April 6
We got up at 6am so we could get on the road. We had a ton of driving to accomplish in one day. We had packed up the night before so it was an easy departure from the hotel.
1. Italy: We started our trip with a few hours in Italy – we drove out of Cinque Terre, enjoying the sun rising as we twisted and turned out of the towns.
We drove past Lake Como and waved at George Clooney. We didn’t wave at Amal – I’m sure she’s too busy saving the world to be hanging out here on a week day.
2. Switzerland: Our next country was Switzerland. We passed seamlessly into the new country. As previously mentioned, Michael had visited Switzerland with Chuck. But this was a new country for me! We didn’t spend any time here yet, but we got to drive through the beautiful Alps!
Very scenic way to spend a few hours.
3. Liechtenstein: Next stop – the tiny country of Liechtenstein for lunch. On the drive, I googled what you can do in the country of Liechtenstein. I got a lot of suggestions that confirmed the fact that we did not need to spend any additional time in this pretty little country. We grabbed lunch and then continued on our drive, back into Switzerland.
Having uploaded these pictures I’m realizing that Liechtenstein doesn’t look that cool. It was a really beautiful tiny country and these pictures do no justice to it. I mean… what is that van picture? Is that really the best we could do? Yes. Apparently, it was the best we could do. I’m sorry.
4. Germany: Now this is a new one for both Michael and me*. It was also a surprise. We didn’t take a very good look at the route apparently. Germany didn’t really look that different than Switzerland. The buildings look the same and since we were in the German speaking portion of Switzerland, all the signs looked the same as well. We drove through Germany for an hour or two before getting into France. No pictures. You’ll get pictures when we hit up Munich or something more German looking.
5. France: This portion of the trip was 4 or 5 hours straight west towards Troyes. Troyes is a city outside of Paris that we were going to be spending the night in. We got to drive through Alsace, part of wine country that we are actually returning to in a few days.
The highlight of this drive? This street sign! We’ll have to investigate when we come back in a few days.
The lowlight? All of the towns were creepy and empty. Like super empty. Zero people. A few cars parked along the street, and buildings that are well taken care of, but no people. It was around 7pm on a Friday night. Where are the people? We had a few theories: everyone was gone on vacation for Easter week, or something to do with upcoming planting season. We didn’t know. But it was strange. But we got this beautiful sunset as we were approaching Troyes.
So that’s how you see five countries in one day. It was too much driving, but we wanted to knock Liechtenstein off the list and also get close to Paris in anticipation of our weekend in the city.
*The first time I came to Europe, with my family, Betsy and I had a layover in Munich. It was a very short layover – possibly 2 hours. Definitely not long enough to leave the airport and go into the city. That said, we exited security, and went out into the plaza in front of the airport so that we could experience “Germany”. It was about 15 minutes of running around and was an absolute blast. Michael says this doesn’t count, but I would never belittle the experience we had there.