Aside: Differences Between Biking in France and Germany

We found that biking in Germany is different from biking in France. The French have a huge network of rural roads, open to cars but in most cases little used. There are signs for various villages, but none of them are specific to bicycles. We navigated by using Michelin maps (mostly 1:250,000 regional maps) and […]

Germany

From Strasbourg, we headed across the Rhine river, into Germany. This was the first time that we were biking across a national border – all the other times we crossed the border by train. Since it was entirely within the EU, though, it was pretty boring; there wasn’t even a “Welcome to Germany” sign. We […]

Strasbourg

In 2002, a young Suzanne Christensen Morris, just graduated from UC Davis, headed to France looking for adventure. Keen to be close to her German roots, she chose to move to Strasbourg in Alsace, on the border with Germany. After a few weeks of hard searching for a job and a place to live, she […]

Switzerland

Switzerland looks like a postcard of Switzerland. Green mountains plunging into crystal blue lakes. Grassy fields as far as the eye can see. Immaculate trains that are on time except when they catch on fire (more on that later). Bike trails that run like a swiss watch, ticking back and forth between countryside and town […]

Provence

From the Sarlat we took a train to Arles. Arles it was having a music festival, and more importantly, nearby Avignon was having its annual gigantic theatre festival. We stayed in a super nice hotel room in Arles — not on purpose, it just seems to be the last available hotel room in Arles, but […]

We Love France

France greeted us in full with abundance:  a sunny day, a beautiful landscape, small cute villages and patisseries with pain au chocolate and other delicious baked things.   On our first morning in France we  visited and breakfasted with Tifane and Olivier, friends through Suzanne’s job teaching at the Ecole Bilangue in Berkeley, and Olivier’s family.  […]