2009 World trip with the Percivals

France

Thursday 2009-04-02      At Michele's place in Romanswiller, France   We arrived at Michele's place at 7:45 with plenty of the evening left.
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Thursday 2009-04-02      At Michele's place in Romanswiller, France   Michele had prepared a special treat for us called Raclette.  It was the start of three full days of gastronomic indulgence.
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Thursday 2009-04-02       At Michele's place in Romanswiller, France   This is a device with a hot stone (pierrade) on top on which you cook meats like sliced raw fillet, prawns, potatoes and Viande de Gryson from Switzerland.  Underneath is space for about eight cheese trays where you melt the cheese and mix it with meat, potatoes or prawns.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Cheese factory at Lapoutroie   Jenni had seen a TV show in Australia called  Cheese slices  where they featured a small cheese producer located in the Vosges mountain range in Alsace. She suggested it would be a great place to visit.
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Friday 2009-04-03     Cheese factory at Lapoutroie
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Friday 2009-04-03     Cheese factory at Lapoutroie
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Friday 2009-04-03     Cheese factory at Lapoutroie  On the way in, there is a short tour of how and where the cheese is produced.
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Friday 2009-04-03    Cheese factory at Lapoutroie   Small quantities of cheese are produced in this building but the main factory is over the road. Jenni and Bonnie bought some cheese at the sales desk.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Orbey   It was just about lunch time so we decided we'd better find a restaurant quickly, as most restaurants close for lunch in villages in Alsace. We drove south to Orbey and started to look. This restaurant was closed but we found another where the boys had pizza and the girls had tarte flambé.
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Friday 2009-04-03     Orbey   After lunch, we did a small walking tour of Orbey.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Orbey
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Friday 2009-04-03      Orbey
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Friday 2009-04-03     Orbey
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Friday 2009-04-03     Col des Bagenelles   From Orbey, we drive back along the same route and stop at the top of the hill at Col des Bagnelles (Bagnelles Pass).  There was a little snow around but serious skiing had stopped for the season.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Col des Bagenelles   Le Bonhomme was a very small village on the way up the hill. We're following hwy 48 to Sainte-Marie-aux-mines.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Col des Bagenelles   The road from Le Bonhomme up which we came.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Col des Bagenelles   These valleys are part of the Vosges ranges to the south of Strasbourg that run parallel to the Rhine river
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Friday 2009-04-03     Col des Bagenelles   This and the next two shots are part of a left-to-right sequence.
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Friday 2009-04-03     Col des Bagenelles
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Friday 2009-04-03     Col des Bagenelles
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Friday 2009-04-03     Col des Bagenelles stiched
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Friday 2009-04-03      Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines   Sainte Marie-aux-Mines owes its celebrity to its antimony mines, probably discovered in Roman times  around the 2nd or 3rd century.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines   The village is the site of the annual  Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines Mineral Show which is  also known as Euro Mineral.  The show is a tourist attraction and many collectors from Italy, France and Germany attend.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines   The fair takes place the last week of June and hosts more than 900 exhibitors from 60 countries.
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Friday 2009-04-03     Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines
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Friday 2009-04-03      Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines
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Friday 2009-04-03      On the way back at Wasselonne   If this old barn could talk, what a story it would tell. Is it over a thousand years old or just a few centuries?
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller   After returning home, Michele takes Jenni, Bonnie and I for a walking tour of her village. First of all, the name Romanswiller translates roughly into Village of the Romans and some buildings in the village date from that era.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  Michele's house is newly built on what used to be railway land. If you let your eye draw a line from the bottom SE corner of the picture exiting at the left NW, you can see the path of the old railway line.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  Michele has the front section and her parents will have the rear section.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  Our walking tour starts at Michele's house.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  The centuries of additions to and subtractions from this dwelling fascinate me.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  What a great idea: doggy poo bags. This is an entirely different mentality from their primitive neighbour to the south - I hated the dog poop everywhere in Spain.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  The centre of the village.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  Built in 1646 CE.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  Jenni says its the oldest thing she's ever touched. I suppose she means non-living thing.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  The building was renovated in 2008 and is now the Romanswiller Library. It uses the half-timbering construction that was so popular in Ulm, Germany.  How many times has it been restored over the centuries?
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  The Romanswiller Mayor opened the library and dedicated it to Tomi Ungerer who was an Alsacian writer and artist. Tomi was present at the dedication ceremony.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  This is the protestant church and the other spire belongs to the catholic church. There was no synagogue extant but there was one cemetery for Catholics and Protestants and another for Israelites.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  Alsace was historically part of the    Holy Roman Empire    of the German nation.  In the 17th century Kings Louis XIII and XIV (the Sun King) gradually annexed Alsace  and made it a province of France.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  Alsace is frequently mentioned along with Lorraine because the two regions were German possessions between 1871-1918  and again between 1940-1944.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  Today, Alsacians speak French because they have been a part of France for most of the past three centuries. About 39% of the local adult population are still fluent in the Alsacian language but probably less than 10% of children speak it.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  As Alsace changed from German to French, the spelling of this sign at the Romanswiller School changed also.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  These dogs were hilarious. They were shaking with fear and yapped unconvincingly to make us go away.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  This translates as "Offer your claret". This is a curious sign for a blood bank to erect.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  The Restaurant Au Bois Vert (Green wood) used to be Paulette's (Michele's mother) restaurant before she retired.  The verandah belongs to what used to be Michele's bedroom when she was growing up.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller  Some of these buildings are about 1300 years old.
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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     Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Walking tour of Romanswiller
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Friday 2009-04-03      Romanswiller  Tonight's delight: snails and frog legs. Bonnie was reluctant at first, but after trying a snail exclaimed, "I can do this!".
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Saturday 2009-04-04    Route de Wangenbourg   The next morning, we leave after breakfast for Wangenbourg. This curious construction is a frog fence.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Route de Wangenbourg   The fence directs frogs to a place on the road where it is safe for them to cross.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Route de Wangenbourg   The sign says Crossing of Amphibians.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg   The village of Wangenbourg looks down into one of the valleys of the Vosges.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg Castle  We go to the remains of the old castle Wangenbourg.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg Castle  The Lords de Wangen built the castle on the site of an older castle in the 12th century, the history of which has been lost. The fortress is mentioned in writings for the first time in 1357.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg Castle  The castle has panoramic views of the Vosges.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg Castle  The footbridge was built in 1961 in place of the old drawbridge and trees that had grown in the moat were recently cut down.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg Castle  In 1504, Emperor Maximilien confiscated the castle from the von Wangens and resold it in 1518 to the Bishop of Strasbourg.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg Castle  However the descendants of the von Wangens continued to occupy the castle and, between 1535 and 1550, they rebuilt much of  the castle in Renaissance style.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg Castle  In 1578, a dispute arose between the Bishop of Strasbourg and the Lords de Wangen about  property rights. The Wangen were evicted in 1578, but had their rights restored in 1595. In 1680, the castle was occupied by French troops but by 1702, it was in ruins.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg Castle  In  December 6, 1898 the ruins of the castle were classified as an historic building - Alsace was part of Germany at the time.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg Castle  Restoration of the castle -Alsace was now French - began in 1931 starting and ending with the tower.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg Castle
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg Castle
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wangenbourg   We walk back to Wangenbourg village and enjoy a coffee at a delightful cafe with views of the valleys below and the hills above.
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Saturday 2009-04-04        A special lunch   We return to Michele's place for lunch where Dennis helps to serve the choucroute and the black forest cake.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      A special lunch   Spaetzle - this is wheat flour, egg & water, rolled and boiled.
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Saturday 2009-04-04     A special lunch   Michele's mother Paulette made this Alsacean apple tart. We ate the rest at Zurich airport.
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Saturday 2009-04-04     A special lunch   Michele's dad, Rene, prepared this dish of ham, large sausages (montbeliard), medium and small sausages (knack) and choucroute (sauerkraut).
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Saturday 2009-04-04     A special lunch   Here's the official recipe for choucroute and sausages from the  Alsace wines & country recipes  booklet.
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Saturday 2009-04-04     A special lunch   Jenni brought a small gift for Rene and Paulette, an Australian calendar.
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Wasselonne   After lunch, we travel to another castle: Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Wasselonne   We drive through Wasselonne where Michele was born, oh maybe, 35 years ago?   Later. When Michele read this she told me that she was older than that and I was obliged to explain that a gentleman never reveals a lady's true age.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Just outside of Wasselonne   Just outside of Wasselone, there is a cliff face popular with climbers. The pink sandstone from here (and other quarries in the Vosges)  was used to construct the Strasbourg Cathedral (1176–1439) and this gave the cathedral its characteristic pink hue.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Soultz-les-Bains   From Wasselonne, we drive through five round-abouts to  Soultz-les-Bains. We stop here on the way back to buy some foie gras.
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Soultz-les-Bains   From  Soultz-les-Bains we joined the A35 heading south and took exit 17 the same as yesterday. This time though, after exiting, we turned left instead of right and climbed the hill to . . .
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg    . . .  Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg   It is unknown when a castle was first built on the site but the first recorded mention was in 1147. It took its name from the original Königsburg (King's Castle in German).
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg   The château is located at Orschwiller, Alsace,  in the Vosges mountains just west of Sélestat. It was used by successive powers from the Middle Ages until the Thirty Years' War (initially between catholics and protestants in 1618-1648).
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg    It was  abandoned during the war as it had been burned and pillaged by Swedish troops after a 52 day siege.  For a few hundred years the castle was left unused and became overgrown by the forest.
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg   In 1899 the city of Sélestat gave the castle to the German emperor Wilhelm II who decided to restore it to its former medieval glory.
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg   Emperor Wilhelm II entrusted the restoration to Bodo Ebhardt whose goal was, as near as possible, to rebuild it as it was on the eve of the Thirty Years' War. Work proceeded from 1900 to 1908.
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg   After World War I, when Alsace returned to France, the French state confiscated the castle.
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg    The French Ministry of Culture designated the castle as a national historic site in 1993 and today it is one of the most popular tourist attractions of the region.
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg   A theatrical group added colour to the visit.
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg   The group has people from 12 different countries working as musicians, swordspersons, calligraphers, cooks, leatherworkers, weapons makers and even family groups (including babies)
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg   Ancient script
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg   Excellent JGR photo.  Looks like one of those Dutch paintings.
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg   Shoemaking
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg
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Saturday 2009-04-04     Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg   I parked the car several kms away and remained with the car. Michele calls me and tells me it time to come and pick them up. Why didn't I join the tour? Blame the choucroute.
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Saturday 2009-04-04    Returning from Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg    After visiting the castle, we proceed homeward with Michele in the guest-of-honour seat.
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Saturday 2009-04-04       Returning from Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg    The castle can be seen perched high on the top of Stophanberch Mountain (755 m).
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Saturday 2009-04-04      Returning from Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg    That night we had dinner at a nearby restaurant owned and leased out by Michele's brother. Jenni and Bonnie ordered half servings and I had an entree salad - we weren't hungry for some reason.
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Saturday 2009-04-04      A special after dinner treat   On our return home from the restaurant, Michele's mum had been and left a small tribute for us. How lovely! We were overwhelmed.
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Sunday 2009-04-05     A short walk before farewell   It's time to bid our sad farewells but before leaving we head down to the old railway station. This building is now in private ownership and is being restored as a home.
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Sunday 2009-04-05      A short walk before farewell   The station has been both German and French in its time.
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Sunday 2009-04-05      A short walk before farewell   New buildings on old railway land. The straight path is where the tracks once went.
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Sunday 2009-04-05      Au Revoir   We have never been so overwhelmed with hospitality. Michele and her parents went out of their way to make our visit to Alsace as pleasurable and memorable as possible.
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Sunday 2009-04-05      Au Revoir   We had an absolutely wonderful time and Michele, from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you.
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Sunday 2009-04-05      Au Revoir   We drive off into the midday sun headed for the A35 to Basel and then Zurich airport.
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Sunday 2009-04-05     Au Revoir   We leave with mixed emotions I might add.
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Sunday 2009-04-05      Into Switzerland at Basel   A couple of hours later, we cross the Rhine River and enter Switzerland at Basel.  The Rhine actually originates in the Swiss Alps in the canton of Graubünden and is 1320 kms long.
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Sunday 2009-04-05     Basel   Basel looks like a seedy industrial town - not at all Swiss.
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Sunday 2009-04-05      On the A3 to Zurich   We take the A3 Autobahn to Zurich. No need to be concerned about tolls in Switzerland as our car has an annual permit sticker on its windscreen.
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Sunday 2009-04-05     Zurich Airport   We made it with seven hours to spare. We dropped the car off at Alamo after having driven 2479 kms across Europe. The Opel Zafiri performed perfectly and we would never have seen some of Europe's hidden gems without it.
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Sunday 2009-04-05      Zurich Airport   It's always nice to see the plane waiting. We flew overnight to Bangkok, Thailand (a 10½ hour flight) where our adventures continue under the    Thailand    folder.
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