It was a long day of driving today -- over six hours of road time plus a lengthy stop in the middle to explore Lucerne. But, we're in France now -- the last country in our adventure. Hard to believe that it's coming to an close. Good thing I still have 12 days left -- most of my vacations are shorter than 12 days, so there's plenty left to do.
As we left Lake Como, we went west from Menaggio, skirted Lake Lugano and entered Switzerland.
During the drive, the girls worked on friendship bracelets.
Earlier in the trip, we went through a 3km tunnel in Austria and I remarked on it. Well, on this drive, we went through the 16.4 km Gotthard Road Tunnel, which at one point was the longest road tunnel in the world. (It's the third longest now...) It was strange driving in a tunnel that long. I felt like I was taking the expressway through Moria or something.
We stopped in Lucerne for lunch. We walked around a bit. It's a very scenic downtown right on a lake. It's the the kind of place I think I'd enjoy visiting again when we had more time.
With so much driving to do yesterday, we didn't do much else. After lunch, we piled back into the car and pushed on to Beaune. Once here, we checked into our hotel, and the kids and I went into town for dinner. Laura said she wasn't hungry.
After dinner, we walked around some. I showed the kids the outside of the Hotel-Dieu and we made plans to tour it the next morning. Laura and I had stayed here 5 years ago, so I showed the kids where we'd stayed then
They liked it and wondered why we weren't staying inside the walls this trip. I told them that I had different priorities when it come to places to stay than I did the last time I was in France. As we walked through the square, we came upon a children's carousel. The girls took the teacup for a spin
CarouselInBeaune from Dan Douglas on Vimeo.
Tomorrow, after some sights in Beaune, it's on to Chartres for a three-night stay where we'll do our outside Paris day-tripping while actually staying outside Paris.
