Strasbourg

If you ever get a chance to visit Strasbourg...do it! This is my favorite French city so far. It was amazing and so gorgeous in the fall.

We left Cannes at 8:20 on Friday night. I traveled with my friends Sharon, Caitlin and Jessie. The train took forever and was not the most comfortable or exciting thing. We arrived on Saturday morning at 8am. We were all exhausted, sore and hungry. The first thing we did was find a cafe to have some coffee, croissants and to brush our teeth. Then we planned what we wanted to do for the day.

We went first to the Barrage Vauban. It is a covered bridge that was built to protect the city from water attacks. We took pictures from the top of it since you can't really go "in" it. Then we started searching for the Musee Alsacien. After many failed attempts we managed to stumble upon it (it's amazing that we did since there was no real sign). This museum was really cool; an old house that has been transformed and shows what life was like in the Alsace region. One of the first things that we noticed about the city was how obvious the German influence was/is. The Alsace region has switched between France and Germany many times and Strasbourg is only about a half hour from Germany.

We left the museum and headed to the Cathedral; it's known for it's majestic height and now we know why. We bought tickets to climb up to a viewing platform...over 330 steps later we were there and took tons of pictures. The viewing platform is only about half way up to the top of the steeple but you can't go up that high and it's currently under reconstruction. When we got back down we decided to go to the clock show at 12:30. There were tons of people there, like a mosh pit at a concert and everyone was pushing for better viewing position. There is a HUGE clock in the Cathedral and according to the Lonely Planet and Let's Go France books we were going to see this really cool show that depicts Peter at the Heavenly gates...well the books were a little off. Instead, we saw 12 little ceramic figurines move by Jesus and bow and then Jesus made the sign of the cross. There was also a really annoying cock crowing 3 times (we thought it was a baby or a person in pain). This "show" took all of 5 minutes and at the end everyone looked at one another like "that was it?!?!"

We took a few pictures of the inside of the Cathedral and then decided to get on the tram to Kronenbourg. We had lunch on a corner outside the brewery (bread we had taken from the cafeteria at school and apples). We went on the tour; it was so much fun and really educational. And then we had a tasting session (with 2 free beers!!!). All of this was only 4€ which is an awesome deal. We all got a different beer so that we could sample them all (I had a Wel Scotch...whiskey mixed with the beer...not so good but better than some of the others. The best was the original Kronenbourg).

We went back to Strasbourg and started looking for our hostel. Once we found it we were really tempted to crash but knew that if we did we would be out for the rest of the night. The hostel was great: we had a room for the 4 of us, with private bathroom, breakfast and towels included! It was probably nicer than the College in Cannes. We decided to go to mass at the Cathedral and then find dinner. After that we planned on doing a night boat tour of the city.

Mass was, of course, hard to understand but it was nice to be in the huge Cathedral. We got dinner at a pizza place because it was all we could find in our price range. We had been hoping to go somewhere else but we couldn't find it. Then we had a little time to waste before our boat tour so we got some ice cream (even though it was cold and rainy). When we got on the boat the other girls all got tired and were starting to fall asleep but I was very awake after my ice cream. I took tons of pictures (over 100) during the 70 min tour; unfortunately many did not turn out.

We crashed at the hostel and woke up around 8:30 (I slept so hard that I don't think I even rolled over). We got breakfast and headed to the train station to go to the Struthof concentration camp...the only one in France. We got a great deal on the train tickets and arrived in Rothau around 11. We were under the impression that it would only be a mile or so to walk to the camp...we were wrong; it was more like 4. We talked about taking a taxi but by the time we talked to the guy it would have involved a 15 minute car trip (for 15€), only 20 minutes at the camp (for 4€), and another 15 minute car trip (for another 15€). We decided to get lunch.

We got food from a little bakery and found a nice curb near a stream to eat. We met some little French boys who were really excited to see people not speaking French. After we finished our lunch we headed back to the train station. We arrived back in Strasbourg at 2 and headed to Illkirch by tram to see a chocolate museum. To make a long story short the same thing happened with the concentration camp. Essentially, Sunday was a bust and we did a lot of tram/train riding and walking.

We went back to Strasbourg and had crepes by the Cathedral before catching our train. The train left at 6:20 and we cut it pretty close. We were pretty uncomfortable on the train but we didn't sleep much since we were arriving in Lyon to switch trains at 11:30. We met up with some other people from the College who had spent their weekend in Dijon. We left Lyon for Cannes at 1 and made it back around 7:15. We got back to the College in time to shower before having breakfast and going to class.

It was a great weekend (even with Sunday's misfortune) and I would recommend Strasbourg to anyone looking to travel in France.