It would be easy to come to Strasbourg just for the Christmas markets (which are awesome) but there is a lot more than hot wine and warm bretzels to discover. As well as wandering around by myself, I have taken two different walking/photo tours of the city, and it has a really interesting history (alternating between Roman and then Gallic, French, German, French, German rule). Each ruler added their own ‘gift’ to the city, and because of this, the architecture is hugely varied. Some monuments date back to the 1100s. Highly recommend both of the tours I have done with Air BnB – the Across Strasbourg and Time history walk with local architect and city planner Lionel is awesome (like walking with a cool and intelligent friend and he brought cookies 🙂 ), and the Christmas photo walk with Anastasia was amazing (she is so much fun to hang out with and showed me cool spots to take photos….will post them later). The Notre Dame cathedral here is incredible too. So big! And inside is a 30m long nativity scene, and a beautiful astronomical clock that measures every aspect of time, that was such a coup for the church that its maker was reportedly blinded so that he could not recreate it for anyone else. Not such a rarity apparently in the olden days, nowadays they would simply offer him a retention bonus to stay 🙂 Strasbourg also has amazing restaurants, and specialty food stores, and being in the Alsace region there are delicious local wines. I tried escargots (snails) for the first time tonight and they were delicious, swimming in garlic and butter with parsley and served with a freshly cut baguette. Followed by a plate of local cheese, also delicious, which you cut and eat in chunks instead of with crackers or bread. Happy days.
Today is the start of the school holidays for many people in France and this weekend will see huge traffic jams on the main highways. Only half of the 1.7 million train tickets that have been purchased will be honored because of the ongoing transport strike, which means 850,000 people have to find another way to travel. I am only an hour and a quarter away from my next stop in Switzerland, and have booked another driver to collect me on Sunday morning and away from the travel chaos. France is definitely on my list of places to return to, but not while this is all going on. Far too much drama.
Made entirely from chocolate 
Amazing mix of architecture styles here 
Pork strudel, eaten cold. Yum 
Canelle – like a chewy caramelised crispy donut filled with creamy hazelnut goodness 
Everything in this patisserie is pink 
Kougelhopf 
So tasty 
Macarons 
More Christmas penguins 
Storks are a good luck symbol and its common to build nests for them (these are fake) 
Strasbourg’s Notre Dame cathedral 
Astronomical clock 
Accurate to the day and time 
Rose window 
So ornate 
and tall 
Good boy 🙂 
Escargots 
