbourg has been occupied since 12 BC, originally by the Romans. They called it Argentoratum, or Argentina in Medieval times.
Waiting for dinner. We had doners because my nephew Matthew ate them in Bulgaria and talked of them a lot. We saw a doner shop on the river so we stopped. Our doners were a bit bland.
Morning view out our window in Stasbourg.
People waiting for the bus.
One of the Strasbourg light-rail transit systems.
Lunch at McDonald's in Kehl Germany, one of the few places that has ice, although nobody in Europe actually wants the ice.
We then drove into Switzerland at Basel, which was a graffiti-riden city. It cost 30 Euros to enter the country and we were given a sticker to display that showed we had paid. We then drove to Bern. This is a Citroen BX from the 1980s or 90s. Its air suspension is low in the back but when the car is started it will level off once again.
This is the Swiss LDS Temple in Bern. It was a Monday and was closed but we got to see the grounds at least.
We then drove on to Interlaken. We had planned to stay the night but found it very difficult to negotiate the town. There was not a single parking spot to be found, nor a park to stop at. We kept driving and driving and instead of staying there we simply left town. Frustrating. The town reminded us a lot of North Bend in Washington due to its geographic setting and identical weather: lots of rain!
We drove through Lungern and this is a view of that town and the Lungerer See.
Downtown Lungern. We should have stayed the night here, but instead we went on to Luzern.
We stayed in a little hotel which is better skipped over, and we had dinner here at the Schützenhaus. The wienershnitzel was good, but not worth the 45 Euros they charged. Everything in Switzerland is overpriced. That would have cost 7 Euros in Germany. The part of Switzerland we were in was nothing but driving in tunnels, some of which were 20 miles long and had intersections in the tunnel. Between the high prices, no parking, endless slow tunnels, we had enough of Switzerland in short order and so proceeded after just one night there.
Created: 27 May 2009 Modified: 3 May 2010