3/11/05 - The Vosges mountain range which runs through Alsace is truly amazing. You can easily explore many interesting places in the Vosges via the Route des Crêtes (Route of crests). I took the trip to the peak of the Grand Ballon (1423m) and then onward to Le Hohneck (1362m). Sure, judge on height above sea level both do not come anything close to Mount Blanc. But, on a clear day you can see Mount Blanc way off in the distance form both these peaks. I stopped on the way through Guebwiller to grab some sandwiches and a drink for lunch. [View Full Entry]

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2/11/05 - I walked around the fortified town of Neuf-Brisach. All up I think it took about 2 to 3 hours. It was well worth the visit. The town was well worth the visit, as was its German neighbor - Breisach. The area on both sides of the Rhine was originally inhabited by Celts about 3 to 4000 years ago. The Romans were here in the 1st Century BC. When Louis the XIV lost the town of Breisach to Austria in 1697 he gave instructions to fortify the area around Neuf-Brisach to protect the French border. The resulting fortifications built by [View Full Entry]

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31/10/05 - Saying farewell to Liesbeth and Michel was a sad event. Farewell to Liesbeth and Michel also meant that we were departing for Frankfurt so that Lorenza and I would also say farewell and for Lorenza to catch her flight home. The drive to Frankfurt was uneventful, except for the speeds that people travel at on the German autobahns. At 172km/h (the highest speed we reached) there were still many cars pulling away from us and disappearing quickly into the distance. The traffic in the “slow lane” is doing 130km/h, in the middle lane about 150km/h. I had to brake [View Full Entry]

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This has been the first chance I have had in the Netherlands to sit and type something. We have no problems accessing the internet to upload anything, we have just been too busy having fun to set aside some time for typing! So, this will be a quick update because in the next half hour or so we will either be out bicycle riding, walking, driving or something - today is too nice to waste in front of a laptop. The following covers the period from 22nd to 29th October, later today we will visit Gert and Henny, then tomorrow we [View Full Entry]

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22/10/05 - We said farewell to our hosts at the Hotel de la Paix and pointed the Renault toward the Netherlands. Fuel is expensive in France, but the autoroute toll charges are just as bad. It costs us the same amount in tolls as it did in fuel to get to Tilburg. All up about 50 euro in tolls and 50 euro in fuel. All those toll charges do have one great benefit, fantastic roads, the route to Paris and then onto Antwerp and then Tilburg is very easy driving. It took us about 10 hours to cross half of France [View Full Entry]

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21/10/05 - Big rest day required today after too much driving. We strolled around Saint-Nectaire and its surroundings. The autumn colours are lovely, the trees are full of red, brown and orange leaves, the weather is also great, about 19 degrees. Autumn is also good from the point of view that the summer crowds have long gone and we virtually have the place to ourselves and the locals. This is a very interesting area, old volcanoes, lakes, beautiful farmland and old villages. We visited the 12th century church, plus the limestone Petrification Fountains (Fontaines Pétrifiantes des Saint-Nec [View Full Entry]

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19/10/05 - Lorenza’s plan “drive as far as we can from Menaigo toward France as possible”. Sounded like a good plan at 11pm last night. This morning we took our planned route, which according to the Michelin map was a major highway, but not an Autostrada. Yeah, right! It took us three hours to travel about fifty kms, through so many industrial towns I lost count. Trucks, trucks, trucks and more bloody trucks! We decided the minor highway was a total joke and consulted our map, deciding to head for the nearest Autostrada to cover as much distance as possible. Now, [View Full Entry]

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18/10/2005 - We finally made it to Maniago after traveling through some very beautiful countryside. The roads were so narrow, when we came into the towns the mirrors of the car almost scrape the edges of the buildings. Robert is becoming very professional at avoiding accidents with the locals on tractors and those three wheeled, two stroke utility vehicles they drive. We went directly to a place called Campagna, 5kms east of Maniago. Wel, almost directly, we had to stop and ask for directions once, the guy we asked just happened to be a cousin of the folks we were looking [View Full Entry]

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17/10/05 - We left Mel to stop in at a small town 10kms up the road to see if we could try and locate my (Lorenza) grandfathers sister, Maria. We were given an address by an aunty who was a bit sketchy on the details but our previous hosts were able to correct the spelling and point us in the right direction. We get to the town, we find the street, and we find the house number. This is too easy or perhaps Aust. Post has actually taught us something. Alas our luck had run out or did it? There was [View Full Entry]

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Italian Autostrada, Smog and Trucks 14/10/05 - The Mont Blanc tunnel made world news a while back due to the fact that 24 people died in there when a truck caught alight. Our trip through was much safer, although we almost died when we got hit with the 30 euro toll to make the trip through. On entering the tunnel you tune your radio to the traffic station and they welcome you to the tunnel in French, Italian and English, giving you all the safety instructions you must follow on your drive. Once on the Italian side we found our way [View Full Entry]

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