Strasbourg
13 September 2017
We woke up in our little cabin in the campground after a very comfortable night sleep. Today we were going to start in Strasbourg, then drive down the Route des Vins d'Alsace. But first, we were going to make breakfast at our last spot on this trip with a full kitchen. I've said it a few times already, but it is worth repeating – we were very happy we booked this cabin! From the little camp kitchen to the patio table outside to the comfy bed, it was a perfect stay for our first night in Alsace. We scrambled up some eggs and smoked salmon from the market last night, sizzled up some of the Black Forest ham left from Hexenlochmüle like bacon, cut up another Williams pear, and of course finished it off with a flaky croissant. We also had these super convenient Nescafe instant latte packets that were surprisingly tasty. We had our breakfast, washed up the kitchen, packed up the car, and said "au revoir" to our little French cabin. I would absolutely stay there again!
While driving loops around the city yesterday we thought we saw a parking area that was closer than where we stopped at Place Kleber, so we headed back to that spot today. We found the lot, and it was a super short walk to the Barrage Vauban. We have read that the bridge we crossed last night gave a great view of the Vauban, and it did... but the real fun is actually walking through the old covered drawbridge. From little windows along the floor you could see the river flowing underneath, and the parts that raised up were built with old gear systems that I would have loved to see in action. Further along the bridge we came to an area that was storage for a bunch of old statues. This was really cool! Some of them were regular statues, but a few of the others were animal figures that looked like they were once rain drainage from buildings, kinda like those dog-like gargoyles from the church in Vaduz. Turned on their feet though, they looked like they were howling to the moon, or singing in a chorus. Very surreal looking pieces, just kinda sitting there inside this bridge. A very interesting sight for sure.
We walked again through Petite France, through the streets to Place Gutenberg, then down the narrow alleys to the cathedral. Before us stood a majestic sight! Once the tallest building in the world(!), the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg stands high above the city, a stunning pinkish-brown building with the most intricate detail. So amazing! As the old adage goes, "they sure don’t build them like this anymore". Inside there is apparently an astrological clock, but we didn't get to see it. The church closes for a few hours in the middle of the day, which happened to be right when we were there. Too bad, and while it would have been nice to see, we didn't want to hang around the city too long today. There was so much to see down in wine country! Even still, it was nice to stand in the presence of this amazing place, and it seems every spot on this cathedral we looked, there was tiny detail you would surely miss if you weren't looking closely.
We strolled around the open courtyard for a bit before heading back to the narrow streets. We got little cookies and chocolates from a biscuitiere by the cathedral, and enjoyed our snack as we walked along the river back to the car.
Strasbourg was a nice city, but we were antsy to get out into the vineyards and the countryside with the small villages! We took the highway for a bit, trying to cover some ground before we changed up to the smaller, slower country roads along the wine route. We got off the A35 by Châtenois, where we could hopefully stop at L’Ortenbourg Castle. We found some smaller back roads, then even smaller back roads, then roads that made us question if they were even roads at all! They were marked on the map, but I think lots of walking only trails are marked similar to small roads, like our experience that night up by Brend. Anyway, we drove a tiny bit down one of those before we decided that is not, in fact, an actual road. We had to put the car in reverse and back our way through the the grassy trail back to the road we were at least semi-sure was driveable. Some of these castles you need to park and hike up to, so we decided to make our way further down the route. We'll be back with more time to hike up to these ruins, of that I'm sure.
