Today we took a two hour drive south-east to Strasbourg, France. This is the city where Charel went to school for his first major, so he knows the town quite well. The landscape of France is different than Luxembourg and Germany (the part I was in anyway) in that it is a lot more open and spread out, much like Iowa. The towns weren't as close together and I saw lots of fields, even a place where they grow hops (the stuff they use to make beer, for the off-chance someone doesn't know).
Strasbourg is a very bike friendly city. There were hundreds of bikes everywhere you looked, people riding everywhere. Bikes were parked everywhere you could possibly park a bike; along railings, up against trees, even against buildings. There are even bike roads, not just the few trails we have in Cedar Falls. Strasbourg is very flat, so it is easy to ride everywhere. I wanted to get a bike and join them very badly. Maybe in the summer I will have a chance.
There were also lots of trams going throughout the city, and this was the mode of transportation we used the most. It cost 4€ apiece for a 24 hour ticket, and while we didn't need one for quite that long, it was the only other option besides 1.50€ for an hour. We started at the end of the city where we parked the car, and made our way towards the middle of town. I had to start getting used to being surrounded by yet another new language: French. Of course, I still could not understand a word of it, but the sounds are very different from Luxembourgish and German.
We stopped to eat at a restaurant in the central city square. This time, the menu didn't have English at all, so Charel was forced to translate. A lot of things involving liver didn't sound appetizing today (maybe some other time) and most of the things had mushrooms or onions in them. Being a picky eater has its downfalls. We both ended up ordering the
flammekueche, a regional dish. He ordered his "traditional" and I ordered mine with munster cheese (munster being one of 4 words I recognized on the menu). We received it on a wooden board, which it had been cooked on. It resembled a rectangular pizza, but only a little. It did have onions on it too (which I didn't know of) but I managed to work around that. It was very good.
Our next stop was the Strasbourg Cathedral, a huge Gothic cathedral. I wish the pictures that I took really captured the sheer size of the thing. In fact, it was the tallest building in the world for over 200 years. On approach, I could see that the design was very intricate. You could probably stare at this thing for hours and not get bored, but it was cold, so we decided to go inside.
The stained-glass windows, to me, were the first striking thing I saw. Of course, I've seen church windows before, but none this big, and not nearly this intricate. The rest of the interior was impressive, too. There was an organ above us, lots of statues (I'm not familiar with Catholic saints so I can't tell you who), and a huge, vaulting ceiling. The paintings were in better shape than I expected (as they had been restored), and of a level of detail that is quite mind-blowing. I know I bring up the detail a lot, but as an artist, I know the time, effort, and talent that went into making such beautiful art.
The final piece that we saw was a giant clock. This too, was quite intricate, but I imagine that I missed out on the most elaborate part of it since we were not there at the top of the hour. I did manage to capture what is quite possibly my favorite picture of the trip so far; a photo of the lower clock on the tower.
After the cathedral, we went around town quite a bit, back and forth to see parts of the town. I didn't get too many pictures at this point, as I was incredibly cold. It wasn't nearly as cold as the day we went to the castle, but somehow, it managed to affect me just as much. I would probably enjoy it much more in the summer. We ended up heading back towards the university, but we didn't end up spending much time there.
Our next stop was the train and tram station, a large building (apparently new) that sat in the middle of town. We walked up to see the bullet train (one similar to what I will be taking next week) and then went down a series of escalators (5 or so, maybe) to hop on the underground tram.
Our last stop was at a bakery to buy a type of cake known as Gugelhupf, another regional specialty. We haven't had it yet so I don't know how it tastes, but it looks pretty good. The rest of the shop was an array of color, but not all of which I'm sure I would try to eat. Although, there were some chocolates that looked pretty tasty (but they were also very expensive). Charel bought me an éclair, a pastry with an almost pudding-like filling and frosting on top. White chocolate was the flavor for this particular one. I tried it when we got home, it was quite amazing.
We then took the tram back to the car, and then proceeded to drive back to Luxembourg. We stopped to get food on the way at a place called flunch, which seems to stand for "french lunch" to me, but maybe not. I wasn't entirely happy with this particular place. First of all, it was extremely expensive, but I was informed that that is normal for a place off of the side of the highway. Second, the food was good, but something was a bit off. I had ordered something called a Kentucky BBQ, which was chicken, but it did not remind me of anything resembling Kentucky. It was a hash-brown patty topped with lettuce and BBQ sauce, and then a fried chicken breast. The fries on the side were the most Kentucky part of the whole thing. Charel's creation, named something like an American fold, which was supposed to resemble a hamburger in some form or another. There was a beef patty inside, and what tasted like thousand island dressing, but that's where the resemblance stopped. It also tasted quite good, but not anything I would call "American". I suppose it is about the same as giving "Mexican" food from the US to a person living in Mexico. I did not get any pictures of that, so enjoy a random one from earlier in the day.
Full album link here: Day 11
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