JerrysJourneys

The curtain has come down on the trip.  As this blog entry is being written, we are sitting in the lobby of the Hilton Garden Inn at the Malpensa Airport in Milan, Italy.  Harry turned our rental car in after driving us around Italy and France.  Harry drove over 3300 KM.  We saw the Last Supper, we took Italian cooking lessons, visited 4 countries, toured Tuscany, visited the Cinque Terre, hiked the Street of Love, stayed on the French Riviera, toured the lavender fields, drove through the Alps, ate some great food, drank some great wine, and ate lots and lots of gelato.  Tomorrow we will be eating at the Cracker Barrel.  Until the next time....... Alps Alps More Alps Alps  More Alps Alps Alps in our rear view

Annecy is known as the Venice of the Alps, and it is also known as the "Pearl of the French Alps".  It really does not matter what you call it, if you are planning a trip to France, put Annecy on your itinerary.  If you like medieval villages, mountains, lakes, and gelato you will love Annecy.   When you watch house hunters everyone wants to be near the center of town.  We were in the very center of old town.  We got a room in a hotel from the 1800's.  The name of our hotel was Hotel Palais de L'Isle.  It was old, but it had modern conveniences, wifi, air conditioning, and cable TV. We got there Saturday afternoon and toured the town.  Linda and Amanda told us Sunday was market day.  Guess what we did?  After spending the morning in the market, we went to a hamburger restaurant for lunch.  Great place.  France's version of "Five Guys".  We all had cheeseburgers with real French fries.  We talked a lot about eating at the Cracker Barrel when we get home. ...

Today is moving day.  We packed our bags, loaded our Jeep, and headed into the Alps.  Our destination is Annecy...a beautiful village located on Lake Annecy. If is known as Venice of the Alps. With Provence in our rear view mirror, we plugged the village of Sault into the GPS.  Sault is the unofficial capital of lavender country. We got there in time for a late breakfast and drove through what I would call Lavender Valley...lavender fields as far as you could see.  Then we headed for Annecy.  While on the way,  just outside of Grenoble, France,  a motorcycle passed us on a curvy mountain road.  A little while later we came upon the motorcycle, again.  It had met a Mercedes, head on....a terrible accident.  A ground ambulance arrived, but it was determined that a helicopter was needed to transport the victims to a hospital.  I talked to the pilot at length while the first responders prepared them for transport.  Traffic was stopped for over an hour.  We don't know the status of the ...

We started this day with a visit to Eygalieres.  You can imagine the excitement that Harry and I felt when Amanda and Linda told us that today was market day in Eygalieres.  I don't think we have missed a market since we have been in Provence.  In fact we kept running into the same vendors from market to market.  I just don't think I could make my living going from one market to the next trying to sell a vegetable peeler to anyone who would stand still long enough to watch me carve little designs in the potatoes.  Eygalieres is a small 11th century village with beautiful homes, surrounded by olive groves and vineyards.  Rumor has it that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie liked it so much they bought a 15th century farmhouse in this community.  The asking price was $19,437,705.00.  They said it was very nice...rustic charm with modern conveniences.  Afterwards we went to St Remy, another charming Provencal village.  We had lunch here and then visited the Lavender Museum.  After all, ...

Today turned out to be very interesting.  Our itinerary called for breakfast in Menerbes.  Today was market day in Menerbes so we decided to walk to town.  An easy walk, 1 1/4 kilometers to town.  We went into town, had coffee and croissants at a local restaurant.  After we finished we toured the market to see what treasures we needed.  One shop had rotisserie chickens with roasted potatoes.  It was decided this would be our dinner tonight, a French hen.  When we finished the market,  Amanda bought the French hen and the potatoes along with a loaf of bread.  We headed back to the villa.  Walking.  I mentioned it was 1 1/4 KM?  Amanda carried the bread, I carried the chicken and the potatoes.  Did I mention the path back to the villa was up a very long, steep rise that was 1 1/4 km's long.  The clerk should have double bagged the chicken and the potatoes.  Harry offered to take the chicken.  I said no, I had it.  Amanda carried the bread.  Halfway up the mountain,  the plastic bag s...