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….