Excerpts from a Travelogue - Part I

Europe - Fall 2025

Prologue

Twenty years since we last stepped foot on European soil; twenty-four years since we moved back to North America from Romania where we lived for over 5 years. Where we, as a young couple, stumbled along in a work and culture we barely understood. Where we adopted two children and began that beautiful, yet bitter-sweet, journey. Another lifetime it seems. Now, in early fall 2025, the time had finally come to return. What would we find? How would we feel?  Would it be traumatic or healing?   

Our fellow passengers on this trip were our daughter, Emese, and Mike and Sharla Koehn, also former missionaries to Romania. They made for excellent and erudite companions on this adventure. Thanks to Mikes for teaching us the art of the leisurely breakfast and to Emese for assistance in avoiding McDonald's at all costs. These are skills we will no doubt use the rest of our lives.

Here-in, over the next week or so I will post a 6-part series of excerpts from our European adventure. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the 4200-mile journey through 11 countries.

Part I - Indiana, Illinois, Iceland, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein

We started out in Paris and in 24 hours we were done. Finished. We'd seen Notre Dame, rode to the top of the Eiffel Tower, crossed the Seine and seen Paree in the rain. Not just any rain but a drenching downpour in which an umbrella offered only partial protection and tiny bits of exquisite French soil neatly splattered our traveling shoes and lower bottoms of our attire. The romance of it all was overwhelming. Newlyweds stood on tiptoes under their colorful umbrellas and kissed, oblivious to puddles forming around their shoes, oblivious to the mud décor now gracing the hems of wedding gowns and suit pants. We huddled under awnings in Luxembourg Gardens, wet, but entranced by loveliness as can only be observed through the prisms of rain drops catching a late afternoon sun.  

In those 24 hours we tasted beef bourguignon, fell in love with flaky French chocolate croissants and roamed a local Friday outdoor market testing and tasting truffles, trifles, and tarts like excited school children on a fairy field trip. We traipsed our luggage over rough cobblestone to our unassuming hotel in the lowkey 15^th Arrondissement, rode the metro over a couple of hours, and then slept the sleep of the jetlagged ones.  

Eiffel Tower in the Rain

The next morning, less than 24 hours after arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport, we departed the City of Lights saying adieu and merci be coup and nous pourrions revenir un jour. Rain gone, enter the sunshine and the wide-open road southbound.  

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A four-hour drive south southwest found us in the martyr village of Oradour-sur-Glane. This village just happened to be on the route of the Nazi 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer tank division bound for Normandy towards the end of World War II. An innocent village that suffered a fate that defies imagination: revenge at the hands of SS Commander Adolf Diekmann for a mere rumor that a Nazi officer had been captured and killed by the French resistance. (Wikipedia has an in-depth article on this for those that are interested).

This stop was a sharp and somber sliver of sobriety in an otherwise bright day of intermittent sunshine and cloud. We walked the burned-out town, reading the plaques, sadly marveling at the horror of it all. The rusting sewing machines remain to remind us... The stitch in time between every day ordinary life - morning coffee, a haircut, a new dress, a visit to the mechanic - and the sudden sounds and electric pulse of a powerful Nazi Panzer division intent on revenge; the gentle sounds of village life soaked in sunshine one moment, the staccato sound of machine gun fire the next, followed by the gardens, the church, and the bakery soaked in blood.  

Oradour-sur-Glane - The Mechanic Shop

Oradour-sur-Glane - One of the many sewing machines

The village is a cross between Pompeii and Auschwitz. It was left as it was found that fateful day of smoke and terror. As alluded to, you will notice the many sewing machines, standing in their places, walls fallen down around them. They are stark black, barely rusting reminders of another life, a simpler time in many ways. The dentist’s car is left as it was that morning, now a rusty heap but unmistakable for a Peugeot vintage 1930’s. The child’s pram is left at the altar of the local church where mothers and children gathered in terror, all of which were killed except for two that leapt from a 2^nd story window.  

The village was left as is by the orders of Charles de Gaulle for the ponderings of future generations. Never forget.  

Oradour-sur-Glane - The child's pram

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The drive east to Chamonix via the French town of Montlucon is one with views of rolling hills, chateaux, castles, and farms, with the occasional medieval village and town scattered across a patchwork puzzle. Montlucon, where we stopped for night, was one of numerous stops of serendipity, where we discovered an “unmarked” gem rich in classic medieval architecture, with many homes and structures dating back to the 11th century. The early Sunday morning run I will not forget—a town fast asleep, sun coming up and bathing old world flower-strewn streets in gold; only a few early morning garbage collectors and street sweepers up and at it. Oh, and the smells wafting from the nearby bakery, croissants and coffee calling our names already and we’re barely awake.  

Montlucon

Montlucon

Chamonix has been on the bucket list for many years. This iconic French town is home to the world-famous ultra-race, the Tour Du Mont Blanc, that takes runners 106 miles around the base of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe and at the center of three countries: Switzerland, Italy, and France. It so turned out that the race took place the weekend we were there.  

The day was a rare sort of beautiful for this part of the country. They say you’ll be extremely lucky if you get to see Mont Blanc, as it is usually covered in clouds. We got extremely lucky. We had a lot of low hanging clouds and rain on both sides of Chamonix, before and after, but this particular day was stunning. Blue skies that made your eyes and heart ache. Mont Blanc in all its snowcapped jagged-edged glamour.  

Mont Blanc

And Chamonix was humming. The last of the ultra-runners were coming into the finish line after running for 30+ hours. It was quite a feeling for us all to stand there in the crowd, watching a weary, mud-splattered racer come jogging or limping around the corner and into the short and final straightaway. (This particular year the race was unusually difficult as runners were faced with chilling cold, snow at altitude, and hours of rain).

Races like this always make me cry and this was no different. We all stood there with wet eyes – there is just something about it: likely all the spiritual parallels we think about as we see a weary man or woman round the corner, almost home, finished physically, emotionally, and mentally. And yet, through the utter fatigue and mud stain, they have this joyous look on their faces. Almost home!

For the final 20- or 30-meters family members would often jump the barrier and run the final stretch with them, arms in the air, fist pumping in celebration, their joy palpable. The noise from the cheering crowd was deafening; there was no difference, support group or none at all, everyone was cheered home. The announcer called the name of the runner, the music swelled and echoed through the narrow streets of this charming town, and they finally crossed the finish line. Their race was run; they completed the course. I weep now, just writing about it.  

Chamonix

We walked the streets, enjoyed gelato, (we were within a stone’s throw of Italy, so this is allowable) and hiked part of the Tour du Mont Blanc, marveling at the technical trail parts that are one thing to walk, another to run. We took the gondola to the top of Aiguille du Midi, a ride not suited to those with fear of heights. In other words, not suited for me. But we did it. With no regrets. The views were beyond incredible, the vastness of the French Alps, and still above us, across the valley, the imposing massif of Mont Blanc.  

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Our route then detoured slightly to Lauterbrunnen, in the Interlaken region of Switzerland. We had visited this area before, back in 1999, with only good memories; Swiss villages nestled in the heart of a deep valley, looking up at the neck-straining vista of the snow-covered, glacier-bedecked peaks of the Eiger, Monch, and the Jungfrau.  

Lauterbrunnen

Our expedition this time was met by low cloud and rain, necessitating slickers and umbrellas. The clouds teased us mercilessly, giving us little glimpses here and there of deep green ascents and sheer granite walls, villages tucked way up into high valley crags, waterfalls like white threads falling hundreds of meters into rushing streams or simply vaporizing into the mist. Still lovely, still beyond beautiful, just wet.  

We hiked the Tremmelbach Falls experience, which is, indeed, an experience. A powerful hydraulic coming down from an unseen glacier thousands of feet above, spiraling down inside a cave. Engineers have constructed a series of stairs, ladders, and tunnel areas with windows carved out looking into the waterfall, roaring within feet of us. This was one of the highlights of the trip for most of us, I think.  

Lauterbrunnen

Lauterbrunnen Valley

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On to Bern, Switzerland for night. The rain continued to fall, wet streets, melancholy mood, supper under the awning of an outdoor porch at Hotel Sternen Muri.  

Part II coming soon...