Aviation Tour - Maps on www.bankleft.com

In order to check out Alsace, the area of France boardering Germany, we headed south to Strasbourge. Actually, we flew north, down the Mosel to Koblence and then south, up the Rhine past more castles than I imagined existed on the planet, to Frankfurt then pegged a right and chopped SE over to Strasbourge. 

After the war, the French had to give these guys all kinds of carrots to encourage them to remain French. Property law and title registration is different from elsewhere in France and they have a few extra days holiday a year. Place names are all German and the regional dialect (which they are allowed to speak now, France is a unified polygonal France only because some smart cookie not that long ago banned regional dialects) is pretty close to German. Although it has a feeling that it has seen better days, Strasbourge has an amazing ancient cathedral centre and exhibited many welcome french characteristics immediately (sitting at cafe tables for half of the afternoon with a small drink, no body caring what you do on the road...)