For Strasbourg pictures, click here.
It's time for a pop quiz! You know you're in France when:
A: The bread of your sandwich is thickly buttered on both sides
B: Your nap on the train is interrupted by live accordion
C: You have eaten five devastatingly delicious pastries, and it's only 5 o'clock in the afternoon
D: The aroma of freshly baked biscuits beckons you from the front doors of a 13th-century cathedral
Picked your answer?
Okay, so it was a trick question, as you probably suspected. All of the above happened on my trip to Strasbourg, France!
Last week, I serendipitously ran into an old buddy from Stanford, Alex Starns, in the Google cafe. We quickly decided that we'd be good traveling partners because we both recently relocated (i.e., we have no other friends locally) and want to travel on the weekends. Also, he is great with maps and I am not. Based mostly on the weather, we decided our first trip would be to Strasbourg, which is two hours from Zurich by train.
We visited the cathedral and paid 4.70 Euro to hike 66 meters to the observation tower. I was very impressed with the detail and height of this church: I wouldn't say that it gave Paris' Notre Dame a run for its money, but it came mighty close. I actually felt slightly ill walking up and down the stairs because of the tight spiral turns.
Petite France, where the river splits into several canals and winds around half-timbered houses, was cute. I loved the marching band playing on the river bank.
I will end on a sweet note: I had thought that I left French pastries for good when I left Paris. I was wrong, and I took full advantage of this pleasant surprise. I won't go into too much detail because I will devote a full posting to pastries, but this delightful trio was a major part of my lunch!
