Saying farewell to Strasbourg

Careful planning again gave me some time to explore one city before catching a train to the next. This time I was leaving Strasbourg for Reims.

The extra stop at Reims was added to the trip at the last moment as I was unable to get a train from Strasbourg to Paris on the Sunday (the Eurostar to London was already booked) and I decided that a morning would be enough to see Reims (it only has a cathedral after all) and so I spent as much of Saturday in Strasbourg as possible.

The day started grey and wet but there was a city to see and little time left to see it in so I headed out anyway. Besides, the forecast for later in the day was promising.

I started on the north side of Grande Ile to revisit the old buildings in quiet street that I had first walked through a couple of days previously. It seemed so much longer than that because of all the other sights that had filled the hours in between.

The rain was a friend and kept all but the most ardent tourists off the streets. It's not that I do not like people, I just do not like the way that they wear bright clothes when I am trying to take pictures.

All roads lead to the Cathedral, and that is no bad thing. Its Gothic excess is wonderful and can only be appreciated from close up.

By then the tourists were growing in confidence, or they had tight schedules that they could not change, and the impressive cathedral square was getting uncomfortably busy. It was time to move on.

As before, the next steps were random. Any good town is porous, i.e. pedestrians can flow easily in any direction, so there are always decisions to make on where to head next and without a firm destination these are all problematic decisions to make. Beauty became the deciding factor and headed down the road that offered the most promise.

Somewhere along the way I found a not too touristy cafe to have a late breakfast of the, by then, usual coffee and croissant.

I always look up a lot to make sure that I do not miss the exciting shapes that roofs often make and was well rewarded for doing so.

This is a fairly typical view of a neat roof punctured by equally neat windows. Elsewhere the gables rose high in a series of steps and chimneys made bold shapes against the brightening sky.

Grande Ile is not that large and I was vaguely walking from north to south so it was somewhat inevitable that I would arrive at Petite France yet again. That was the third time in three days and deliberately so.

By then the sun had won its battle against the grey clouds and the city was bright. The main beneficiaries of this were the houses along the quays who could show-off their reflections.

The third day in Petite France was an exhilarating as the first two, may be more so because of the better light.

The reflections changed the character of the area and I found myself taking retracing previous routes and retaking previous pictures to capture those changes.

Just being there was immensely uplifting. If I were to design an ideal town from scratch it would look something like this.

The bridges not only allow you to progress easily through Petite France but they were also the best places to stop and savour the scene.

I was keeping an eye on the clock and what started as a generous four hours to revisit parts of an old town that I had been to twice before soon ebbed away and I had to head back to the station and my next trains.

There was so much that I loved about Strasbourg in my three days there, and I've tried to capture some of that in the three posts that I have written about my time there, and if I had to, Desert Island Discs style, keep just one memory of those three days then it would be this picture.

Strasbourg was so impressive that I am even contemplating going against all my prejudices and having another holiday in France (one day).

Out and about in Strasbourg

My one full day in Strasbourg was an opportunity to explore further afield and that mean starting with a tram.

My hotel was next to the station, as usual, and so was convenient for trams too. I bought a 24 hour ticket and was off.

The plan was to head towards the European Parliament and then meander back. That meant changing trams at Republique where I swapped a B for an E.

All of the stops had maps, live tram information and ticket machines so getting around was easy.

The European Parliament sits on a wide bend on one of the many canals that circle the town. On the other bank is the European Court of Human Rights doing its best to look like an alien spacecraft.

The two iconic buildings apart, the European Parliament quarter lacks, well, everything. I am not sure what I was expecting, these are just offices after all and they are fairly exciting ones in a good location.

So having quickly satisfied my curiosity about the seat of European democracy I moved on, this time on foot.

Crossing the water took me to a large park that looked very inviting for somebody looking for somewhere to walk, somebody like me.

It started formally with flower beds and seating but soon I was among trees that had no stricture of their own and hid any structure deeper in the park. Not knowing what was ahead only made the walk more interesting.

There were more flower beds and more seats and then the first big surprise.

I was not expecting a Children's Zoo.

It was small with around twenty smallish pens with a mix of animals and birds, including a few vociferous apes and some colourful parakeets.

Storks are an emblem of Strasbourg so they get to appear here.

The pens were arranged so that all the animals can be seen from the park as you walk past, i.e. there is no zoo as such to go in to and, because of that, no entry fee.

A little further on and the park opened out and became formal again with a lake, a fountain, more flower beds, an artificial island and, thankfully, a cafe. It was time for a beer.

Rested and watered I took the small bridge on to the island. Looking back towards the cafe the scene was calm and peaceful, even the fountain seemed subdued. On the other side of the hill a waterfall ran noisily down some steps to a long pond.

Beyond the pond the garden had a final flourish with neatly trimmed lawns and a classic folly, an open temple of sorts, before giving way to roads, houses and shops.

With no trams going down that road it was time to give the buses ago.

And where better to go than another park.

This green water is in Parc de La Citadelle. The park was busy with people setting up a local community fair - it looked good.

In the centre of the park was a triangle of land, surrounded by water, that rose above the rest of the park offering views and tranquillity as it did so.

The combined effect of the two parks and the gentle strolling through them made for a peaceful morning and early afternoon, and the discoveries and few surprises made it an interesting one too.

Another tram took me back to the edge of the old town where I wanted to resume my explorations from the previous day with the added advantage of some good daylight.

This time I approached Petite France from the suburban south and first crossed the long bridge across the three artificial islands to the south-west tip of Grande Ile.

The buildings at the entrance to the town show signs of old conflicts with sturdy towers and thick walls. There is a long barrier across the water too but I do not know if it is there to deter marauders or rising water or both.

Turning away from the battlements Petite France shows off its comely side.

The shuttered buildings squeeze against each other to make the most of the limited access to the waterway that curves peacefully past them. The bridge built for trade is now strewn with flowers, as they all are in the town.

The houses leave no room for pedestrians, they must pass on the cobbled street behind, and a lone duck is all that breaks the stillness.

Under the trees, more flowers give hope of a beer garden.

The charm of Petite France is almost oppressive, in a good way. It is there wherever you look and there is no easy escape from it. Walking on just shows you even more of the same that seems even prettier than that just left behind.

It is only some time later that the walking does lead to escape and you can pause to catch your breath and to marvel at what you have just witnessed.

It is no coincidence that water features so much in this story of a day pootling around in Strasbourg. Water shapes the town and everywhere the town pays homage to it. And that gives the town its scale, charm and personality.

Strasbourg is stunning

Again my refusal to do any serious research before booking my holiday turned up trumps.

The reasons that I chose to spend a couple of days in Strasbourg were because it is on the main train-line back from Munich and because I had heard of it.

I did not know then that the whole of the city centre is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. I know now and can see why. It's very old and stupidly pretty.

The Cathedral is at the centre of the city. Around it is a ring of old timber-fronted buildings all contained within a ring of water. This is the Grande Ile.

The centre is largely pedestrianised with cars only allowed in shamefully to some areas while trams slide boldly through the centre. As in several of the cities that I visited on this tour, it is best travelled by tram. In Strasbourg the trams allow you to make the most of your journey by have extensive glass, so much so that it is unrealistic to call them windows. These are glass trams.

When you get among the old buildings the impact is amazing. It's as cute as, say, Ledbury but on a much grander scale and with water too. The streets encourage you to wander and explore in the way that all the best old cities do with roads that curve just for the amusement of it.

The water comes in to its own in the south-west corner, Petite France where the quays give evidence to the times when the waterways were a main trade route, the Rhine is but a hop and a step away and is the border between France and Germany.

Now it is mainly pleasure boats that circle the isle, passing through the locks as they do so.

There are three artificial islands with several bridges between them and other paths alongside the water.

This is ideal walking territory and the hordes of tourists know that. They are well prepared for too as this part of the two is rich with cafes and bars. This is a place where you want to sit and soak up the atmosphere and you are encouraged to do so. Not that I needed much encouragement.

There was so much to take in and to savour in my first afternoon in Strasbourg from the canals, the Cathedral, the trams, the timer-fronted buildings and the gentle paths that link everything.

Strasbourg really is stunning.