The last big event of Christmas: PRESENTS in the mail!! YYAAAY! We still got to open presents and eat U.S. candy! And now I have monkey socks to walk around the apartment in!
Where is it shooting? Nobody knows!
everyone drinking champagne and toasting by the cathedral
Germany: BEER!
Left side: people speeding into GermanyRight side: a line of traffic across the bridge
Welcome to France and administrative hell!
La Petite France, the old section of Strasbourg
Their Museum of Contemporary Art was horrible except for this one sculpture above. It was the most interesting thing the museum had to offer.
Yes, the Schnokeloch. We ate lunch here one day and I ordered a salad, trying to avoid the crazy heavy meat that's inescapable in Strasbourg, and ended up still getting some kind of carpaccio, salmon, foie gras, and shrimp in my salad.
Peek-a-boo!
La Petite France
a clock in the cathedral
a high school that looks like a castle
a gingerbread house made of CHOCOLATE!
more CHOCOLATE!
one of the markets
leftovers from the Christmas Market
Their Gallerie Lafayette actually isn't a horrible modern building like it is in every other French city AND it's decorated like a gingerbread house for the holidays!
cookies from the region
a crazy breakfast restaurant with red trinkets everywhere
sugar with decorations in it!
"break so fresh" on the menu
some crazy bar food: pretzels and boiled eggs
a little fake penguin on the ice-skating rink
French + German
a big Russian part of the Christmas Market
We bought one of the gingerbreads that says Strasbourg of course.
Strasbourg!!!Ile de Barbe
During the Christmas vacation I had to work up until Christmas Day, so we didn't have much time to leave Lyon, but we did explore a little outside of the city and made it to Strasbourg for the famous Christmas market. The Ile de Barbe is a little remote, tiny, and historic. Because most of the buildings are made of stone and are extremely old, it's very picturesque, but summer might be a better time to meander there. The restaurant on the island does, however, have the "Champion du Monde Patisserie" working for it, which you can see on the menu pictured above. That alone warrants a visit any time of year. It's on the To Do List.Our big vacation was Strasbourg for about 2 days, which sounds very short, but as we quickly discovered, it's more than enough time for the city. A change in architecture was subtle, but visible from Lyon to Strasbourg. A lot of buildings were still stone, but rather than flat roofs, they were sloped with lots of little windows poking out. There were also old buildings with exteriors of stucco and wooden beams, like in Rennes. Strasbourg also had different patisseries, like "pain d'epices", or gingerbread. We've seen little cakes in the shape of pigs before in Lyon, but they were at every patisserie in Strasbourg.
Maybe one of the more interesting aspects of Strasbourg is that because it's part of Alsace-Lorrain, which has changed hands between France and Germany a lot, there was an interesting mixture of French and German culture. Everyone we talked to spoke French, but there's also a regional language called Alsatian (in English). We didn't hear any of it, but street signs were in French and Alsatian. The second full day of the trip we had pretty much seen the city (it's very small), so we decided to walk across the border into Germany. Once we crossed, there was no French anymore! I thought that by proximity, there would be a mixture like in Strasbourg and that the change would be more gradual, but no! We had a snack and of course a beer at a restaurant where the menu was all in German and we had to communicate in English with the staff. We were literally about one mile from France and the people didn't speak French. We walked back and spent New Years Eve in the city, which was fun and a little scary. Once again all of the French restaurants were either booked or overpriced, so we found a Tunisian restaurant and ate there. We had a little entertainment from a belly dancer, more amazing mint tea, and then walked around looking at fireworks. The nice thing about New Years in Strasbourg is that everyone loves fireworks and sets them off everywhere. That's also the scary thing. The people setting them off are drunk amateurs, so they just fire into buildings and crowds of people. A firetruck flew past us at one point, no idea where it was going, but I was a little worried. The hype was still great, though.
Another reason to visit the city around Christmas is for the lights it has everywhere. Every boulevard and every public square has a different display of lights and/or Christmas trees. One tree was electric and sparkly white during the day, then blue with white specks at night. The amount of money and effort the city puts into the lights is really incredible. It beats Lyon's regular Christmas lights by a lot. For some reason, a lot of buildings also hang stuffed animals in addition to lights on their windows and doors. It looks nice, but then it's really sad when it rains and you know they're matted and rotting.
Overall, the experience was great. Christmas is a great time of year to go, and one day is probably enough. We don't recommend going to the Museum of Contemporary Art, but there are plenty of others to see. The mixture of French and German food and architecture plus the picturesque layout of the city makes it well worth a visit.
