I felt a bit like the Karate Kid today. Remember the Karate Kid and Mr Miyagi?
Jacket on, jacket off. Umbrella up, umbrella down. Backpack on, backpack off.
Argh!
We are in Strasbourg for 4 nights, so 3 full days. Yesterday afternoon it hailed, then the sun came out, then it poured with rain again.
Today’s forecast was clear and sunny; tomorrow is forecast to rain, and Thursday should be overcast. We will see how that goes.
The broad plan is this: explore Strasbourg today in the sunshine, drive to Germany tomorrow in the rain, and hope for the best for Thursday when we have a walking tour of Strasbourg already booked.
Today did start nice and sunny, so MBW did a couple of loads of washing, then we went out to catch the tram into Strasbourg for the day.
We finally figured out how to buy an all day ticket on the CTS app, which is the transport system here in Strasbourg.
Nothing is planned for the day, so we will see how the day unfolds. What could possibly go wrong? Hopefully we can stay out of mischief (and jail.)
Well, nothing went wrong, as it turned out.
We bought our 24 hour tickets and walked the 200m (that was more like 600m – thanks Bernard!) down to the tram stop and waited. Trams run about every 10 minutes, so you don’t even really bother checking to see when the next one is due – it will be soon.
We rode the 6 stops or so towards the cathedral and jumped off.
I should point out that we hadn’t had breakfast this morning because there was nothing to have. But we did have coffee before we left home … we are not barbarians.
We wandered around for a while and found the cathedral, although that makes it sound like we were very clever to find it. The reality is that you’d have to be pretty stupid NOT to find it because it has the highest and most intricate spire I’ve ever seen. And you can see the spire from everywhere.
They are pretty strict on security, with bag checks here. They also have flags flying at half mast and photos of Pope Francis everywhere, so I suppose it makes sense. It is a Catholic church after all.
The church is pretty amazing.
From there we just went for a wander. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we were happy just to meander through the streets although – for the purpose of complete transparency – we were loosely looking for a Boulangerie or a Pâtisserie to get some breakfast.
We found a few places that weren’t exactly what we were looking for – for example one place was a “Biscuiterie” and they sell cookies rather that croissants.
And croissants were what we wanted. When in France …
We finally found one and I got a scroll thing with raisins, while MBW got a chocolate croissant. I’m always safe going for something with raisins because I know that MBW won’t want any 😀
There is a river cruise that Bernard had told us about, so MBW bought tickets, and we went down to the pier.
Everything is close in Strasbourg. The city centre inside the circular river is easily walkable in 15 to 20 minutes.
We lined up at the pier around 12.05pm, with 12.15 boarding and a 12.30 lift off.
The boat trip lasted about 1¼ hours and included a commentary which was helpful and informative. The boat trip also went through a couple of locks where the lock closes and pumps water either in our out to match the water level on the other side. That was pretty exciting.
That was really worth doing to help us get our bearings of Strasbourg.
By this time it was almost 2.00pm and we hadn’t had lunch, so we went for a walk into La Petite-France, which is the old city.
We were looking for somewhere that does the fixed menu, where you can choose the Plate du Jour (plate of the day), or the plate with entrees, or the plate with dessert. Or if you have a stronger constitution and more willpower that I have, you go for all three (Entree, Plate, and Dessert). We found a bistro that still had their Plate du Jour available and ordered just the Plate.
Today’s Plate du Jour was Coq au Vin, taglietelli. Which is chicken in white wine sauce, with Italian fettuccine.
It was hot and delicious, and very filling. We won’t need dinner now.
We potted around the old town some more and by 4.00pm we were running out of steam. The day had gone from cool to hot and back again several times. It had been sunny then turned grey, then rained, and turned sunny again.
We had a quick look in the local Monoprix and bought a couple of things to take home, then we jumped the tram back home again.
We still didn’t have anything for dinner or breakfast, so we found our local E.Lecerc about 10 minutes away and took Claude for a spin.
Bought some stuff we needed, and some stuff we didn’t (… you know how it is …) then headed home.
Cheese. Prosciutto and baguette for dinner, then coffee and some cake that MBW snuck into our groceries.
Here’s a fun fact: we have been here in the Alsace region of France for the last few days, and the locals are referred to as Alsatians (although I don’t think it is either spelt or pronounced that way, which makes it less funny that it could have been.)
Woof!
MBW has delegated planning for tomorrow to me. Our second son (Joey) has said we should go to Stuttgart and see the Porsche museum … and while that sounds like fun, and the thought of taking Claude through the sound barrier on the Autobahn sounds even better, it’s almost a 2 hour drive and I’m not really in the mood.
Bernard and Yolande have suggested a drive to Baden-Baden and the Black Forest and we might do that because it’s pretty close. And it doesn’t really matter if it’s raining.
I’ll let you know tomorrow what we’ve decided.
Ciao
#Europe2025