If it's Tuesday, it must be Italy!

As you might have guessed, I have had no internet connections for the last week...and a lot has happened in that time..I can only give the summary version now and will post pictures and descriptions when I return home...I met up with my friends at the Strasbourg train station on Friday afternoon..we walked around Strasbourg, looking at the magnificent cathedral. I had seen it from the train when I traveled from Brussels to Zurich five days earlier and noted the incredible architecture as we sped by. It was stunning to see it close up! Strasbourg is in the heart of the Alsace region of France - where my mother's family was from (I remember her mentioning the Alsace Lorain area as being her roots, but I knew little about it). Well, as soon as we sat down to dinner at an Alsace restaurant, I felt like I had come home. The cooking - especially the sauerkraut and stew-like dish reminded me so much of some of my childhood meals; the decorations and kitsch in the homes and restaurants also was very familiar. It was pretty cool to get a sense of some of my roots. That evening we stayed high atop the mountains at a monastery - Mont St. Odile...an amazing place! Saturday we drove into Germany to Frieburg and wandered around the market and went into the Cathedral and saw some beautiful stained glass windows. We went back into France and continued our tour of the Alsace area stopping in Eguisheim - a lovely, quaint French village with lots of flowers and brightly colored painted houses. Sunday we went back into the mountains in Germany - driving up and down through the Black Forest area, stopping briefly at the Black Forest Academy to see the school that some of our students at Wheaton have studied at. We made our way to Zurich and walked around the old city, stopping to see the Marc Chagall windows in the Frauminster church, my second time to do so and saw a few other places. We made our way to Cham, a ways south of Zurich where we stayed that night...it was difficult to find places to stay right around Zurich because of Euro2008 - the football competition, as Switzerland and Austria are co-hosts this year and many, many people were in town for the games! Monday, we drove south through Switzerland over the mountains, the tops of which were mostly covered because of the clouds and later the rains. It continued to rain as we made our way into Italy, but stopped by the time we drove through Milan. We stopped in Pisa to see the leaning tower (the weather was perfect by that time) and the stunning church and old city. We stayed in a farmhouse the small town of Vinci - where Leonardo was born! We went to Cinque Terra on Tuesday - more on that when I have pictures; we went to Florence yesterday and saw Michaelangelo's David - which was incredibly stunning in person. Tonight we are in Mestra - which is just outside of Venice where we will be tomorrow! That is the short version, but all I have time for right now. It has been an amazing week!