Strasbourg

Last weekend Doc and I took the train to Strasbourg. Amazingly, it's just 2.5 hours away--and that was not on the fast train!!! I had heard Strasbourg is a nice city, but it definitely exceeded my expectations. We had a lovely fall weekend weather wise, which made the city even nicer! We took an open air boat trip along the L'Ill River that went through locks and provided a great view of many sites in the old town and also of the newer areas, including the European Parliament (which unfortunately, we weren't able to visit since it required more advanced notice than we could give). Here are some of our photos:


The old city


Along the L'Ill River


In the locks


European Parliament


The cathedral


View of the city from the top of the cathedral


Restaurant where we ate dinner

Basel

Well, the summer here was short lived and fall has definitely arrived in Zurich. Last weekend, we had some decent weather so we decided to visit Basel for the day. The old town is quite beautiful, especially its Rauthaus (city hall). We also thought it would be fun to walk across the border into France. It was quite interesting how we walked down the street in Basel and everything was in German and after passing the immigration and customs checkpoint everything on the same street was in French.


Das Münster


Inside the Rauthaus


Exterior of the Rauthaus


Das Spalentor

Achada

While driving along the northern coast of Sao Miguel, we came upon a beautiful waterfall tucked against a hillside. There was also a small park across from the waterfall that had grilling facilities and beautiful flowers.

Nordeste

Nordeste, located on the northeast coast of Sao Miguel, was the prettiest town we visited.





As we left town, we experienced a bit of a traffic jam!

Furnas and Cozido

We drove out to a small town called Furnas and spent three days in the eastern part of the island. This area is well known for its steam vents, which were quite impressive. There is also a local dish, cozido, that is placed in bags inside of the steam vents. Dirt is piled on top and the cozido is cooked in the ground for a few hours. Cozido has various meats--sausage, chicken, pork, and beef--as well as potatoes, carrots and cabbage.






Putting the cozido in the ground


Cozido cooking in the ground


Our cozido dinner

As we traveled across the island, we kept seeing people and animals sitting and standing in truck beds. We finally had our cameras ready on this one ...

Lagoa de Fogo

Another place we visited was the crater lake, Lagoa de Fogo. We had a beautiful day and the views were great. From the top, we could see the entire width of the island.

Vila Franca do Campo

One of my favorite things we did while on vacation was go to a small island called Ilheu de Vila Franca. The island has a crater in the middle that connects in a narrow passage to the ocean. We took a fishing boat out to the island and enjoyed a swim and a little sun bathing on the rocks.






Doc and fellow swimmers

After our swim, we drove to a hill above Vila Franca do Campo to see an old church that was built, according to our guidebook, in the second half of the 15th century. While there, we had another great view of the island.

Mosteiros

Moisteros is a town along the northwest coast of Sao Miguel. We stopped there to see the ocean before continuing along the coast to see a cliff.

Ponta Delgada

Ponta Delgada is the biggest city on the island and was our homebase for about half of the trip.


The main plaza in the city


A street in Ponta Delgada


At the waterfront

Azores

In August, Doc and I went to Sao Miguel for a week. It is one of the islands that comprise the Azores, which are part of Portugal. Even at the peak of their tourist season, there really weren't many folks vacationing on the island. I left wondering if all of the European Union's investment in infrastructure in the Azores would make the islands a much more popular place to visit in a few years.

We'll be posting some photos from some of the towns we visited and things we saw.