European Vacation

You know those stereotypes about how Europeans take a month off every summer? Well, I don't know if that's entirely true, but I can say that while driving south today, probably every other car and/or camper was from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, or France, all completely packed for what looked like a long haul. By the time I was driving back north to Basel, traffic heading in the opposite direction was bumper-to-bumper. Plus there were signs leaving Basel warning that the backup was 14 kilometres, or about 8 1/2 miles, at the St. Gotthard tunnel (one of the main routes from Switzerland to Italy). The thing is, Basel is probably at least two hours north of the tunnel, so they obviously expect that a fair number of cars heading south through Basel are going that way. (Note to self: don't plan a vacation in Southern Europe during July or August...)