Strasbourg

Vosges Mountains.

It took us about seven hours to get from Clermont-Ferrand to Strasbourg, a city Lisa has wanted to visit since we arrived in France. Strasbourg is in the far east-central part of France, pretty much as far east in France as you can get. It's the capital of the Alsace region, the last new region Lisa and I visited, meaning I made it to sixteen of mainland France's twenty-one regions and Lisa has been to seventeen total - not too shabby! Alsace has been fought over by the French and Germans for hundreds of years and so its culture is a fusion of French and German. In the last twenty years, the city of Strasbourg has attempted to portray itself as a symbol of French/German (and pan-European) cooperation and is the home of the European Union Parliament and the European Court of Human Rights. On the train through Alsace, we passed on the east side of the Vosges Mountains, which (until World War I) formed the border between France and Germany. They were very pretty, covered in trees and the occasional ruined castle.

Strasbourg - a bit of old Germany in France.

Amazingly, the old city (built on an island in the Ill River, just upstream from where it flows into the Rhine on the German border) was not heavily damaged in World War II, despite several bombing raids. So it still maintains the look and feel of a medieval German town with lots of cobblestone streets and half-timbered buildings. It's how I imagined Cologne would have looked if it hadn't been almost entirely destroyed by Allied bombs in the war. It's a very picturesque city. Another thing that struck us about the city was the large number of people riding bikes to get around in the pedestrian-only center of the city. It was probably the most people we'd seen on bikes in one place since our eight hours in Copenhagen back in August!

Strasbourg Cathedral.

The main sight in Strasbourg is the Gothic cathedral. It was built from the 12th to 15th centuries and is today the sixth-tallest church in the world, when you factor in its tower. The outside reminds me a lot of the Cologne Cathedral, with stepped stones that pull your eye upward to the single tower (the second tower was never built). It's built from local red sandstone, making it very different in color from other churches we've seen. On the inside, there are some nice stained glass windows showing different French and German rulers of Strasbourg as well as a window from the 1950s of the Virgin Mary with the EU flag behind her. There's also a huge mechanical astronomical clock with figurines that move every fifteen minutes. We saw a couple move while we were there, but apparently the best show is at 12:30 pm, when figures of the twelve apostles move around the clock.

Astronomical clock.

Mary with the EU flag.

I should also mention that on the walk to the cathedral, we passed a small, outdoor used-book fair. They were selling lots of academic books, probably because Strasbourg is home to the largest university in France. At any rate, Lisa found an Old French book she's been looking for this entire year to help with her research. She was very excited!

Petite-France.

Vegetarian food!

We also walked along the river to the Petite-France area of town, where most of the tanneries were located in the Middle Ages. It's now an area full of those old buildings, a couple of parks, and lots of canals and locks. It was a pleasant walk on a sunny evening and much cooler than in the south of France! We had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant rather than a traditional Alsatian restaurant because Alsatian cuisine is apparently very pork-heavy and it probably would have been difficult for Lisa to find something to eat. The meal was decent although the restaurant had a very American feel to it for some reason.

Strasbourg at night from a boat.

After dinner, we took a boat ride on the Ill River around the city. There were headphones at every seat so you could listen to the guided tour in one of ten languages (including Esperanto!). The whole thing took a little over an hour and while it was dark (we were on the last boat of the night) and hard to see some buildings, we learned a lot about the history of Strasbourg and got to see the EU Parliament buildings and lots of the old medieval buildings along the river. We also got to go through a couple old locks on the river, which was pretty cool. It was probably the most touristy thing we did all year, but it partially makes up for not taking a boat ride in Geneva!

Part of a funerary monument, St. Thomas' Church.

The next morning, we ate breakfast at a tea room and enjoyed some kougelhoph, an Alsatian bundt cake with almonds. We then visited the church of St. Thomas, an old Catholic church that became Lutheran in 1524, making it the oldest Lutheran church in Strasbourg. We got to see an organ played by Mozart during his three-week stay in Strasbourg and by Albert Schweitzer when he taught in Strasbourg in the early 20th century (before he left to found his free hospital in Gabon and before winning the Nobel Peace Prize in the 1950s). There are also a couple cool funerary monuments there, including a massive one from the 1760s in honor of a French Lutheran general and the 12th-century sarcophagus of the bishop who rebuilt the church.

Strasbourg train station.

After that, we got an early lunch to eat on the train. Lisa got a slice of eggplant pizza from a Roman-style pizza place next to the hotel. Again, she was very excited, since she hadn't had eggplant pizza before we went to Rome in November and she loved it. She hadn't been able to find it since we left Rome so she was happy to find it one more time before we left Europe! From there, it was off to the train station (an old 19th-century building encased in modern glass and steel - kind of like a spaceship!) to complete our Circle Tour of France by visiting Brice and Michele in Normandy.

Strasbourg Cathedral.