We left Luxembourg in the morning and had a rather slow train ride to Strasbourg, in France.  I’m not sure if there was something wrong with the train, but about every 20 minutes we would stop for five or ten minutes before continuing on.  And not at a station either, just in the middle of nowhere.  Still, it was pretty countryside and we were not in too much of a hurry.

Once we got to Strasbourg it about noon and we headed straight to the information desk in the train station.  They were very helpful and explained how to get the tram to the hotel we had booked, and what the best transportation options are.  Strasbourg has a really good tram system that runs at most hours of the day and it is possible to get a ticket (for about 5 Euros) that lets up to three people travel on the trams as much as they want for 24 hours.  This was so, so good.  We were able to see so much of the city and had no problems at all getting around.

Our hotel was called Cerise Hotel and was a big success.  Inexpensive, really clean, internet in the rooms (important because we still had a lot of planning we needed to do) and even had a fridge and microwave in the room so that you could eat in a bit.  We took pretty full advantage of that!

Our plan was to do a few hours of planning and work on updating the (very out of date) blog and then to get out and see something of the city in the evening.  Despite having a small setback with our internet not working, the hotel sent someone up immediately to fix it, and we were able to get a few days of plans finalized.  This calmed us down substantially and as we set out to see the city we were feeling so happy and positive!

We took the tram to the central area and then walked around taking it in.

Canal and "Petite France"

The canals and houses were beautiful and there were masses of flowers on all of the bridges in the town.  Click any of these photos to see more.  It was incredibly beautiful.  And an added bonus was that the weather had taken a turn for the better!

Cheese!!!

We passed a cheese shop which had been recommended to us by my dad, but were disappointed to learn that it was very expensive.  It was pretty incredible to see how many types of cheese are available nonetheless.

Beautiful Strasbourg Cathedral

We also walked past the cathedral, but it was closed since it was later in the evening by this point.  The outside was very elaborately decorated, so we still enjoyed seeing it.  By then we were hungry, and managed to find an inexpensive meal at a little restaurant of pasta and some delicious white wine.  Then, happy with our day, we headed home and stopped along the way to buy breakfast at the grocery store.

The next day we had a bit more planning and blog work to get on with and we also needed very much to do laundry.  So, after our yummy breakfast of croissants and yogurt we set off for a laundromat which advertised free internet.  I stayed and did the laundry, worked on the blog, and practiced my french (everyone who came in seemed to want to chat with me!) while Justin went on to the train station and got many of our train reservations worked out.  By this point we were ready for some more tourism!!!

Tarte Picnic

Justin had a typical Alsatian tarte flambee for lunch and I had a very delicious pizza and we ate them out in the sunshine feeling very relaxed.  Then we set a little challenge for ourselves.  Our tram map listed the 20 top sights to see in Strasbourg, and since we had an unlimited number of tram rides we decided to see as many of them as possible!  I think in the end we saw about 75%, so pretty good.  Some of them we just went past on the tram and others we got off and took a lot of pictures and thoroughly explored.

Strasbourg's awesome tram system

We saw the European Court of Human Rights, but it is not open for visitors, so we didn’t have a whole lot of information about it.  Pretty cool building though.

European Court of Human Rights

We took a really nice walk through the Jardin de l’Orangerie and saw this old house which has storks’ nests on the chimneys.  They were huge!  You can see one in the first picture and then a close-up in the second.

Jardin de l'Orangerie

Storks!

We spent a bit of time photographing the European Parliament building because it has some very unique architecture.  This one we were able to go into the courtyard and look around a bit.

European Parliament Building

Courtyard of the European Parliament Building

Photographer at work

We did a bit more exploring after this, but as you can see from the pictures, it was getting cloudy and eventually started to rain.  As we went back past the cheese shop we realized that they had a restaurant and a shop and the shop was much less expensive!  So we got some cheese and some nice bread and headed back to our hotel for dinner.

Cheese for dinner

After dinner we thought we would like to try some local beer, so we went out searching.  Our newly improved luck took us to La Lanterne, a local microbrewery, and we each tried a half pint of one of their concoctions.  Very good beer, and a great atmosphere in the pub.  Highly recommended if you’re in the area!  I tried the blonde beer and Justin had the red.  Both were tasty.

Inside La Lanterne

Our next stop on our very mini pub crawl was a place advertising something like 40 different beers.  Here we each tried a half pint of a Belgian beer.  We both had Maredsous beer – I had the white beer and Justin had the trippel.  They were good, but to my taste had a very fruity flavor.  To me the most interesting thing about this place was that there were trees inside!

Belgian Beer

That was the end of our mini pub crawl and pretty much the end of our time in Strasbourg, because the next morning we had to get up early to catch our train on to Germany!