Prolog

Well now suppose a gang of masked folks rips open your chest and disconnects your heart. I mean, even if they have the best of intentions and reconnect it all later, you might still have to curtail your social schedule for a while, right? That's exactly what happened to me, and as a result I spent the summer recuperating rather than wandering north by northwest with the trailer as Monika and I had originally planned for Wanderung 10. At last my heart and various other pieces seemed to be functioning again and the internist, cardiologist, and other medical folks cleared me for traveling, but by that time it was already fall.

Meanwhile, the Three Sisters (Monika, Helga, and Heinke) had decided to take a cruise together. Since they each invited their spouses to come along at a greatly reduced rate -free- who was I to argue? Heinke and Gustl explored the options for cruising in the Mediterranean Sea, and we settled on a one-week cruise around Italy on the "Astor", a 492 passenger German cruise ship. All of us were to meet the Astor in Venice, and Monika and I ultimately chose Air France for a round trip flight to Paris with an extension to Venice on the way out. Our plan after the cruise was to stay in La Belle France an extra week and drive from Nice up through France to Lausanne, Switzerland, and finally back to Paris to pick up our flight home. So come along with me on Wanderung 10 and see how that dream vacation actually turned out.