Friday, May 22: Colmar & Strasbourg
As per my usual for days I know I’m traveling, my body woke itself up at 7a with no aspirations of returning to sleepdom. So I got all re-packed and fed myself before Anne woke up at 8. We headed for Colmar for the AM before making our way to Strasbourg.
Colmar is the largest ‘stop’ on the Route des Vins, but knowing we’d have to go today, we didn’t end up making it there last night. Anne needed a dossier for her law office from the Appellate Court here, so we took advantage of the opportunity to have breakfast on the terrace outside St Martin’s Cathedral and walk around the shops and windows. It’s a lot like the other villages on the Route des Vins but on steroids: the church was still dilapidated and aging, but most the other buildings have been kept up fairly well or reconstructed.
After a quick stop into the Appeals Court building (which looks more like l’Opera Garnier inside than an appellate court), we were off to Strasbourg with sort of gray skies. We were supposed to meet up with Anne’s boyfriend, Thomas, at the Gare de Strasbourg (he came in from Rennes), but Anne forgot her cell phone at home and we walked around the train station 3 times, waited for 10 additional minutes and never saw him. She finally used a payphone (and luckily remembered the number) and called his cell to find out that he had gone to a friend’s house instead of waiting… K. So with Thomas and his friend, Francois, in tow, we sought out food in town.
It turns out that the last thing you want to do in Strasbourg is drive and/or park a car. The streets are ruled by pedestrians, parking spots are rare, precious things and mostly people who are driving are from out of town and do stupid, stupid things like turn left from the far right lane of traffic. Seriously, after 30 minutes of driving around the same 1 square mile of city, we agreed it was worth a Euro per hour to park in a garage for the day. We were hungry enough that we through the word “traditional” out the window and went for sandwiches and pizza. My pizza had goat cheese and green olives on it though, so I was more than satisfied with the choice.
It was a bit hard to keep up with the conversation between the guys, and so I was very quiet today, leading them to think I was either not having fun or just a snob. Later, at dinner, Francois asked me how much of their convos I was understanding and I explained that I grasped the subject and the general sense, but wasn’t picking up on a lot of the sentences. After that ice was broken (8 hours into the day), I spoke up a lot more often. He had though I was bi-lingual – only proving that if you don’t speak, no one knows you’re ignorance – and assumed I was just bored of the conversation all day. Which, having been mostly about Rennes’ loss to another Breton city in the cup finals of soccer, was not entirely false either. But we managed to all have a great discussion at dinner. (back to that in a sec)
We walked the entire day, checking out the monuments I’ll likely revisit when Thomas and Anne have gone back to Mulhouse and “licking windows”: window shopping here is translated literally as window-licking. Strasbourg is actually quite a bit bigger than I imagined it being. It’s a significant city for France and has a very strong flavor of Germany. Food-wise of course, but also people-wise. The perfect example of both is that the families here are mostly heavy. The children are often obese by French standards and maybe by American standards, too. It’s easier to say no to 14 kinds of local dessert specialties when I look at what the sugar intake does.
The food is a part of it though and I’m happy to try it all, if perhaps more moderately than before. We had aperatifs on a boat bar thing. Basically a café/bar but, ya know, on a boat on the river that runs through Strasbourg. Great view of a smaller cathedral and the bateau-mouches, aka boats-full-o-tourists.
Then we walked around the corner to Les 3 Brassiers where our Routard book got us 10% off the already decent prices. It’s a local brewery serving up regional must-try items. I actually ended up with a salad of some sort that had turkey and goat cheese (twice in one day, I know) and tomatoes and stuff in it. For the first time possibly since coming to France, I didn’t have dessert. *gasp* No worries, I had had 2 chocolate eggs on the ride from Colmar to Strasbourg (which is only 45 min btw).
After dinner, Anne and the guys dropped me and my bags off at the Hotel and headed out. Anne and I promised we’d reconvene soon, maybe even in the States. She and Elodie were such fantastic hostesses! I really am amazingly lucky to have great girlfriends and luckier still that they’re willing to host me for a week each!
I’m at my first hotel of the trip: Hotel des Arts just off the Place in front of the Cathedral. The room is pretty darn small, but the price was good, the location is great and I can shower in a shower that will not get used before or after me all morning. This may not seem like a big deal, but it’s kind of nice to be able to put my crap anywhere I want in the small room.
I’ve got plans to be an early riser (ha) tomorrow to avoid the line to climb the cathedral tower and try the walk from my hotel to the train station to see if I could do it with bags. It really seems silly to take the tram as it couldn’t be more than a mile away, but who knows with cobblestone. Also, I’m now officially at 4 bags: the duffel bag is out and full.
Check out Colmar and Day 1 in Strasbourg pics on Flickr.
Colmar is the largest ‘stop’ on the Route des Vins, but knowing we’d have to go today, we didn’t end up making it there last night. Anne needed a dossier for her law office from the Appellate Court here, so we took advantage of the opportunity to have breakfast on the terrace outside St Martin’s Cathedral and walk around the shops and windows. It’s a lot like the other villages on the Route des Vins but on steroids: the church was still dilapidated and aging, but most the other buildings have been kept up fairly well or reconstructed.
After a quick stop into the Appeals Court building (which looks more like l’Opera Garnier inside than an appellate court), we were off to Strasbourg with sort of gray skies. We were supposed to meet up with Anne’s boyfriend, Thomas, at the Gare de Strasbourg (he came in from Rennes), but Anne forgot her cell phone at home and we walked around the train station 3 times, waited for 10 additional minutes and never saw him. She finally used a payphone (and luckily remembered the number) and called his cell to find out that he had gone to a friend’s house instead of waiting… K. So with Thomas and his friend, Francois, in tow, we sought out food in town.
It turns out that the last thing you want to do in Strasbourg is drive and/or park a car. The streets are ruled by pedestrians, parking spots are rare, precious things and mostly people who are driving are from out of town and do stupid, stupid things like turn left from the far right lane of traffic. Seriously, after 30 minutes of driving around the same 1 square mile of city, we agreed it was worth a Euro per hour to park in a garage for the day. We were hungry enough that we through the word “traditional” out the window and went for sandwiches and pizza. My pizza had goat cheese and green olives on it though, so I was more than satisfied with the choice.
It was a bit hard to keep up with the conversation between the guys, and so I was very quiet today, leading them to think I was either not having fun or just a snob. Later, at dinner, Francois asked me how much of their convos I was understanding and I explained that I grasped the subject and the general sense, but wasn’t picking up on a lot of the sentences. After that ice was broken (8 hours into the day), I spoke up a lot more often. He had though I was bi-lingual – only proving that if you don’t speak, no one knows you’re ignorance – and assumed I was just bored of the conversation all day. Which, having been mostly about Rennes’ loss to another Breton city in the cup finals of soccer, was not entirely false either. But we managed to all have a great discussion at dinner. (back to that in a sec)
We walked the entire day, checking out the monuments I’ll likely revisit when Thomas and Anne have gone back to Mulhouse and “licking windows”: window shopping here is translated literally as window-licking. Strasbourg is actually quite a bit bigger than I imagined it being. It’s a significant city for France and has a very strong flavor of Germany. Food-wise of course, but also people-wise. The perfect example of both is that the families here are mostly heavy. The children are often obese by French standards and maybe by American standards, too. It’s easier to say no to 14 kinds of local dessert specialties when I look at what the sugar intake does.
The food is a part of it though and I’m happy to try it all, if perhaps more moderately than before. We had aperatifs on a boat bar thing. Basically a café/bar but, ya know, on a boat on the river that runs through Strasbourg. Great view of a smaller cathedral and the bateau-mouches, aka boats-full-o-tourists.
Then we walked around the corner to Les 3 Brassiers where our Routard book got us 10% off the already decent prices. It’s a local brewery serving up regional must-try items. I actually ended up with a salad of some sort that had turkey and goat cheese (twice in one day, I know) and tomatoes and stuff in it. For the first time possibly since coming to France, I didn’t have dessert. *gasp* No worries, I had had 2 chocolate eggs on the ride from Colmar to Strasbourg (which is only 45 min btw).
After dinner, Anne and the guys dropped me and my bags off at the Hotel and headed out. Anne and I promised we’d reconvene soon, maybe even in the States. She and Elodie were such fantastic hostesses! I really am amazingly lucky to have great girlfriends and luckier still that they’re willing to host me for a week each!
I’m at my first hotel of the trip: Hotel des Arts just off the Place in front of the Cathedral. The room is pretty darn small, but the price was good, the location is great and I can shower in a shower that will not get used before or after me all morning. This may not seem like a big deal, but it’s kind of nice to be able to put my crap anywhere I want in the small room.
I’ve got plans to be an early riser (ha) tomorrow to avoid the line to climb the cathedral tower and try the walk from my hotel to the train station to see if I could do it with bags. It really seems silly to take the tram as it couldn’t be more than a mile away, but who knows with cobblestone. Also, I’m now officially at 4 bags: the duffel bag is out and full.
Check out Colmar and Day 1 in Strasbourg pics on Flickr.
Labels: Colmar, France, Strasbourg
posted by Jess at 7:49 AM
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