An Engineer’s Dream

Munich’s Deutsches Museum is a fantastic science and technology museum. We spent a few hours there and only saw a fraction of their excellent exhibits. We could easily devote several days to it. Detailed explanations were given in both German and English. The detailed dioramas about bridge building were even more impressive. If you just […]

Munich

We spent a week in Munich, mostly visiting family. We did manage to see a few of the sights…and take a pile of pictures. We hope to come back and see more! Oktoberfest starts on September 16th. They’re busy building what looks like a whole small town in Theresienwiese: We were surprised to learn that […]

Strasbourg

Strasbourg’s city center, the Grand Île, is a great place to stroll. Two rivers converge in the city, forming the island and giving visitors beautiful views in all directions. La Petite France, which began as a quarantine area for French soldiers who had brought syphilis to the city, has morphed to the most picturesque (and […]

Le Chateau de Haut-Koenigsbourg

As we drove to Colmar on Sunday, we saw a castle on top of the pointiest hill around. On Monday, we visited it – the Chateau de Haut-Koenigsbourg. (Yet another fine mix of French and German names here in Alsace…) This castle has had a hard life. First mentioned in 1147, it was destroyed in […]

A Charming Town

On Sunday we visited Colmar in the Haut-Rhin (upper Rhine) region. It’s about an hour south of where we are staying in Gougenheim. I had read that it is one of the prettiest towns in France and it’s true. No matter where you look, there’s a half-timbered house in a pleasing color, a cobblestone street, […]

More Countries, More Cities, More Fun?

This year we’re returning to Europe, but not just France. We’re traveling in Germany and France, plus a couple of nights in Austria and Switzerland. This trip will be quite different than our 2019 and 2022 adventures. In 2019 we stayed two months in each rental. In 2022, around a month. In 2023 we’ll only […]

Market Day

Céret has the nicest weekly market we’ve seen in France. It’s a great mix of fruit and vegetable sellers, prepared foods, handmade items, and clothing (and a few sellers of junky plastic stuff – there’s no escaping it completely). It’s also very easy to get to – right outside our door! The first week we […]

The Hunt

While MM visited, we took a Sunday hike to St. Ferréol’s hermitage (l’ermitage de St. Ferréol). It started in Céret, at the point where three bridges cross the Tech river – one antique, one for cars, and one train bridge converted to a rail trail. The old bridge is called the devil’s bridge (le pont […]

Collioure

As we soon as we started walking around Collioure, M asked, “Why aren’t we staying here?” I couldn’t have agreed more. If I’d known how gorgeous it was, we would be. Ah, well, there’s always next time… We’ve visited twice, once on a blue-sky day and once, with our guest MM, with a few sprinkles […]

Welcome to Céret

We’re now just 12 km from the Spanish border and the Mediterranean is visible in the distance when we climb the hills just out of town. Things look very different here! Céret is at least 1300 years old, which explains the winding narrow alleys in the old town. Put out your arms and you can […]