A Day Trip to Strasbourg, France

With Germany neighbouring France, you would think we would take a 3 hour train ride to Paris. Instead, we opted to check out Strasbourg since it's just a hop, skip and a jump from Karlsruhe.

This is my second trip to Strasbourg. Ironically, the last time I was here was around the same time last year with Thorsten. The weather was about the same too - rainy and cloudy - so really crap weather. The only difference was that Ivana, Igor and I wanted to spend a day here while last year it was only a 30 minute stop.

To get to Strasbourg from Karlsruhe, we first bought tickets at the machine from Bühl to Strasbourg as Ivana and I had our monthly pass that covers the KVV netz. The tickets cost about 19,20€ (less if you are a student - about 10,20€). The ticket from Karlsruhe to Strasbourg cost about 32€. We needed to only do one train change in Appenweier, which was not too bad. We just had to entertain ourselves for the 20 minute wait in between. And what did we do? Well, we took out our cameras and just went crazy taking pics like a typical tourist. It was then that we decided to play this role all the way. We took quick shots of the OSB train we were getting on as it looked pretty cool. And when we finally got on the train, we felt as though every single pair of eyes were on us - probably thinking, "Great! We have 3 crazy tourists on board the train!!!"

As we drew closer to the city, we noticed how un-French the buildings were. It wasn't even German. It was very boxed and probably build in the 70s or 80s and it reminded us more of eastern europe than western europe. Once we arrived, we looked around for some kind of Information/Tourist booth at the main station. Alas, we found one and bought a small central map for 1€. But before we figured out what we wanted to see, our stomachs called out to us to get some food! Since we were here for a day, we thought of trying some French cuisine and headed towards downtown. As we left the "gare," Ivana told us to look back. And I was glad she did because I did not know how it looked like. In the inside of the station, they kept the old reminence of the infrastructure. But they also put this round, flat shaped glass dome around it on the outside. It kind of reminded me of a bubble to protect it but was more spaceship-ish. "You always have to look back because you never know what you will find and how things look like," Ivana said. I found it weird as society usually tells us to never to look back ;)

So here we are in search of a cheap but yummy French restaurant or a cafe to get some fuel for more walking later. We checked out every interesting place we can find. We found many restaurants displaying not only French menus but German ones as well. We passed by most as it was so pricey. The costs were between 12-20€ and we thought if we kept on looking, we would find a gem somewhere. We walked across the river, down small streets, heading towards to The Cathedral.

We noticed The Cathedral right away, as it dwarfed the buildings around it. The Cathedral dates back from the middle ages and is about 466 ft. It is the highest cathedral in Western Europe. We ended up taking photos just outside the Cathedral. I saw a tourist information near there and wanted to waive down Ivana and Igor to tell them I was going to go inside and just ask them the best place to eat. Funny enough (perhaps I have played my role as a tourist so well) a gal approached me to ask me to participate in their video for a school project on why I was here in Strasbourg. Her classmates joined her to explain more and I managed to get Ivana's and Igor's attention to join me. We ended up making a deal with them. We participate in their video if they can tell us where is the best to eat! I love it when things happen for a reason :)

So out we went again in search of food, but this time we had a destination in mind. The guy told us that most of the food is about the range we were seeing and it is rare to find anything lower (if only we knew!!). We found the restaurant called "La Boucherie." Again, funny thing is that it was one of the early restaurants we thought we should have went into to! Doh! We went in and managed to order food with a bit of French, German and English. The food was good. Ivana and I had steak which was so satisfying as it feels like forever since I had steak - oh Alberta beef how I miss thou! The portions were smaller than what I am used to but it is France and it was actually perfect.

The day was going by fast and by the time we left the restaurant, we had about 2 hours before catching the trains back to Karlsruhe. Since we already swung by The Cathedral, we went in search of La Petite France. It lies in the heart of the city and used to be quarters for millers, fishermen, and tanners. The architecture of the buildings were what we expected to see - small and quaint quarters with traditional sloping roofs and internal gardens. We even passed by a school that just ended and believe it or not ... we saw daddies picking up their children. Still, like their counterparts in the west - Spain - children are dressed well at a very early age.

Before we left, we stopped by a pâtisserie/chocolatier shop called "Christian." Ivana was eyeing this shop earlier and it had the best display of goods to satisfy our sweet tooth later. With our lack of French, Ivana decided to try to ask one of the ladies if she spoke German. To her delight, she did! And we were able to figure out what to buy. We bought some fruit jelly bonbons (which we sooooo very good) and 3 chocolates shaped and created like hazelnuts with a layer of marzipan and praline inside (so good, but oh so rich). We were pretty happy campers leaving the shop and city. We wanted to get souvenirs from Lafayette store. Lafayette is a big and expensive chain like Harrods and they did have some sales for the hair accessories we were looking at. But alas, too expensive pour nos!!! So we headed home hoping one day to come back and just shop :)

Photos from Strasbourg - album section