
Whoa, I've been busy... On the 25th of June my parents and I started a fairly long journey towards France to visit my uncle who lives there. 2 weeks in a car with my parents. That should be enough to drive me crazy. I'll leave it up to you to judge if it did. I hope you like my pictures, by the way. For full enjoyment, set your screen to 800x600.
Most of the time we drove all day and checked in at a hotel late in the evening. Need I say that wasn't exactly exciting. I did get to see a lot of Germany, though, and I was surprised to see many things I thought were more particularly French or something else. I hadn't been to Germany before this and I was kind of worried as I don't speak any German at all. But we only went to bakeries anyway and my parents were always there so it wasn't much of a problem.
It was fun for me to see what Germany actually looked like:

On our way through France we drove through Luxembourg. One more country added to my list. Luxembourg was very beautiful and I was sad we didn't have time to stay there for the night. But then again, I hear that it's expensive to stay at hotels in Luxembourg and from what we saw it was extremely over-crowded with tourists so maybe I didn't miss out on a lot. We couldn't even find a place to park so my dad had to drop off my mom and I while we were taking pictures.
From what I saw, Luxembourg was pretty:

We did have time to stop on our way, however, and we bought some delicious cherries from a local store in Polyvalente, France. It was right across from a funny old church but to be honest we stopped for the cherries and then noticed the church...
A cherry tree in the foreground... ah... yummy!

When I think about it, most of the things I can remember come from seeing the pictures so I am sure I have forgotten all the interesting little details I had meant to tell you all about. But you probably wouldn't care anyway! In France you can find many hidden treasures like this 'château' in Vianden, France. Actually, I'm not sure we were allowed to enter the park because it was after closing hours but the gardener had left the gate open so we strolled around a bit. It was quite impressive but it needed to be cleaned up a bit. Still, it was indeed worth a visit.
Typical French castle:

Finally we got to Grenoble, France. That's where my uncle lives and we stayed with him for a week. I've been there two years ago and I liked it very much so I was happy to return. The city is very old but has been restored and kept well so it is still beautiful. The building my uncle lives in is from the 18th century but it looks almost new! Just across the river you find an Italian quarter where they serve excellent pizza. We took advantage of that a couple of evenings... (I like pizza!) The last night we took the cablecar to the top of the mountain and had dinner at a nice restaurant on the mountain. It had a splendid view of Grenoble.
Okay, I admit this is a postcard, but...:

While we were in Grenoble there was also a theatre festival so a couple of nights we saw people performing in the streets. Some were really good! Among others, we saw a play with 3 people in an RV who - without saying a word the entire time - had everybody laughing so hard we could barely stand up straight! One of the evenings we paid to se another play/show called "Glub-Glub", I think they were an Italian group. They were okay but not as good as the others. The same evening as we saw the play with the RV we went to a cafe and suddenly we realised a performance was taking place right above us! They elevated 6 drummers and a girl on a trapeze hanging in a mobile and they played for about half an hour. That was so neat! My dad missed it because he was sitting at home in front of the TV watching sports... *lol*
I guess everybody wanted to see the caves of Choranche:

Twice we went to see caves of stalactites. One, in Sassenage, was really narrow but pretty interesting and had thick stalactites and the other, in Choranche, (shown below) was wide and had very thin and fragile stalactites. They were totally different so I'm glad I saw them both.
Grottes de Choranche:

Like we also did 2 years ago, we took another cablecar up the mountain LaMeije to an altitude of 3200m (about 7900feet). There was plenty of snow at the top. Some of you might know, but I'm pretty obsessed with snow. I guess it's because we don't always get very much here in Denmark. :-)
Cute cable cars:

Anyway, I threw a few snowballs at my parents and my uncle but it just isn't the same... In a glacier they had made ice scuptures that you could pay to see. My experience last time said that it was definitely worth it so we saw it again. They have to make new ones every year so none were the same.
The only flowers that grow on LaMeije:
Air-conditioned chair?!

These houses are the kind of tourist attraction you go to, see once, take a picture, show your friends but never return to. They were neat but now I've seen them and of course I found it interesting how they were hanging over the edge of the cliff but there is a limit to how long you can stare at them! I don't like places that are over-crowded with tourists even though I am one myself. It gets too stylish, too nice, and you loose touch of what it actually used to be. I wonder what the people who live in those houses think about all the tourists. But I guess they knew when they moved in there! Oh well, it was neat, wasn't it? *smile*
Which houses do you prefer? These:
or these?

All in all, I had a nice time in France. It did get kind of lonely because I didn't have anybody to talk to besides my family and I thought of you, my friends. I was glad to be back on the net.
:-)