Whimventure part- I’ve kinda lost count.

And now we head to Italy via Alsace.

I thought I’d given us enough time to perhaps wander around Paris… nope. Just enough time to get the Adventure Lab in the Station and take a breath or two. Which seemed to mark most of this portion of the trip as we travel to Italy.  As I may have mentioned our original plan was to use Switzerland as a base and run over to Lichtenstein for a day.  This fell apart due to the hotel prices jumping because of Eurovision so we decided to head straight to Milan which had us become that couple running through the train station trying to catch our train before it departs.  When I tried to get tickets with a large break between trains- I broke the Internet.

Pardon me boy? Is this the Transylvania Station?

We leave St. Lazare and hop a metro to Gare du Nord then walk (as casually as possible) to Gare du’Ost and our train to Strasbourg.  From Strasbourg to Colmar for the night.  Which included a lovely walk through town in the rain to our hotel.  While we got in kinda late, we still could get dinner.  Our first choice was full, so we stopped nearby at Chez Hansi for some wine and Tarte Flambée.  Actually I went for the sauerkraut and we switched plates halfway.

Tarte Flambée is a regional dish we stumbled upon when we were first in the area my first time in Europe. They are quick and easy to produce so basically you order more of them as you sit and drink with friends until everyone is full.

Choices at Chez Hansi, Sue went with the basic. At home we tend to do the one from Trader Joe’s.

Example of Hansi’s work from the menu.

Chez Hansi  was named after a famous local illustrator who was known for his drawing of Alsatian life.  Onkle Hansi even has an Adventure Lab!  The one most people would know from Colmar is Bartholdi who sculpted the Statue of Liberty among other things.

A Day in Colmar

In the morning we got up and headed out early to see the old parts of the city.  Picking up a few caches and Adventure Labs along the way.  The last time we were here was before caching. As more and more people started to wake up the streets got full of tour groups wandering around following a flag and person with a microphone.

We’ve talked about taking a river cruise sometime in the future and I’m sad to say, looking at these groups, I don’t think I’m old enough yet.

As it closed in on check out time we grabbed our bags which seem to be getting heavier and headed for the train station - home to yet another Adventure Lab.

From here we went to Basel and had about 10 minutes to get from track 31 to track 8.  We did get three stages to the Basel SBB Adventure Lab, but the train started moving before we could activate the rest.  That train took us to Olten which gave us 5 minutes to find our train on track 11 and get on.  Sue being the genius she is just had us get on any car and move inside the train until we reached our car.  That way if the train took off, we’d at least be on it.

Fortunately, we reached our car and the bags were put away. We had the rest of the day to sit back and enjoy the views of Switzerland and to catch up on whatever.  Sue knitting and me wondering what to do since I’m usually driving on long trips like this.

Note: While in Normandie, Sue did all the driving (except for one parking job) since she was the one who rented the car.