Laminated Asparagus? Meeting a “Dirty Girl” in France…. A Dead guy in Dijon…. Coolest cars & A day at a Swiss Cottage by Lake Walensee….

At a very French Restaurant called the Cheval Blanc (White Horse) in a quaint town called Vezelay, they had no English Menu… so it was time to utilize our special electronic translator.  It seems that there was “Laminated Asparagus” as part of an entrée!   Thankfully they really were NOT coated in plastic…. (Actually quite delicious as can be seen in one of the pixs.)   There is one photo of an interesting building that contained a history of the evolution of communication basically- First it was used for POST (regular mail), then TELEGRAPHS and finally it was used for TELEPHONES; We visited a winery that was accessed by driving a car DEEP into a mountain.  The limestone from which had been utilized hundreds of years in the past to form buildings in Paris such as Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Arc de Triumph and Pantheon.  Then it had been used as a place to grow mushrooms prior to being used to produce WINE (8 million bottles at a time!)  Down below there, what could be seen to be growing REALLY well was lots of mold and mildew- as is evident on several of the “Dirty Girl” sculptures faces and bodies.  Also pictured is a quaint old town in France, Vezelay (On the worlds UNESCO list.)  Another awesome old town was Autun also shown.  Ilea can be seen rubbing something on the wall outside yet ANOTHER church called Notre Dame (This one in the town of Dijon France.)  What is noteworthy is that she rubbed it immediately we were approached by a dead guy (rolling down the alley way in a hearse!)  In Mulhouse, France, there was an extraordinary Car Museum with many cars as far as you could see stored INDOORS… (one pictured.)   Lastly are some beautiful photos of a trip we took in Switzerland to an incredible old restored lakehouse.  It belongs to the family of Philine- who, for any who did not know, was an exchange student from Germany who lived with us way back in the 90’s in Cortland, NY.  To get to this place from Zurich, one needs to take a tram, two trains and then a boat (no cars can get to it….)  One of the shots shows Philine and her family waving to relatives on shore as we depart by boat for the lakehouse; another shows Ilea & Bill near their vineyards (we enjoyed several bottles of THEIR OWN WINE!); another shows a view of the pathway we had to walk along for 30 minutes to get to their place; and another shows the bunch of a neighbor’s sheep that are permitted to graze on their property.