Lovely overnight stay with Martine! We communicated using Google Translate. She had an accident when she was nine that affected her hearing and making it difficult for her to learn the sounds of a new language. She did everything she could to make our stay a happy one.
She got quite excited when she realised we were going to go to Strasbourg and got her phone to show us a website about Chateau Koenigsburg, indicating that it was a place we should visit.

Gerardmer ( in the Vosges Mountains)
In the morning we headed to Gerardmer. It was a drizzly day and we weren't excited about walking around in the rain, so contacted Stephen, our next host to ask if we could come earlier. We were sitting in a Scottish restaurant, for coffee and wifi. We were delighted to find that we could. We drove through much the same kind of countryside until we got to the Vosges.
Windy roads lined with pine and beech (we found out later) trees. The contrast of colours was very attractive, even in the rain. The lake at Gerardmer was quite large and we were surprised to see kayakers out on the lake doing some practice!
We did find our way to the house with a bit of searching. All of the houses around were, you guessed it, mountain chalets. The place we were to stay at was different in that it had some large windows.
Stephen showed us our room and later took us to a local meeting where we could get some food for dinner - tuna puffs with a spicy tomato and onion sauce. Very tasty! We spent a while there listening to the band play traditional folk music and watching some adventurous souls dance.