Getaway to Strasbourg

Wondering how to celebrate YEAR NUMBER 4, and the fact that work calls Lyle to be in Milan on that special anniversary of our fairy-tale wedding day in Central Park, New York, we decided on a weekend to an area of France that we had not visited yet.....the Alsace region on the eastern border with Germany. Since it was too last-minute to rent a car and visit some champagne caves on the way, we took the TGV (fast 180 mph ) train on Saturday morning and arrived in Strasbourg two hours later.....

.....to a rainy and foggy day, which was a bit disappointing since the weather report had said SUNNY. So much for weather reports. After checking into our hotel, we headed out into the rain, buying a huge European Union umbrella as a useful and practical souvenir....

Strasbourg is a mixture of French and German.....the names of the streets are in the two languages. It is halfway between Paris and Prague and is referred to as the crossroads of Europe". It is a mix of old and new.....quaint tudor buildings from the 16th century in the old "Petite France" section are in contrast to newer, modern buildings built to reflect the city as one of the capitals of the European Union with its parliament buildings. A huge university of 40,000 students is there, founded in 1631 with German Lutheran roots. It's the largest university in France.

It reminded me of Brugge, in Belgium, because of the waterway that surrounds the city with it's bridges and boats that give tourists a view of their pretty city. We opted, however, to walk.

At the center of town is a masterpiece of stone sculpture, the Cathedrale Notre Dame. It was started in the 11th century and work continued until 1439. The tower is one of the highest bell-towers in Europe...and we could hear the bells ring every 15 minutes from anywhere in the city. We decided against climbing over 400 steps to the top, and stood in the rain instead to listen to them toll. It wasn't until the following day that we stepped inside after the church services were over to see the inside, along with the famous astronomical clock. Everyday at 12:30 pm crowds gather in front of this old clock, built in the 1500s, to watch a little show of mechanical figures that tell a differnt story of constellation figures travelling through the skies. The explanation was all given in French, and of course, I only caught about 10% of the story.

We picked the Maison Kammerzell for our anniversary dinner. This once was a rich merchant's mansion that has a facade of carved wood dating from the 15th century, right on the square opposite the cathedral. It had a typical Alsatian menu, with good Reisling and Gewurtztraminer wine (one of my favorite white wines).

The rain stopped in the evening and the walk home was magical.

Sunday turned out to be a much sunnier day. Thinking we had until 5:00 before we had to catch the train back to Paris, we thought we might rent a car and head down the "Route des Vins", a pretty road that meanders south of Strasbourg for over 100 miles, going through small villages specializing in the white wines of that region. But, after checking the tickets, I once again mistook the 24-hour clock and bought tickets for 15:00, thinking this was 5:00. Lyle looked at me and had to remind me that the 24-hour clock is NOT based on 10! What was I thinking???? I did NOT want to go back to Paris at 3 pm! So... we hiked over to the train station, changed our tickets and were able to see Strasbourg from the sunny side of the street this time.

My mouth was watering for some good sauerkraut and sausage, and we did find a place on the square with them on the menu.....along with some other interesting items:

Veal kidneys? Deer stew? Ham knuckle with sauerkraut? How about "veals head with French dressing"! Knockwurst seemed a safer bet!

So, we headed back to Paris and watched the countryside speeding by. It would be fun to return again and travel down the wine road to visit some of the vineyards and towns....maybe in the fall during the grape harvest. But then, there is also Burgundy, Bordeaux, etc. etc......