Work in progress...................this one is going to take awhile - and yes, this was 2017.(2018 we spent Spring Break back in Michigan!) We stopped so many places and saw so much....I have only posted pictures up to our third stop so far. Hopefully I will get some work done on this this summer!
We have nicknamed this trip as our "Exchange Student Tour". Our plan was to spend 2 weeks driving through Europe, stopping along the way to visit with people we have met at various times in our lives due to student exchange programs.
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| Our route |
We flew into Frankfurt and headed immediately to Heidelberg. (Day 1 and 2)
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| When in Germany |
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Germans don't mess around when it comes to their alcohol
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| Old Town Heidelberg |
Day 2 and 3 -Just to the south of Heidelberg is Muggensturm where we has a nice visit with Annika and her family. Annika was an exchange student in Alaska with Laura's sister, Linda around the year 1999.
After Muggensturm, we passed into France to visit a Holocaust Museum and WW II Concentration Camp. Here we met up with Pauline, a friend of Cassandra's from her junior year when she was an exchange student in France. Pauline had come to visit us in Gladstone in 2013 and we took her to Wisconsin Dells. Pauline was attending college nearby, so we decided to make a quick trip. It was our first time to visit a WWII Concentration Camp. This was a small one where many medical experiments were carried out. I can not put in to words the emotions I felt just walking around.
After a short visit and a meal, we passed back into Germany and then into Switzerland before going back into France once again to meet up with Annika - a Finnish exchange student at my high school in Michigan back in 1984, who now lived on the border of France and Switzerland..
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| Annika and I together after at least 30 years! She was such a gracious host and so kind to invite us to come! |
After a delicious meal, some great conversation, and an overnight stay, we had to decide where to go next. Would we go to LaMarche, France? Would we drive to Bordeaux, France and spend time there? Or, would we return to the beautiful mountains of Switzerland?
Well, as you can see, the Swiss Alps were a-calling!
After we left Switzerland, we had a long way to drive to reach Bordeaux.
Arrived in Dinan, France - where Cassandra spent a year of her life as a Rotary Exchange Student. (RYLA)
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Normandy, France!
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| UNESCO gate into Bruges, Belgium |
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