Jenn's Doings: Day 8 - May 17 - Strasbourg France

Technically we did not wake up in France. The boat is docked on the Germany side of the Rhine. Still, by the days end I will step foot in France.

Our first excursion is a walking tour of Strasbourg, but our "walk" started this morning. From where we docked to where the busses were was a .5 mile walk. JUST to get to the darn bus. Ugh. It was hot and stuffy already by 9am.

I was hoping Strasbourg would be as great as I had heard. Turned out it's my favorite spot so far. I learned a lot about Strasbourg and the role it plays in Europe. For example, I did not know that Strasbourg is the official seat of the European parliament.

Strasbourg, frequently named “European capital”, is a city in eastern France in Alsace on the left bank of the Rhine. The history of Strasbourg – Strateburgum, “town of roads” – predisposed for encounters, for its role as Europe’s Tower of Babel. The symbol of Franco-German reconciliation after the Second World War, Strasbourg has become the headquarters of multiple European and international institutions, notably the Council of Europe since 1949, to which the European Court of Human Rights and the European Pharmacopoeia are attached, the European Parliament since 1957 (official headquarters since 1992), the European Ombudsman, and also the home of the European television channel Arte.

Strasbourg itself is beautiful. Our tour guide was knowledgeable and shared a lot of details about Strasbourg and WWII.

We started our tour in the old town and rounded a corner to see the "covered bridges" of Strasbourg and the 4 towers. These were part of the historic 14th century defense of the city. Later the towers became prisons. I put quotes around "covered bridges" because they aren't actually covered any longer. They were never reinstalled after they were destroyed in the 18th century.

The building of pink sandstone is the Barrage Vauban. It's a dam and at one time a lock as well. Today it houses a museum I think.

Crossing the bridge put is into the old town of Strasbourg. Strasbourg's old town is full of these half-timber houses from the 15th and 16th century. Though many of them were destroyed in WWII, some still stand and the others were built back to resemble their original selves.

Strasbourg old town is really shops and eateries these days. And back in the 15th century it wasn't that different, just less people I suppose. I fell in love with the architecture. There's something about these half-timber houses that I just couldn't get enough of.

These three are original houses build, and still standing, from the 16th century. Our tour guide explained, whether it's true or not I bought what she was selling, that because the frame has what appears to be similar to the DaVinci Vitruvian Man. There you see the angled wood beams, those show that these houses are original.

Besides the major thoroughfares there are all these little alleys that lead to unknown places. Residents likely know where they go, but this tourist stuck to the main road.

But Strasbourg is also know for it's massive cathedral. I mean, isn't every major city. Walking through old town we stepped off the major road and into a plaza that stood this ENORMOUS cathedral. We walked partially around it to get to the front of it and there was nothing I could do to capture the full, elaborate, and gorgeous front - I couldn't get far enough away. It's that big.

The cathedral is called Our Lady, or Notre Dame de Strasbourg. The cathedral is widely considered to be among the finest examples of Gothic architecture. I do love gothic architecture. These large cathedrals aren't built in a day. In fact, this one took 400 years. The construction started in 1015 and then again in 1190 and finally finished in 1439. I often sit and wonder how they build such a building when they didn't have the technology we have now. Yet they did, and it's still standing.

The spires are 466 ft tall and for a short time considered the tallest building in Europe. I don't recall how it was impacted in WWII, but I'm sure there was damage.

One of my favorite things to do with cathedrals is to spend time looking at the façade. The intricate detail that is often there fascinates me. The photographer in me comes out and I can't help documenting the detail.

The inside is surprisingly simple. Elegant in that simplicity, it's still massive. I decided with the cathedrals on this trip that I would first sit and take it all in instead of just starting to shoot pictures. This cathedral was no different. I sat in a pew in the back and just looked around. Feeling small and humble being in the presence of this place.

Always look up in cathedrals.

The rose window was astonishing. Just wow. Did you know that the role stain glass played was to help the illiterate learn the stories of the Bible? Yah, me neither. This window is 13.6 meters - that's about 42 feet.

The other cool thing in this cathedral is the Astronomical Clock. Honestly, I've never seen anything like it. We got there in time to see it "activate". The clock shows not only the official time, but it also indicates solar time, the day of the week, the month of the year, the sign of the zodiac, the phase of the moon and the position of several planets.

After we finished checking out the cathedral we had just about 15 minutes before we were to meet up with the tour guide to take us back to the bus. We used that time to make sure the Strasbourg has crabs.

On our way back to the bus the tour guide stopped suddenly, back tracked a little and pointed to the ground. All through Strasbourg you can find these gold cobble stones. These were, apparently, new. Each cobble stone has the name of a person who died in a concentration camp during WWII. The city of Strasbourg decided to memorialize them in these gold stones.

As we got back on the bus, Janet and I started realizing we had a very short window between this excursion and our afternoon excursion. Considering we had a half of mile to walk to get back to the boat, it left us very little time to eat lunch. We figured we'd do what we could and then maybe take some bread with us to snack on in case we didn't get our full lunch.

The sun was high in the sky and the temp had hit 84 by the time we got off the bus. We hoofed it back to the boat and scrambled to get lunch. While we were waiting for our food to be delivered and checking our watches constantly an announcement came over the speakers that they were pushing the afternoon excursion to depart by 1:30 instead of 1. Phew. We could actually eat lunch and have time to gradually walk the half of mile back to the bus.

As we left the boat to begin the walk to the bus for our Alsace Region Wine tasting excursion, the Program Director stopped us and said because of the distance and the heat they have taxis set up to take us to the bus. I almost cried. I was so exhausted by the 10000 steps we had already done that day that a taxi to take us to the bus was just the thing I needed.

The afternoon excursion was to a local small family winery in the Alsace region. The region is known primarily for Riesling. I'm not a fan of white wine but I had heard that the Riesling in this region was unlike anything I'd tasted.

The winery we where we did our tasting.

The buildings were originally from the 16th century, but a fire destroyed them. The family rebuilt them as they appeared before the fire.

You may recall that last year Janet and I spent some time in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. It's famous for Pinot Noir. I was not a fan. So when I saw the first wine was a Pinot Noir I wasn't looking forward to the tasting. But MAN was I wrong. The Pinot from this region is so very different. It was delicious.

We then tasted three whites. A muscat, a Riesling and a Gewürztraminer. I knew the last one would not be something I'd enjoy. It's a sweet wine and that's usually why I don't like about Rieslings. The Muscat and the Riesling were so good I bought a bottle of both. The Riesling was dry and refreshing.

Hopped up on wine we boarded the bus and headed back to the boat. Tonight was German night on the boat and we heard it was a dinner to not miss.

The entire dining room was transformed into this German pub looking place. Blue and white table cloths and napkins decorated the tables. Each table had an appetizer plate of cheeses, meats, and pretzels. I was in heaven.

Dinner would be a buffet tonight. Once we sat down our waiter told us to not doddle and to get our food quickly before the rush. He was not wrong. We got through the buffet about the same time the HOARDS of people came in from another excursion.

We sat with Doug and Colleen (affectionally called our "stalkers". They were a couple we met early on and enjoyed spending dinner with them. They were from Chicago and it was their first river cruise as well. They came in with the hoard of people and sat with us. We explained to them what the waiter had said, so they hopped to it to get their meals as well.