Switzerland to Paris - October 1

Tuesday, October 1


Our adventure today took us to the town of Strasbourg, France, a city on the Maine river.  This river separates France from Germany.  Our long boat docked on the German side of the river.  To get to France we simply crossed over the bridge that separates the two countries.  Strasbourg over the years has been part of Germany, then France, then Germany, then France.  It finally ended up as part of France.

Since today is Sabrina’s birthday the four of us gathered in one of the town squares and sang ‘Happy Birthday’.  It turns out that the rest of the people in the square that can hear you will look at you as though you were a little crazy.  We didn’t care.  It was Sabrina’s birthday.

Strasbourg is home to a number of beautiful churches.

Perhaps that most awe inspiring is the Cathedral of Notre Dame.  This is the one in Strasbourg, not the one in Paris.  It is, by law, the tallest building in Strasbourg.  The architecture is Gothic and large.  The cathedral is beautiful.

After touring the city on foot we took a boat ride around the island that is the original boundary of the city.  There were many beautiful buildings both old and new.

We made our way back to the long boat for dinner and relaxing.  Our next stop is Speyer, Germany.

Tomorrow will be another adventure.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Switzerland to Paris - 2024 - Sept 23 - Sept 26

Image
Gigi and Bearpaw have headed out on a new adventure.  This trip will take us to Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg, and France. Monday, Sept 23rd - We left home on this day.  After a quick breakfast with Wilma and Leonard we made our way to the airport (thanks W & L).  Once we checked in and gave up our luggage we passed through Checkpoint Charlie with no issue.  Once the two plus wait time was complete we boarded our Bombardier CRJ900 jet and flew to JFK airport in New York.  The CRJ900 sat only 76 passengers, two pilots, and two flight attendants.  It was a very small plane compared to what we have been used to.  I noticed that the flight attendants were both very slender.  They had to be since the aisles were very narrow. We had only a four hour layover in JFK.  We boarded the plane and in a short time we were airborne.  They fed us dinner and snacks and away we went.  We left JFK around ten PM on Monday.  We arrived in Ge...
Read more

Switzerland to Paris - September 27

Image
We spent today in Zermatt, Switzerland, which is located in the Swiss Alps, at the base of the Matterhorn.  Unfortunately, since the Matterhorn is typically shrouded in clouds we only got to see the bottom half to two thirds of the mountain. Even still, the view was spectacular.  We also got to see a number of glaciers that were in the valleys between the mountain peaks. Once back in town we found the local McDonald’s and had a few desert items known as ‘McPops’.  They were similar to a donut hole, except just a little larger and with apple, raspberry, or Nutella filling.  We opted for two apple and one raspberry. Since we still hadn't had our fill of snacks for lunch we found a bakery and had a couple of pretzels, one salty and one with cheese.  Both were very good. We took a walk around the older part of town and found some original structures from the 1300’s.  They were made of wood but had an interesting building technique.  The foundation was sepa...
Read more

Switzerland to Paris - September 30

Image
Monday, September 30 We rose and got ready to leave Zurich and make our way to Basel.  We were SUPPOSED to have our luggage outside our hotel room at 6:30 this morning.  Then at 8:30 we were supposed to put eyes on our luggage and verify that it made it to the staging area prior to being loaded onto the buses.  What do you know?  Robin heard that as long as you don’t mind schlepping your own luggage you can bring it down and verify your luggage as you are getting on the bus.  So that is what we did.  We were able to sleep until 6:45, get dressed at our leisure, have breakfast, and still make it to the bus on time. Basel, Switzerland is purported to be the ‘artistic’ area of Switzerland.  It is a city of some 200,000 citizens.  Basel is located where the countries of Switzerland, Germany, and France all converge. There were fountains that would provide you with clean drinking water if you needed it and older churches and buildings that have survive...
Read more