France

Monday, while Macie, Tessa, and Cael were in school, Melissa, Todd, Gavin, Jemma, and I went into France!  My third country in three days!  We went just across the border to a charming little village called Wissembourg.  I loved it!!!

Our first stop:  the toilette!

Next order of business: Lunch. 

“Nothing says ‘American’ like a big bag of Doritos.” - Todd

 

 Melissa said the shutters are very characteristic of French buildings. I loved them! And took a ton of pictures. J

 

 This church was really cool. It’s the church of Saints Peter and Paul. And I think it must be fairly well-known or historical or something – it shows up on the Wissembourg Wikipedia page.

This building is also on the Wikipedia page, so it must be pretty famous too. It’s apparently really, really old; the roof looks about to collapse!

It was so fascinating to me how the town is made up of all these old, old buildings.  Older than the United States itself!  We turn places that are one or two hundred years old into museums.  They just keep using them.   

As we passed by one particularly intriguing old building, a lady came and opened the gate into a courtyard.  I was intrigued.  She told us how the building was originally an abbey (I think in about the twelfth century), and invited us to come in and see.  “I just leave the door closed because otherwise, we’ll get a bunch of tourists in here.”  She told us we were free to look around, just don’t go into any of the doors to the private apartments.   Then she just went into her own little apartment in an amazing, old, historic French building!  And we got to look around the enchanting courtyard.

Before heading home, we had to stop by patissier for French bread, French croissants, and French éclairs!