Strasbourg

My second trip on the TGV Est was to Strasbourg in the east of France, on the German border. I wasn't expecting too much because I thought it was going to be a very small city with not much on offer but actually that is not the case.

First surprise is that it's a really beautiful city. The historical centre is on a kind of island surrounded by canals. The typical houses are what they call half-timbered houses which can be seen everywhere and they centre around the huge pink sandstone cathedral.

There are loads of bars, cafes, and restaurants serving local and international food. There are a number of local beers and wines worth trying. I really enjoyed the Alsacian rosé wines I tried. The restaurants were quite touristy but the quality was fairly good and the prices reasonable.

The people were very friendly, not at all like your stereotypical French! They were for the most part happy to speak English with us and almost everyone spoke German to the thousands of German tourists who were visiting.

Cars are generally not allowed in the centre so the canal boat ride was the only tour on offer. The boat meanders around the canals giving great views of the pretty houses and gardens and well as the modern European Parliament and related buildings. The tour was well worth it, even if I did get a little sunburnt.

One thing to watch out for with all the canals around is giant rats. I was quite surprised to see one peacefully swimming along. It looked like a seal, it was that big. I'd heard about these giant rats in the Canal St Martin but was quite shocked when I actually saw one for myself. Someone told me the name of this common rodent but I didn't quite catch it so I don't know what it is called in English.

What I didn't realise is how close Strasbourg is to the German border. It's only 3 or 4 kilometres away. Ferbent and I love to walk so we walked over to the border. There wasn't much to see on the way there because you have to go through the port and an industrial area but it was nice when we finally got to the border, the Rhine River. There are parks on both sides of the river and we noted how much cleaner and better maintained the German side was. Typical!

So we spent a few hours in Kehl, the German town on the border. There were very pretty houses there, really well taken care of. Much nicer than the blocks of apartments on the other side of the river. We had a very cheap lunch and then couldn't resist buying some groceries because everything was like 20% to 30% cheaper there. This is the second time I've visited Germany and then second time I've wondered why I'm not living somewhere which has a lower cost of living and higher salary ie. Germany. Of course, I don't speak German but anyway...

So now I'm really looking forward to my next trip which is to Stuttgart.

You can see my photos of Strasbourg on Flickr.