I really don’t have a good idea of a name for this trip, so I’ll just go with the one above. It was in Central Europe and we did a loop of sorts. I thought of ‘Germany Runs on Pig’, but that would be plagiarism, and then what about Switzerland? What does it run on? Our tourist Francs is probably the answer, but that is another story.

We actually started our trip in Strasbourg, since we had to return to France (after a wedding in Germany) to return our car. Didn’t get a good look at the city, but the suburbs are very nice. Clean, orderly, and with a visible lack of graffiti. Not very French, I thought. Oh, and also green, which was a little bit of a shock after a year in Languedoc. Here is some of it at the municipal campsite of Strasbourg.

The multilingual guy at the campsite directed us to a cycling path along the Rhine-Rhone canal, which we accessed by a number of other well-sign-posted paths that appear to crisscross the area. Again, very un-French, at least in my experience. This is the canal that led us to the Rhine.

But first, lunch…in Germany? No, this is still France. Alsace is France, but you wouldn’t know it by the looks of the houses…or the German (or more than likely Alsatian) speaking woman at the bakery next to this one.

But then it was across the Rhine and really into Germany. The rest of the day we spent struggling into the Black Forest, but we stopped for a very large (a common theme from now on…) ice cream in Lahr, where my brother lived for 7 years. Notice anything familiar, Fred?

The ice cream helped us get up the long hill that drags up past Lahr, and into our next campsite, a very civilized affair, at least for a Canadian. Most German campsites are equipped with a store, sometimes a pool, and almost always a restaurant with wheat beer on tap!