EUROPE -- JUNE 2001
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There is a lot of cooperation among drivers.  Many of the roads in the small towns are really one lane going in two directions.  At first I was amazed that people would park half way on the sidewalks, but then it became obvious that there just is nowhere else to park.  It takes patience and ingenuity to make this work.  The wine road takes you through the small towns or you can take the main road by-passing the small towns, which is still only two lanes at times -- a vast difference from the mega, bumper-to-bumper freeways we're used to in Southern California.
WEDNESDAY:   After a lazy morning, our first stop was Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle.  Just like the monastery, it is built high on a hill.  We toured the castle for about an hour.  It's a very interesting and worthwhile tour.  From there we drove to Freiburg in Germany.  It looked a lot closer on the map (which I forgot to throw into my purse that day -- not a good thing as I was the navigator) and it took quite a while for us to get there.  We had some difficulty finding the center of town and found ourselves in the city one moment and in a suburb the next.  The signs there are not as tourist-friendly as on the French side of the border.  We finally found the center and parked in an underground garage.  We had lunch at McDonald's, something I do not do at home -- but it was fast with food we could recognize, and we were able to read the menu!  You can always count on McDonald's overseas for a clean bathroom -- this one was only so-so.  Other than the cathedral (which was as intricate on the outside as any I've seen) was the only interesting site we found in the city. There have been many posts on Fodor's bulletin board about how wonderful Freiburg is -- somehow I get the feeling we missed something.