France

Champagne Region

Just a little video to show some of the activates Pam & I have been up to, mainly drinking Champagne

Last dinner in Strasbourg

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Far too much food, far too full…

All up about 64 Euro

Dinner at ……

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Quaint little place with lots of packed in small tables.

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We both had the snails for starter, I then had a local dish which was Chicken cooked with Riesling with a mushroom sauce and ……. Pam had a local meatball dish…

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I had a boysenberry tart, and Pam a Crème Brulee.

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We shared a bottle of Pinot Gris.

All up about 75 Euro.

Academy of the Beer

Along our walk we found a bar called the Academy of Beer and since it was 4pm on Friday we stopped in for a beer.

The beers were expensive at ~ 7 Euro for 500ml.

The Menu

Delirium Tremens

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We had:

  • Delirium Tremens – 8.5%
  • Tripel Karmeliet – 8.4%

Pam did not really like either of them, but I enjoyed the Tripel Karmeliet more than the Delirium Tremens.

Hotel de Arts

The hotel is positioned well in the old historic section of the city right outside are all the restaurants.

The room is pokey small especially after Sablet, the view from the room is nice and has a partial view of the river.

The view from the room

Off to a castle

We had to pick up our rental car today even though we do not leave until tomorrow because the train station car rental is not open on a Sunday and the one at the airport only opens from 2pm on a Sunday far too late for us to leave Strasbourg.

We have again a Citron DS5 so that is nice.

We decided since we had the car that we needed to go somewhere and we choose Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle

The castle was built in a very specific manner – actually, in a way, it was carved in into the rocks standing on the top of the mountain as to preserve its natural strategic and defensive position. Although rebuilt in 19th century as a replica of the original castle situated on the same spot, Haut-Koenigsbourg offers a unique and indeed authentic impression of castle life led during the middle ages. The castle is divided into two parts – the upper and the lower courtyard. The upper part, the one which is today a private part of the castle, was reserved for the owner of the castle, his family and their highly ranked guests. The lower part of the castle was the home of craftsmen, servants and their families, and also a place where accidental travellers could find a warm refuge to spend a night in. The castle, due to its quite isolated position and common sieges, owned its own windmill, animal farm and storage rooms with wine, wheat, and other groceries essential for the life inside of the walls. All of this can still be seen today.

Today was rainy and not a good time to visit a castle on a high hill – about 700 meters.

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Very misty and ethereal looking….

A ticket to go inside was 8 Euro and since we had not spent much on this type of thing we decided to go ahead and buy the ticket.

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Inside the Strasbourg Cathedral

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and back outside

a gargoil on the stone  Intrique art

A little market on Saturday

Just down the road about 50 meters there is a market on a Saturday – it starts about 8am to 12pm. Mostly books and antiques but some foods as well.

Bread and mushrooms  Mushrooms  Honey Stall

The first mushrooms we found other than normal button mushrooms. This guy above had Oyster mushrooms and a few other types. We bought some for our time in Champagne region which starts on Sunday.

A few cheeses  Veges - they love raddishes  Meat stall

Fish Stall  Antiques 

Coffee Shop  Coffee Shop with Pam

After the market we stopped in for a coffee, 2 euro each – and ok, better than yesterdays 2 euro coffee but nothing on Lucianoes in Christchurch.

Strasbourg Cathedral

Strasbourg Cathedral

Strasbourg Cathedral or the Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg, also known as Strasbourg Minster, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Strasbourg, Alsace, France.

It is 142 meters high and opened in 1439, making it currently 575 years old. The building of this cathedral started in 1176 and completed in 1439 a total of 263 years.

Strasbourg Cathedral Heights

It is incredibly detailed

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Arriving in Strasbourg

We waited 3 hours for our next flight and then it was time to board. We had row 26 which ended up being the last row in the aircraft. It was quite small with only 2 x 2 seat configuration and 26 rows.

Just before the plane was to leave they called my name our and I went up and they had changed our seats to row 3.

As I was walking up we could see that almost all of the passengers were from about row 12 to row 26. And only a few up the front so we moved and that was good. No bigger but it felt better sitting there.

We arrived about 9:30pm and collected our bags, it appeared somewhere from Marseille they had cut our locks off the bags – but there was no note/reason and nothing looked stolen.

We were quite tired by this point and caught a cab to the hotel – 47 Euro – quite steep, more than the 35 euro we were told by the person at the information desk at the airport.

It was still lively outside the hotel when we arrived, and because it was almost 10pm when we got to the hotel door and pressed the buzzer we were told the reception had closed and we had to go down to another hotel to pickup our key. It was only about 80 meters away, but it was odd dragging our bags around on the cobbles while people were eating at the café’s.

We got the key and trundled back to our little hotel door and up to our room. It is definitely very small, about the size of a small bedroom but not too bad with a partial view over the river only 30 meters away.

Since it was so late and we had not eaten much except for some bread in the morning we were keen to get some before everything closed. Well we looked around at a couple of places and then checked if they were still serving food. 3 restaurant's said they were no longer serving dinner and we thought we were out of luck but we found a little place that was still serving dinner.

I ordered a Salmon & green lentil dish, and pam ordered Pig Checks cooked in Pinot with Potatoes.

We ordered a couple of beers and could start to relax again. The dishes came quite quickly and they were very full so the kitchen was working overtime.

The food was good, and the beers were slightly sweet but enjoyable, more so for me than Pam who was looking for lighter beer.

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