Sunday, May 24: Strasbourg by boat and on foot

I woke up this AM thinking I’d be sure to be the first person in line for the Astrological Clock presentation. It was looking pretty gray and I wasn’t sure a boat tour in the rain would be fun… I meandered around the touristy shops and had my apple and fruit juice breakfast (aren’t you impressed??). At 11:30a, no one was in line yet (the doors open at 11:45), so I walked over and clear as day it says on the sign it’s no open on Sundays or holidays. Boo. So since I’m heading out around noon tomorrow, I won’t get to see it. Oh well, that leaves something to see next time.

Actually, I’ve noticed that Strasbourg really isn’t much more than a day trip and so it’s hard to stretch into a weekend. I grabbed an “early” lunch (noon) of gi-normous bratwurst and sauerkraut and had to get a pretzel just in case the restaurants would all be closed. It’s reeeaaally quiet on Sunday before noon here and often, Sunday is a closed day for restaurants/shops. I also stopped in a local bakery for an assortment of tiny spice cookies (one of the few local specialties I haven’t had yet).

Sat down at the closest shaded public bench to eat and seemed to magically wish away the clouds. At noon – almost exactly – the town woke up. Churches let out and tour guides started and the sun brought out whatever locals may have been tucked away in their apartments. The sun has been strong enough this afternoon to give me a bit more color than I would have asked for, so I’m grateful for the surprise of a sunny afternoon.

I figured sun meant the boat idea was back on. I got my ticket for the 1:30 covered boat. A covered boat means a poor shot at pics, but they’re airconditioned, which turned out to be necessary (and appreciated!). I’d already gotten a lot of pics on foot anyway, so the only one I indulged myself in was of my own reflection as we were waiting in the lift thingy for the water to fill in so we could head up to the higher water level. (more proof I’m actually here and not just googling the pics) The tour lasts about an hour and ten minutes and more than anything pointed out the cool buildings I hadn’t even seen in 2 days of walking around “old” Strasbourg (meaning anything encircled in the cities “4” rivers). So around 2:45 I climbed out of the boat, mapped out a walking route and headed back out by foot.

I stopped by the Palais de Justice and the red clay/brick church next to it (they said the name of the church on the audio guide, but it doesn’t list the church name on my map). Then walked through the shady park areas between that and la Republique and its square. Across the square is the National Library (also library for the nearby University) and Theatre National de Strasbourg, which has a healthy line-up for the year! For contrast, Theater League’s seasons were usually 5 week-long shows (nationals tours). I think the Rep usually has 6-8? They had 14! There are pics of all 5 buildings on Flickr.

Just down the road is a huge palace-looking building that I got a picture of, assuming it’d be important… it’s the regional headquarters for the Post Office. Yeesh, Union Square is nice, but come on… we can’t compete with that. (pics) I crossed over one of the many river-lettes, past St Paul’s church and had to take pics of it again. It just begs to be photographed and this time I was pretty close. (pics)

I walked another 4-5 blocks and was about to turn back, sure I had missed the entrance to the Botanical Garden, when I saw a baby sign and walked towards the entrance. I actually found better shots on the walk in than in the garden itself. It was pretty anticlimactic. Except for the frogs. Eeuuuuw! There is a “pond” there that is so covered in algae it looks like pesto and the frogs are almost as high in concentration. (pics)

I figured that after walking from one corner of Strasbourg to another, I was all set for my touristy quota for the day and am now back in the room where the bugs can’t bite me (yeesh) and planning on knocking out some chapters of The Book Of Love. If I read diligently, I may even be able to get it done in the next 2 days. I wasn’t planning on it before, but now I think I may make a day trip to Chartres (about an hour by train outside Paris) this next week, just to see the relics/symbolism mentioned in the book.

Tonight may be my last ‘traditional’ food item: tarte flammee (Flamm Kusch in the local language). Basically pizza toppings with no red sauce baked on a cracker crust instead of pizza dough. I figured after a whole pretzel and some spice cookies, I could lay off the thick bread foods for tonight.

Oh, but on the topic, last night I had Poulet au Riesling (alsacian) with Spaetzle (alsacian). The chicken was good; sauce was sort of a creamy mushroom sauce. Spaetzle and I aren’t really gonna be best friends. It was kinda shoestring potatoes meets spaghetti? Meh. But dessert was chocolate mousse and whoa. I seriously thought I’d met my match, gang. First off, it was the size of a bowl of cereal. Perfectly rich – not too sugary sweet but deeply intense dark chocolate flavor. The texture was something between really good fudge and chocolate frozen yogurt: velvety but dense. It took me 20 minutes and the better part of a pitcher of water, but I enjoyed every last bite of that mousse… *small bow*

Tomorrow I head back to Paris on a midday train and check into a darling hotel in the Marais district with free WiFi downstairs (score!).

Pics of Strasbourg by boat & foot on day 3 on Flickr.

Saturday, May 23: Strasbourg Cathedral

I actually did get up in time to avoid lines at the Cathedral. I even snuck into the Creperie in the Place de la Cathedrale for a very exciting breakfast find: they have galettes (the buckwheat, savory crepes) here! So I had one of those and then a regular crepe with strawberry jam inside. Gotta get some energy before walking up to the top of the church spires!

I got my Strasbourg Pass from the Tourist Info Center and headed up 330+ stairs to the viewing deck of the Cathedrale de Notre Dame. (lots of pics, including one of my head) I took a few shots from the streets as well: it's notorious for only having the one spire temple thing at the top (2 were originally planned, but budget left them with one).

I made the walk from the hotel to the train station to see if it'd be a pain to walk with my bags on Monday. It's mostly flat, so it would be ok... if it weren't for the multitude of people I'd have to navigate around! I'm gonna go ahead with a tram ticket this go around. I hurried back to the cathedral for the astrological clock film & presentation at noon and the line to get in was around the side of the church (it's not a small church). So I think I'll do that tomorrow...

The weather is really being good to me again today, so I walked from corner to corner of Strasbourg's center of town, including stopping back through "little France" (la Petite France) and the covered bridges down on that side of the city (pics).

Since I was over there, I decided to use my museum pass to get into the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art for free. I was about halfway through the first special exhibit when I remembered I really hate modern art. I was fully creeped out by the first exposition, so I tried another one that was supposed to be on color. Turned out to be on yellow. Wow. I'm glad there are those who can appreciate it, but I scooted out. Side story: I tried to get out one of the doors midway through the 2nd exposition and ended up in a fire escape type hallway, thinking I'd gotten locked in when the door shut behind me and that my only way out would be through the door that would set off the alarm... turns out I just needed to pull on the door back to the exhibit rather than push. Genius.

Stopped at Galleries LayFayette for fruit and water and a yogurt drink thing, since my breakfast was hardly digested 3 hours later. I went with a light lunch. I actually found a juice bar (in Alsace? Seriously!) and grabbed some much-needed fruit intake there, too. Now, just so you don't think I'm suddenly changing my ways, I did this for lunch because I knew today would be treat-myself-to-ice-cream-day. Everyone here has ice cream... like, all the time. I found myself in front of an artisinal bakery that served "house-made" ice cream and ordered the "Sesame" flavor. Actually, no quotes needed... it actually had toasted sesame seeds in it, along with shaved chocolate pieces. It was scrumptous and different, so I'm glad I tried it!

I headed back to the hotel to grab the laptop and try to find a WiFi spot closeby. When I asked the front desk attendant where she recommended I go, she actually told me they have free internet at the hotel! Ahhh (the sound of a choir singing)! So I'm finally getting around to some blog posting.

Tonight: some Rick Steves suggested dining and maybe a boat tour (unless it's crazy busy and then I'll save boating for tomorrow).

Pics of Day 2 in Strasbourg on Flickr

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.