Strasbourg, Days 3 and 3.5 (Grande Île) Sunday, Jan 31 2010

I had one more full day in Strasbourg at this point and decided to stick closer to the city centre, which is a UNESCO Heritage site.

Strasbourg, like most other French cities, has a lovely and impressive cathedral. This one happens to be rather Gothic, and according to Wikipedia, was the tallest building in the world at one time!

Inside Notre-Dame de Strasbourg

Inside there’s a rather intricate astronomical clock.

Takes a ticking and keeps on ticking... wait, that's something else

Outside the cathedral is one of Strasbourg’s biggest Christmas markets. I found this little village at the foot of a giant Christmas tree in the center of the square. The Christmas market sells all the usual suspects (vin chaud, Christmas decorations, pain d’épices) along with some Alsatian specialties: bredle (the ones I bought were like cinnamonny gingerbread) and bretzel.

An adorable little village of light!

That basically wrapped up my séjour in Strasbourg, although I had to take a picture of this outside the train station before I left the following morning:

Typically Alsatian? Storks and Christmas markets

Storks are to Alsace as orcas are to BC. My roommate told me that they are known to build nests on chimneys… unfortunately, I only saw these plastic ones.

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Strasbourg, Day 2 (European District) Saturday, Jan 30 2010

Okay, so after about two hours I’d had enough of the little German town and headed over the river back to France. Strasbourg is also home to a number of European institutions, so I headed over to have a look.

European Parliament

The title of this is either “Europe has heart” or “Europe at heart”; I can’t remember if there’s an accent over the “a” or not.

I take a lot of pictures of sculptures

What was a little annoying is that I discovered that it wasn’t actually possible to visit European Parliament when I was there. They take groups, it seems, but individual visitors are only allowed at certain times… as a result I walked around the edge of the building and ended up taking random photos instead.

Random ball thing in the pseudo-courtyeard

Same thing for the European Court of Human Rights. The architecture of this is supposed to evoke a boat pulling up to the riverbank, which isn’t obvious from this picture. There was a relatively high-profile case going on around this time; some Irish women were charging that Ireland’s law against abortion deprived them of certain rights.

Yeah, can't get in here either

The last building I visited here was the Council of Europe. By this time I figured it’d be a good idea to take a picture of myself somewhere… so I found a post and (after multiple attempts) managed to take this one. It came with a price though…. as I was picking up my camera from the lantern-thingy I’d put it on, I knocked it to the ground instead. RIP Nikon Coolpix.

I don't know if this photo was really worth it in the end

The rest of my day was spent trying to find a FNAC to replace it. Luckily (or not; I am really starting to hate this camera), they had the same model in stock.

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Strasbourg, Day 2 Saturday, Jan 9 2010

Before I left I asked one of my co-workers (a graduate of the university in Strasbourg) what there was to see and do. He rattled off a few things, but what caught my attention was:
“Oh, and I suppose you could take the bridge into Germany.”
“Wait, whoa, it’s that close?”
“Yeah, I think there’s a bus that’ll drop you off pretty close…. or maybe the tram.”
“Huh.”
“The town’s called Kehl, I suppose you could run errands there….”
“Do they speak French or German?”
“German, but they understand French pretty well.”

Anyway, so my first real day in Strasbourg started off with a long bus ride to the Jardin des Deux Rives (“Two Shores Garden”). There’s a pedestrian/cyclist bridge here which leads over the Rhine and into Germany!

Two countries, one bridge

That was the easiest international crossing I’ve ever done.

Anyway, onto Germany:

No, seriously, I was in Germany

The French caption below the street sign reads:
“Nibelungen, dwarves of the Nibelungen legend, owners of treasure”
I can only assume something’s been lost in translation….

Kehl is pretty unremarkable; it’s a small town. I walked up and down the main shopping area, bought a few things, understood about 2% of what was said to me (“hallo”, “danke schön”, and “tschüss”), and somehow managed to buy an apple pastry. I have no idea how people travel in countries where they don’t speak the language at all.

Das Rathaus

I’ve always found the German word for “town hall” amusing, because my limited knowledge of German means I default to English, where this would clearly mean “rat house.” That might not be inaccurate for some councillors, I suppose….

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Strasbourg, Day 1 Friday, Jan 8 2010

So my Christmas vacation started off with a couple of days in Strasbourg: a French city on the German border in the region of Alsace. Because of this proximity with Germany (and for historical reasons) there’s a heavy German influence here.

That weekend, a cold snap hit France: it was snowing in Lyon, and the forecast for Strasbourg wasn’t much better: – 12C. Luckily, as soon as I got out of the station, I saw what I’d come to see:

Christmas markets!!

The Christmas markets in Strasbourg are supposed to be among the best in the country. What makes them absolutely lovely for a weary traveller is the copious amounts of mulled wine which can be had. No, seriously, it warms you up. At some point I also decided that I’d lived long enough in this country without eating snails and so took a tentative first step with a baguette au beurre d’escargot. It just kind of tasted like garlic bread. (Hey, wait, according to wordreference.com there are no snails in beurre d’escargot! (“garlic and parsley butter”?) I’ve been had!)

So pretty!

Strasbourg is pretty in the snow. Seeing half-timbered houses in winter just brought an inexplicable smile to my face. They’re adorable, okay?

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