We took a train ride from Freudenstadt, Germany to Strasbourg, France. The train was such a great way to travel. It allowed me and Erick to interact with the kids. It allowed Erick to get some much-needed rest after all the driving he had been doing throughout our vacation. The whole day was as perfect as it could be.
La Petite France
I fell in love with La Petite France, the historic district in Strasbourg. We learned all about Alsace. We learned about their pottery, their legends of the stork, and their bunt-like cake, the kugelhopf. I loved the architecture the most. Take a look. I think you'll love it too:
CrÊpes
I love well-made crÊpes. I wish I had a good crÊpe pan, so I could make them whenever I want. When I saw a cute little crÊperie in town, you can bet the family and I stopped to enjoy the goodness. Mmmmm...
CathÃĐdrale Notre-Dame-de-Strasbourg
The cathedral in Strasbourg is the sixth tallest church in the world. And boy was it hard to photograph up close. This building towered over us like nothing I have ever seen. We should have tried to find some distance shots because according to Wikipedia, this church can be seen as far away as the Black Forest on the other side of the Rhine. That's quite a distance! It was built between 1176 and 1439.
The detail on this church was pretty amazing. My photos definitely don't do it justice.
We went inside the cathedral to look around. I am very cautious about taking pictures inside churches. I WILL NOT do it if there are signs that say no pictures or if I can find any indication that it is not allowed. I expect people to show respect inside my church, therefore I happily do the same in other churches. I found out that photographing the inside was acceptable and expected. Take a look at what we saw:
I was surprised to find this astronomical clock inside the cathedral. It was build in the 1800's. Here is a quick quote from Wikipedia.com: "
The astronomical part is unusually accurate; it indicates leap years, equinoxes, and more astronomical data. Thus it was already much more a complex calculating machine than a clock."
I thought the clock was beautiful and impressive:
The train
The first two pictures are not of our actual train ride, but they are sites we saw while walking back to the train station. We walked in the rain. We stopped at a bakery for some pastries and a sandwich. It was a nice relaxing day.
The rest of the pictures below are of our train ride. We rode to Strasbourg for almost nothing. Our hostess (we rented the upstairs of her home) gave us a card that allowed us to use public transportation for free within the Black Forest. Had we better understood this, we would have ridden the train much more during our stay. But we finally figured it out on our last day. We only had to pay to get across the border to France. I think it cost us three Euro each. Pretty good deal, I'd say:
