September 12-15. These are pictures from and around our condominium in Villars, Switzerland. There is great hiking through the Alps. You can see a fresh dusting of snow that arrive the night before we left. We talked to a couple over dinner one night who raved about the skiing--from village to village, stopping for lunch or snacks with great powder conditions.

The food in the area was great--fondue and raclette. There is a small family-run restuarant tucked back against a large granite mountain (like a minuature Yosemite valley) where Ken has been going for 25 years. Ken, not one to exaggerate, thinks it is one of the best restuarants he has been to, the food rivaling those he has been to from Napa to Paris.

September 13, 2008.

Our first stop on our 10 day road trip was Villars, a small town in the French-speaking Swiss Alps, and the annual wine festival in neighboring Ollons. This was our second time at the festival and we again thoroughly enjoyed it. About 15 small family-run wineries open their vineyards for winetasting accompanied by tasty foods prepared by the families. Several have live music as well. The wineries are generally no more than about a half mile apart, so you can walk from one to the next (or you can hop on constantly circulating free transportation that is part of the festival). Although the weather was cool and wet, the scenery was spectacular. It is hard to capture the vastness and beauty of the vineyards climbing up the sides of the Alps, with charming Swiss homes sprinkled here and there.

Michael and Cary spent a few days at Soucy with us in early September. We took them on a couple of very short, easy bike rides :-). The first photo is outside of Taillefontaine, a pretty little town a few kilometers from Soucy, on our way to Pierrefonds. Sadly, you can see how Michael and Cary faired toward the end of the ride in the second photo. We revived them with a hearty meal in Milton's lovely kitchen, consisting of sausage, potatoes, squash, salad, and of course, a baguette and wine. In the photo at the bottom they are admiring the good smells.

9 Rue du Gadenet

02600 Soucy, France

9-30-08

Before reporting on our travels and adventures of the past several weeks, I thought that I would start with a description of our home away from home. The three pictures above are of Milton's house in Soucy. The first two are of the main house where we are staying. The third picture is of the guest house across the courtyard. The main house has three bedrooms, large kitchen/eating area, living room, dining room and an adjacent family room off the downstairs bedroom where we are staying. The two houses are situated around a common courtyard in front with something approaching an acre of lawn and gardens in the back. The house is located in a very small French village--maybe 30-40 inhibitants and no commercial establishments of any sort--about 60 km northeast of Paris. The area itself is bicycle-riding heaven. You can head in any direction--not just north, south, east or west, but also any variation thereof, and have a fabulous ride. Farms, open fields, forests, little villages--some of the most scenic countryside we have ever seen or ridden in. One of the reasons we have not been updating the blog recently is that when we returned from our trip last week the weather was great so we took advantage of it and rode three to five hours a day for five of the next six days. The weather has now turned; light rain and colder, so we are trying to catch up and will post several items in the next few days.

9-11-08 We spent yesterday walking around Paris, especially Ile de la Cite and Ile de St. Louis. Took the train in the morning, back late afternoon. It was an absolutely beautiful fall day in Paris. Tomorrow we head for Switzerland and Germany for a 10 day trip. During that time we have no access to a computer, so no blogging until we return. Ken

Sept. 10, 2008: Ken and I took a great ride on the bike paths running through the Foret de Compiegne and through the surrounding villages.

Dinner with Milton

On Milton's last night in France, Angela and Milton selected a one star restuarant in the countryside about 45 minutes from Soucy. It ended up rivalling any three star in Paris. When Milton sends his course by course report on the dinner to his friends, we can cut and paste for the details of the dinner. It was fabulous. Ken

Arriving in Paris. Ready to start this phase of our sabattical. More pictures to come.

Checking In

Hi, Everyone.

It is Saturday morning, so we have been here just short of a week. I feel pretty well-settled by now. We have eaten out twice, cooked at home the other nights. We are shopping at the local farmer's markets for most of our dinners - last night was sausage, zuchini and tomotoes, and small potatoes with rosemary from the garden. The surroundings are very beautiful and green. We are off to explore now. Love to all. Angela

Getting Started

It has taken us a few days to get settled in and to organize our daily lives. Not surprisingly to some of you (since you know our computer limitations), it has also taken some time to figure out how to start posting because for some reason the prompts now come up in french and I couldn't figure out at first how to get into the posting section.

We are now finally managing to get settled into some sort of routine. Caveat: I thought that I was over my jetlag, but it's now 3:30am and I'm wide awake. So I figured that it was time to start blogging.

Angela's understanding of french is quite impressive. There is a caretaker lady named Monique that works for Milton supporting the house. Her son also works to support and repair anything that breaks down in addition to regular chores and jobs in the yard. Angela is able to understand most of what they have to say, and while she is better at receiving the information than talking herself, she is able to converse at a basic level. Needless to say, it's a real confidence boost knowing that Angela has the ability to communicate.

So far, the weather is more like late fall. It's been raining for the last two days, off and on, so we've been swimming rather than biking. But we managed to get Angela's old bicycle over here with no problems and I spent half a day while Angela was in Paris with Milton fixing up one of Milton's bikes. So we are ready to ride and have done two short rides so far. The general area--any direction you decide to go--is absolutely great for bike riding. As it gets later into the fall, we may be challenged with what we can do, but we both think that the time we will be spending on our bikes will be great. More soon. Ken