Someplace New

Hello Friends! We are beginning our second week here in Strasbourg. We feel like we have been here MUCH longer than a week, in a good way! We are very comfortable here. We walk around for hours each day, exploring the streets, seeing the sights, and visiting lots of local museums.

The weather has been awful, but it hasn’t stopped us. It has been rainy nearly every day and hasn’t really gotten above 40 degrees. But each morning we bundle up and go out to see the city.  There is so much to see and so much to tell, so this post will just hit some of the sights we have already explored.

 

Ponts Couverts:

Ponts Couverts, literally means, covered bridge. In Strasbourg, this is a series of three defensive bridges and four towers that opened in 1250. (Can we take a second to think about how old that actually is… opened in 1250!?!) The Ponts Couverts dominate the city skyline when looking out onto Petite France.  This viewpoint is from the terrace on Barrage Vauban across the river.

 

Barrage Vauban:

The Barrage Vauban took over as the main defensive structure in 1690.  Obviously it is no longer used for defenses, so it appears that they store sculptures from the cathedrals in it.  We walked through and were able to not only see the old fortress, but see old amazing sculptures up close. It was a really cool experience.

 

Place Kleber:

Place Kleber is the central square in Strasbourg. During the wintertime, Strasbourg holds it’s famous Christmas Markets here and tourism flocks.  During the rest of the year, there are lots of festivals, farmer’s markets and carnivals held in this square. Surrounding the square are lots of local restaurants and boutiques.

Speaking of lots of local restaurants, Brad and I can’t seem to go a full day without stopping for a baguette or a pastry. Damn the French and their delicious treats!

 

Palais Rohan:

Palais Rohan is an amazing, beautiful building right near the Strasbourg Cathedral. It used to be a palace for church cardinals and princes, but now houses three different museums.  Brad and I went to one of these museums last week, the archeology museum.

It was quite challenging to go through the museum, because… it’s in French. Duh. But there were plaques in some rooms that were translated, which helped us keep up and piece most things together! The whole museum was centered around an entire city and civilization that was buried underneath modern-day Strasbourg! It was mindblowing. As recently as 2011, they have still been excavating pottery, tombs, sculptures, foundations of homes, and… bodies. The museum was HUGE and really interesting. Except the bodies… those were creepy as hell.

 

Palais du Rhin:

Not much to see for tourists here since this is really a navigational building for boats on the Rhine.. but a very pretty building and the first time in our trip where we saw some budding plants and actually felt like it was spring.

 

Side Note about the trip. We miss Millie. We keep looking around for her and expecting her to round the corner 😦   But she is happy and safe with my dad and Kirby. (Dad and Kirby… we miss you too lol)

 

Thanks to everyone for keeping in touch! We will be posting about the amazing Strasbourg Cathedral, next.. stay tuned!