This is bordering on the ridiculous now. More shopping! There always seems to be something we want to go back for.
Today, the plan is to get to Vezelay, a hilltop town in France. And we have all the confidence in the world that we will get there quite easily. You see, we have GPS co-ordinates, and we have TomTom. So, very blaze, we set about telling TomTom where he needed to take us. He refused. You see, TomTom had not quite bothered to tell us that he was only programmed for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He did not seem to think that, seeing we are giving him a lift to Paris, that, just perhaps, he needed to be sure he was in possession of some.... Well..... French maps, maybe? We remained calm and polite, and used him to get us as near as possible to the french border, stopped at a petrol station, and in our very best matric German, managed to find a french map. By now it was lunchtime, and once we figured just how far we would need to drive with paper-based navigational assistance, we took a vote. It was fairly unanimous. Paris it is.
Impressions of Germany:
Frances:
Highs: Red Hot Chili Peppers and German Beer, Christmas Markets
Lows: Everything else
Nicole:
Highs: Red Hot Chili Pepper concert, Hofbräuhaus
Lows: Turkish people
Tertius:
Highs: The houses in the smaller towns. Hofbräuhaus, German food, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Autobahn!
Lows: Expected a bit more from the cities. Dirt and lack of politeness and friendliness.
It would have been nice for the children to see a hilltop town, and looking at our map, I tried to pick a town that was close to the good road we were on, close to mountains, and seemed to have cultural attractions, or a castle or two. Saverne looked like a good choice, so we took the offramp, and, by sheer coincidence, found its main attraction, Rohan castle. And as luck would have it, the main street through the centre of the old town was right next to the castle. It was not a true hilltop town, but it was still beautiful, with beautiful old buildings lining the cobblestoned street. They clearly do the siesta thing, because all the shops seemed closed, but by the time we got to the end of the street, and turned around to to walk back, they had all woken up, and opened their shops.
We were hoping for any restaurant or cafe with wifi. We ended up having a late lunch at a patisserie. Besides - isn't that just the right place to be eating something exquisite in France? Our quiche was excellent. And Tertius thoroughly enjoyed his chicken pie. Saverne did not disappoint. No internet connection though, so we continued westward.
We decided to try Reims next. Being 130km from Paris, we would try to either find wifi, or beds there. We were rather relieved to have missed the Christmas market in Reims historical city centre, but found a McDonalds, which always means free wifi.
One of things Nicole really wanted to do in Paris, was to have a picnic under the Eiffel Tower. French loaf and Champagne. We never got to do this when we were there almost two weeks ago. We decided that this should be the way we should end off our trip. So we would drive to a hotel that I found near the airport, and spend a few more hours in Paris before our return flights tomorrow.
We spent the best part of today on the road. We got lost. We found our way again. We had no idea where we would sleep. We ended finding somewhere to sleep. We saw little french villages. We saw french cities. We had no idea what road signs were trying to tell us. At times we had very little idea where we actually were. We loved it!
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