Frankfurt, Strassbourg and Northern French Villages

Hi Again,
After an extremely enjoyable stay in Franfurt we have now relocated to Northern France and have collected our Lease Peugeot, a French version of the people mover. The 6 speed diesel certainly gets along well on the highways and luckily has more storage space than our MPV. We moved straight out of the big cities and have started our village tour, driving randomly through the country lanes and finding one amazing village after another. This area was German until after WW1 when the country borders were shifted, so there is a continual cross between the two cultures, however French is the chosen language. (No we are not getting better at speaking yet, but are managing to communicate.)

We visited the village of Selestat before driving to Colmar where we stayed in the village the first night and on the outskirts the second. After visiting the 800 year old castle Chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg, which has an amazing history prior to being sacked and burned by the Swiss and then left for a couple of hundred years before the town of Selestat gave it to Kaiser Wilhelm ii. The Kaiser then had the castle returned to what was thought to be its original state. It is now undergoing further repairs.

All of these villages have the original narrow cobble stone streets and buildings where pedestrians must move over for vehicles they are so narrow, and then as you move towards the outskirts the streets become wider and buildings more modern. On the outskirts of some villages there are rows of tin shacks with a small workable garden each on the edge of larger farms. It would appear that workers live here, but cant be positive. We can say that they are tiny. Not sure how you would fit a bed in there, never mind kitchen, bathroom etc.

Throughout the villages in the tourist areas they are selling toy white birds. It wasn't until we studied the postcards that we realised they are storks, of the delivering babies fame. They are nesting in chimneys etc of some of the houses around here. We plan to get a decent photo to add today.

A more thorough post will come, but we wanted to get some brag shots up quickly as we are loving the countryside and landmarks, and of course the wine and cheese at regular intervals throughout the day. You walk into a grocery store... and there is a wine tasting. Cheese counter at the deli is huge. Heaven!!!

A heads up that daylight saving started here today, so if you are Skyping us we are now 8 hours behind Oz, 9 hours ahead of Vancouver.

More soon!!