A day in Strasbourg

Well, we promised you pictures and during a recent day trip to Strasbourg, France, we (well, the Michael-half of 'we') took a lot of pictures. We met up with our friends and fellow RIA'ers, Cam and Jen to take a trip up north to Strasbourg. Strasbourg is the principal city of the Alsace region of France, home to some 3/4 million people. The city celebrated its 2000th anniversary (no, that's not a typo) in 1988. It was founded as a Roman military outpost in 12 B.C. (right about the time my old home town of Augsburg, Germany was founded). It is now home to the European parliament and the European Court of Human Rights. A fairly significant city just an hour away by train.

We were blessed to get a discount ticket on the French railway - this is essentially a day-ticket on which up to 5 people can travel in a given region or state for a single price. In our case, it cost us only 44 Chf for the four of us to travel round-trip to Strasbourg (That works out to about $9.00 per person which is an outstanding bargan). As as added bonus, there were no strikes, so we got quickly to our destination. The day was clear and cold but those are the best days to travel in winter. We caught an early train so that we could spend a full day in this beautiful city before returning back home to Weil am Rhein.

This is the main train station in Strasbourg. You can't see it very well, but the domed building in front of you actually covers the original stone train station. When you exit the old station building, this curved structure compeletely envelopes the facade and pedestrian area in front of the station. It was not until we walked out and across the square that we noticed how pleasing the architecture of the covering structure was. We knew we wanted to get to the center of the old town. In most cities of this vintage, all that means is looking for the church spire that usually signals the most important part of the oldest section of the city. In Strasbourg however, there are lots of more modern buildings reaching several stories high but that is no challenge for the Strasbourg Cathedral.

The Strasbourg Cathedral, the Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-Strasbourg, is incredible to behold. It held the record as the tallest building in the world for 250 years until the late 19th century. Even as I write these tid-bits of information, I find myself shaking my head in disbelief. It is still the 6th tallest church in the world.

As you can see, it is hard to get this baby into a single picture, the scales are not to be believed. People walking around the Cathedral square look like so tiny when contrasted with this immense Cathedral. The interior is just as soaring with airy vaults and lots of stained glass. I appreciate so much that even with the throngs of visitors, churches like this also have areas reserved specifically for prayer and not for photos.

The Romans normally established outposts on riverbanks and Strasbourg is no exception. Today, much of the old city is between two branches of the Ill river (really, that's its name -it is a tributary of the Rhein). With old sections of cities, there is always beautiful old buildings to admire.


Here we are next to the Tanner's building. Delynn still doesn't have a hat on despite the sub-freezing temperatures, but she is at least wearing ear muffs. We are dressed in our standard two-layers bottom, four-layers top configuration for winter travel.

THIS IS WHY WE LOVE FRANCE! ('nuf said)

This is called the Kammerzellhaus (Maison Kammerzell) and is one of the most ornate and well preserved medieval buildings found anywhere in the Alsace. It is situated on Cathedral square and was built about 70 years before Columbus "sailed the ocean blue". It now houses a restaurant (we didn't even look at the prices) but pictures are free!

We didn't actually eat any of those cakes in the picture we took earlier, we just drooled over them. We did however find a quaint little place that served a brilliant French onion soup (they just call it "onion soup") and Tarte Flambé. By the time we stopped for lunch, we were all really, really chilled so when we found this restaurant, we were more than ready to enjoy the inviting atmosphere and warmth we found inside.

True to french culture, we sat and ate and talked until we realized that we had been in the restaurant over one and a half hours - just for lunch! We had arrived rather late for lunch so by the time I remembered to take a picture, most of the other customers were gone. Most every table below was occupied with happy, contented french-folk during our wonderful meal.

Our whirl-wind day-trip to Strasbourg was a delight. I know we say this a lot, but we feel so blessed to be able to live here, to experience new cultures (french and german culture are certainly different...) and have the priviledge of sharing our lives and faith with new friends and our precious students. We will be forever changed by our time here. God is good.