Strasbourg!

Last weekend was a long one, since we had Monday off for Easter (the explanation seems to be that the government does not want to give a religious holiday off, hence working on Good Friday, but they give Monday off so its still a long weekend), and Claire, Claire, and I went to Strasbourg. (Out of the six primary assistants in our department, two are named Claire--one is from Scotland and one from England. Add that to my landlord and the Claire I went to Morocco with, and you can see how it might get a little confusing.)

We were originally meant to take a 5pm train, but ended up catching an earlier one (at slightly more cost--we thought it was going to be cheaper, but as we were in the process of buying the tickets, the prices went up and then it was too late to go back), which got us there at about 8pm. Luckily it had stopped raining by then, so our walk across town to the hotel where we were staying was only cold, not wet. We found our room, which was enormous by my recent standards (two full beds and one twin, and the room was cheaper than it would have been to stay in the hostel), and decided to go to bed early so we could make the most out of the next day.

Of course it was raining again when we woke up, so after grabbing a breakfast from a bakery (I actually had a sandwich, because my dinner the night before had consisted of a pretzel and cookies) we went over to the cathedral, which we quickly admired, and then searched for the Palais Rohan, which houses three museums. As the rain didn't appear to be letting up and it was only one euro more to buy a day pass for all of the cities' museums (only three euros!), we went to the decorative arts museum and then the archeology museum. Both were pretty good and interesting, but nothing too exciting. After the museums we sought out Flam's, a local chain that specializes in tartes flambées, sort of like thin crust pizzas. Mine (onions, potatoes, and cheese) was good, but a little bland (probably the meat version had more kick). At that point it had cleared up a little, so we started exploring the city--La Petite France, the most famous part, Place de la Republique (the German-era bit), and then along the canals. We also stopped for some amazing ice cream (I just go chocolate sorbet, because I wanted a cone, but both Claires got more exciting things). After we figured out where we wanted to go to dinner (a baked potato restaurant), we discovered that nowhere opens for dinner before 7, so we wandered around some more. After dinner, we found a microbrewery and sampled their (all delicious beers).

The next day, Easter Sunday, it was snowing, though not really sticking. We decided to head for the modern and contemporary art museum, but stopped on the way for a cafe breakfast. The museum was pretty good, with a few really amazing pieces (especially a Kandinsky mural), but we did it in two parts, as we left halfway through to try to see the astronomical clock at the Cathedral (it wasn't running because of it being Easter) and then got lunch (student meal prices are one of the best deals in France). The snow kept up and it stayed cold, but we went back to the ice cream place for a second round anyway (this time I got peach and yogurt... mmm...) and then on to the Musée d'alsace (way too crowded) and the Museum of the History of Strasbourg (it was cool and very interactive, but we only went there because we had gotten another day pass, and only had a short amount of time). We had a late afternoon coffee break, where we sampled the local easter cake (in the shape of a lamb) and then found a winestub (the local traditional restaurant) that had vegetarian food and ate a feast.

Monday we got up early again and discovered that it was actually sunny, so we walked up to the university, which was very pretty, but closed off to visitors because of it being a holiday. On our way back we stopped to buy a kugelhopf (another local specialty) for the train and look at a really pretty high school. Then we checked out, bought some falafel for lunch, and went to the train station. Our train was 30 minutes late (it was waiting for a connecting train) and so we were a little stressed about whether we were going to make our connection in Paris, but it turned out fine and we got to see some pretty, snowy Alsacian villages on our way back.