Kathy and Andrew

9/10/09 It was a cold, loud and restless night with little sleep. According to Andrew, we had to be out of the parking lot by 7am. Around 6:30am he headed to another parking lot for breakfast. I fell back asleep and woke an hour later in yet another parking lot. He just kept moving us around like fugitives on the run till the campgrounds opened at 9am. We finally got to the campground and got a little shut eye till 10am. We then headed down the river to catch the Gondola up to Gimmelwald and Murren. The view from Murren was breathtaking. We were surrounded by the King of the Alps mountains. We had lunch in front of the famous Eiger mountain, snow capped at 13,000 ft. and the majestic Jungfrau, the tallest (13,600 ft.) and ... read more

9/8/09 We woke early today in beautiful Sarlet France to to get ready for a long day of driving to get to Annecy, a lakeside town just southwest of Geneva, Switzerland. We drove about 350 miles today so once we arrived in Annecy it was about 5:00pm and we were ready for a stretch. The only way we know about Annecy, is that a stage of the Tour de France went through there this year. Andrew has heard that it was a nice town and a lot of cyclists live there to train. We found a campground we knew was close to the lake as we could see a glimpse of blue from our site. So we unpacked our bikes and headed to explore the town and lake. The traffic was a bit hairy as it ... read more

9/6/09 It was early this morning but Andrew couldn’t resist a ride in the Dordogne hills. We headed off to see the cave of pre-historic man today. The first cave we arrived at was the Lascaux Cave in Montignac, France. This is the home to some of the oldest cave paintings of over 17,000 years old. The original caves where damaged by letting people in and the carbon dioxide (see, Global Warming). So, they made an exact replica right next to it as to preserve the original art. It was amazing and almost as cool as the Sistine Chapel paintings. Most of the paintings were of bulls, buffalo, horses, deer and other animals. The colors were brilliant and made from iron oxide powders. They used different techniques to paint such as crating carving knives, brushes, and ... read more

9/4/09 - Sarlat, France The drive to Sarlat in the Dordogne was fairly short and the countryside green and lush dotted with sun-kissed gold stone chateaus and cottages. Sarlat was to be our base for 3 days while we explored the region. This area is known for goose liver pate and fois gras.  We saw tons of geese farms on our way in to town and I made Andrew stop and take pictures. We found brochures in our tour books from 1999 which is when we started thinking about going to Sarlat and the Dordogne. Andrew bought me a big picture book from the area many years ago and we have been wanting to go ever since. We found a lovely campground (Pierre) that was only a 10 min. walk downhill to the medieval village. ... read more

September 2, 2009 - Provence, France So instead of going thru the tiny roads of the Verdon (Grand Canyon of France) region, we went through the tiny roads of the Luberon National Park. Funny how fate leads you in a direction and boy was this direction scenic. What a beautiful drive through Provence. They must have just cut the lavenders back as we can see field after field of them but no purple flowers. Still, breathtaking. We arrived in the “Venice” of France which was a village called L’Isle-s l’Sourge (you should hear Andrew try to pronounce this). The town is settled on the river with canals running throughout the town. Not really like Venice but stunning nonetheless. Antiques keep the town alive and it looked like they had some beautiful things - unfortunately we where ... read more