Not having had the time to look at Strasbourg the previous night, we got up just before 7 so as to join a group walking round the city at 7.30am before breakfast.
It really is a very attractive city, completely encircled by a river, and there are any number of decorative bridges over it.
Our hotel was just to the north of the river which encircles the city,so we crossed the river and walked along the side of it. This photo was taken at the start of our walk. If this doesn't post too small, you may notice a small blue blob on the opposite side of the river from where I'm standing. This was a shelter over a homeless person - probably quite a pleasant place to sleep in this hot weather, but I dread to think what it might be like in winter.
We walked into the old part of the city, called Petit France, where they were many interesting old timbered buildings.
After strolling for a while, we noticed a marché aux puces being set up, so we couldn't resist having a quick walk through that.
As you can see, there was quite a collection of different things, and Paul had to be prevented from acquiring a great many objects to bring home.
We stayed rather longer in the flea market than we had intended, so we needed to make our way back towards the hotel for the 8.30 breakfast, but it was hard to resist stopping to photograph the many picturesque timbered buildings.
This was called Rue des Cordonniers - shoemakers. You might be able to see the medieval looking shoes on the banner if this hasn't posted too small.
After breakfast, we were off to the station for the day of three trains. The first train took us to Basel, where we walked from France into Switzerland - the border runs through the station. This was the most interesting part of this first train journey, which was through a rather flat area of arable farms - maize, mainly.
We had a short while to wait in Basel station, then we caught a train for Milan. This was a far more interesting journey scenically, as we progressed through the mountains and alongside lakes.
The snowy peaks in the far distance wouldn't appear on the photographs, they were too faint, but the lower mountains were quite interesting shapes.
It's difficult taking photos from a moving train; half the time you are on the wrong side of the train for the good view, the windows are dirty and full of reflections, and trees and buildings and lampposts jump into the photo just after you have pressed the button to take it. But this one does at least show the mountains.
We passed down the side of two lakes. This one is is near the town of Thun, and is called Lake Thun or Thunersee in German.
It's obviously a nice holiday area, though I had never heard of it. My photos of Lake Maggiore, which we passed before we reached Milan, weren't nearly as good as this one, in spite of Lake Maggiore being so much bigger.
We passed through a lot of typical Swiss scenery, like the view below.
The third train of the day took us from Milan to Rome. There are no photos because the sun was so low in the sky it was impossible to take photos. Also, the line had so many tunnels that, by the time I noticed a nice view, we had dived into another tunnel and there was no prospect of a photo.
The train was half an hour late into Rome, which made dinner very late indeed. We didn't reach the restaurant until 10 past 9, and dinner wasn't over until 11!
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