Strasbourg!!

A Strasbourg Quai
Cathedrale de Notre-Dame
Sarah and I on our boat tour


For the Valentines Day weekend Sarah and I took the train to Strasbourg. It was nice to get away from Paris and see something different. Before I left Anne told me that it's really cold in Eastern France and advised me to bring this massive coat that she leant me a while ago but that I only wear on the rarest occasions. I feel like a New Yorker in a not good way when I wear this coat. It's pretty much like a sleeping bag. But I was at least happy to be warm.

We left early Saturday morning and took the train out. Lately it's been snowing fairly often in Paris but as we were leaving the city we saw that there was a light snow all the way. Fortunately Strasbourg is well suited to snow and there was lots of vin chaud to be had(pretty much mulled wine--incredibly tasty but not so good if you haven't had anything to eat). We dropped our bags at our hostel and went wandering around the cobble stone streets that were absolutely adorable. It was cold but we ducked into churches, museums, patisseries and souvenir shops to warm up.

Strasbourg is right next to the German border and is in the northern part of the French region Alsace. Alsace has hopped across the border a few times and I think was last in Germanys possession(except for a few years during WWII) before WWI. There is a dialect of German called Alsatian that is spoken there but everyone we spoke to also spoke French if only a little. Strasbourg is small and academic and full of hte most beautiful churches(Catholic and Protestant). The Cathedrale Notre-Dame was by far the most beautiful cathdrale I've seen.

The city was so small that it took no more than fifteen minutes to walk from our hostel and the trans station into the center of everything. On Saturday we went into a few churches and walked around Petite France. One of our main plans was to eat lots of hearty Alsatian dishes. We began that for lunch on Saturday. We had an onion tarte and then Sarah got Choucroute which is sausages, ham and lots of saurkraut with potatoes. I got the chicken with reisling with fried noodles. It took us about two and a half hours and we were so full that we only ate an apple for dinner. We went to an Alsatian museum after lunch tat was set up like a traditional Alsatian house and had courtyards, wne cellar, wood working shop and much more.

On Sunday we got up and walked around some more buying a couple souvenirs before taking a boat tour. We then went to a museum of mediaval art before walking around until dinner. We got the Alsatian escagot and I had tourte vigneronne.

So it was absolutely beautiful(if freezing) and we both want to go to Germany and study German and walk by Notre-Dame(strasbourg) everyday.