Our weekend

Today, we went to Switzerland.

We hadn't planned on it, but we were so close we decided to head on over (more on that in a minute). The real purpose of the trip was to head to Yvoire, France, a still intact midieval era village. We were very excited to go as this was really our first trip anywhere outside of the Grenoble area since we moved. Luckily, our friend (and tour guide) was willing to go and even offered to drive. The trip there was pretty uneventful except for one thing, French toll roads.

You can use the national roads to get anywhere for free; however, these roads are meant to get from one village to the next, not travel any kind of distance. So, most people opt to spend twice as much versus taking twice as long. How much could it be? Oh, about 30 Euros to drive 2 hours and back. I'm seriously beginning to wonder how people afford to live over here.

The village was great. It sits right on the shore of Lake Leman (probably better known as Lake Geneva). The village also boasts being over 700 years old. I've got a brochure that spells out some of the history of village. It was interesting, but it didn't mention how many years it's been a tourist trap. I'm guessing less than 100 or so, but you never know.

Alright, I'm being cynical. It wasn't that bad. Actually it was quite something. It was full of stores and shops full of hand made potter, crystal, and about anything you could think of. I think I still have a slanted view about how things will be. When I heard "medieval village" I was hoping it extended beyond the buildings. But, alas, there was no blacksmith, jousting, or even stocks (which might have came in handy for Lane :-)). On the bright side they was no plague and no chamber pots being dumped in the streets.

So, we left the village with some pottery and gifts in our hands and fresh perch and ice cream in our bellies.