European Grand Tour 2007 Day 1

Day 1

Pretty good start to the holiday. Alison drove down to Folkstone leaving me free to take a few snaps on the way down. Good job as we were looking at an approx distance of 546 miles.

Heading down the M20, originally uploaded by xrrr.

Moon Cloud, originally uploaded by xrrr.

The EuroTunnel is by far the best way to travel to France. You get to France within 25 mins and drive straight off the train onto the motorway.

To France, originally uploaded by xrrr.

The French motorway is amazing. Very smooth, very quiet and very easy. I went past about 4 speed camera warning signs before I worked out what they were for but fingers crossed I was not going too fast!

I chose our destination by looking at Google Maps and picking somewhere half way between our end destination and home. I picked on the town of Bergheim which turned out to be a very nice old (and very small) village just off the motorway south of Strasbourg.

Bergheim, originally uploaded by xrrr.

We stayed in a great aparthotel called La Cour du Baille which was a converted house. It was one of the old houses where there is a central courtyard open to the air. For some reason I failed to take a photo! We went for a walk round the village though and the most interesting picture I took was this one:

Bergheim Washing Line, originally uploaded by xrrr.

Don't get me wrong it was a great village, but the weather was a bit iffy so photos did not really come out to well.

The town was very small and there was only one other restaurant (which did not do any veggie food) so we decided to eat in the hotel restaurant. Good choice!

Seeing as we were in the Alsace region I went straight for the "Alsace Specialities" part of the menu. I ended up choosing "Saurkraut with Seven Meats". Hmmm. I could name three of the meats, was reasonably ok with two more but the last two had me worried. One was really chewy and as soon as I told myself it must be horse I put myself off! The last piece of meat was really strange. It was red wrapped by a fatty outside bit. On closer inspection the "fatty bit" turned out to have taste buds. Alison reminded me of the time she was faced with a cow's tongue on French Exchange at school so at which point I finished the Saurkraut and put my knife and fork down. Suddenly feeling rather full.

Early to bed, long drive in the morning.

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