It’s stopped raining on Sunday morning, so I make the most of the break in the rain, and the early hour to head back out with the tripod onto the streets of Strasbourg. It’s just getting light and the biggest dangers this morning are getting hit by a tram or an early morning delivery van. The Christmas lights are still on, and the deserted streets make it much easier to set up and make the most of the magic hour. I say hour, but there was really only 45 minutes before it was daylight and the ‘night’ lights were turned off and the first of the tour groups arrived at the Cathedral.
This is another vantage point I remember from a previous trip…
In 45 minutes this morning it’s been clear skies, raining, and now what I would call ‘alpen glow’ on the Cathedral as the sun breaks through the clouds. 30 seconds later it’s gone…
It’s still early enough to be able to get some clear close-up shots of the Cathedral without large crowds waiting for entry…
9am and Strasbourg is coming to life.
A shop called Hansel and Gretel house in a quiet laneway has come up with a way of attracting visitors – it’s Christmas decorations blow bubbles. It attracts kids and photographers, but I’m not sure that either party spends a lot in the store!
Still time for some more Christmas windows…
I’m too young to be having ‘senior moments’, but manage to have one anyway when I misread my train ticket and miss my train back to Paris. The next two are completely booked out, and the 15:46 train has standing room in 2nd class for 91 euros or 1st class seating for 130 euros. Hmmm, let me think for a minute…that’ll be first class then.
Time to spend the remaining three hours in Strasbourg out in the vastly changeable weather. Drizzling one minute, sunny the next. Overcast one minute, raining the next. I take a tram ride on the same model of tram that runs on the 96 route in Melbourne. This one goes to Hoenheim station, out in the suburbs of Strasbourg. Back in the centre of the city, I wander around ‘Petite France’, or what I recall as ‘Little Venice’. named for the canals winding their way through the city.
There are more Christmas Markets in this area, and it becomes apparent that the markets are dominated by mass-produced products with vendors in each location selling pretty much the same things. There are however a few small markets that specialise in regional produce from as far away as Moscow, and these are mostly food and wine – escargot and truffles anyone? At least the man selling the truffles looks like he might have dug them out himself.
Back in the centre of Strasbourg, Galeries Lafayette has a store with a smaller version of the windows found in the Paris store.
The hotel next door has the obligatory polar bear theme, but also some penguins recognisable as emperors…
Strasbourg is also famous for the Barrage Vauban, a stone weir. It features an art installation on the first level, and has some interesting pieces including contemporary art and recovered stonework and gargoyles.
Far and away the most interesting, and the hardest to photograph, is the levitating glass exoskeleton by Thomasina Giesecke – worth the trip to Strasbourg in it’s own right.
I make sure that I’m at the station in good time for the (packed) train back to Paris. 15 minutes after arriving at Gare de l’Est, I’m back at the apartment in Bastille…now that’s how to run a public transport network.
