String Of Butterflies: Strasbourg, France

So to start June off, I went to Strasbourg, France to meet up with Lisa and Steve, yay! This time I didn't take a train leaving at the crack of dawn, so when I finally got there, I actually had some energy. When I walked to Kleber Square trying to find the hotel, I saw Lisa standing outside. It would have been very easy to walk straight past the hotel (Le Kleber) as the front of it was squeezed between two stores. Let me start off with the fact that the hotel has themed floors, and ours happened to be in a fruit motif. Our room was this red monstrosity for strawberries. Red walls, red glass counter in the bathroom, and well, a plastic floor that had at least a 15 degree angle going for it. Needless to say the night stand drawers had trouble staying closed. After setting our belongings down, the trio of us embarked on our weekend journey, starting in Le Petite France. As this was a Saturday, all our fellow tourists were out and about as well. We quickly ducked into a cafe to get a late afternoon snack and enjoyed a sandwich with rocket and chevre cheese on it. Afterwards we walked around a bit more by the river heading over near the University Hospital before heading back to the hotel for a brief break. For dinner we went past Hotel de Ville and went to a nice place called Une Fleur des Champs. I ordered a lovely Rose wine, and an appetizer- vegetable beignet, sooooo delicious. This restaurant had multiple vegetarian options- we really did well. I had a vegetarian lasagna, which was OK, Steve had this massive and beautiful tofu salad, and Lisa had a fish dish of some sort. We split a dessert with cherries, vanilla ice cream, caramel, and chantilly (whipped cream). Perfect way to end the day. We ended up walking about 3 miles by the time Steve started a distance tracking app.

Le Petite France

Steve, Lisa, and I

One of the many carousels

Une Fleur des Champs

So Sunday, it started off lazily. I managed to finish my book that I started the previous evening, and then when went to the cathedral. First off, when we left there was this magical thing called sun! The cathedral was traditional gothic style, very similar to the previous ones I have been to. One difference though is the decorative features was very unique to this cathedral. Evenly spaced were knights and kings on their horses. Another depicted a saint being crucified upside down above the front entrance. We left the hotel so late, we skipped breakfast entirely and proceeded straight to lunch on Rue du Mariquin at Le Gruber. I indulged in a traditional Alsatian non tarte flambee classique vegetarian, which was almost like a thin pizza with fromage on top, thinly sliced onions, tomatoes, and olives. Since I missed my breakfast, I ordered hot chocolate to go along with my tarte. After lunch we walked virtually everywhere in Strasbourg. We walked to the botanical garden, where some frogs were serenading everyone. We also walked to a park (one of the following: Place d' Austerlitz, Place des Bateliers, Place du Pont-aux-Chats), which happened to have a local arts and crafts fair going on. I found a cute pair of earrings and a small little bag. One of the stands had adorable felt vegetable stand, if I had kids, I would have made a few investments, they also had felt macarons in a pretty box. We walked to Eglise St Madeleine, Eglise St Guillaume, Palais Universitaire. We went to Parc de L'Orangerie which is a massive park, which has a mini zoo. There were storks in all the trees, building massive nests, so we now knew where the stork symbol for Strasbourg came from. We walked past Conseil de l'Europe- where monks were walking up the steps of in some sort of celebration. We also passed by an older Parisian who was walking her dog, and she was complaining how everyone mindlessly went to the massive park and sunned themselves, among many other interesting phrases. We ended up walking about 7 miles that day. I started to need food, so somewhere along the river, walking past Englise St Paul, and another church, we passed the US consulate and after crossing the river, I snagged some vanilla ice cream as I was getting cranky from being in the heat and walking so long. Within 5 minutes though, we were back by the cathedral. We picked up some pretzels and walked a few minutes by a carousel before sitting to enjoy the snacks. After going back to our hotel and napping for a while, we crawled out for dinner back by the cathedral.

Le Petite France

Le Gruber

Lisa and Steve

Me at the botanical garden

Botanical garden

Botanical Garden

Hot house at the botanical garden

I spy.... a singing frog

storks

Council of Europe

Horseman

Strasbourg

The cathedral during the day

The cathedral at night

Steve and I at Kleber Square at night

Monday 6/3/13- I woke up before the other two, so I went out and got pain au chocolates, croissants, hot chocolate, and coffee to bring back to the room. I don't think that was expected by Lisa or Steve :) No country makes buttery, flaky croissants like France, I miss them soooooo much. We decided to head to the rest of the outer city that we didn't get to the day before. We went back to Hotel de Ville and the Opera house, and walked across the canal to the Republique. The Republique housed a circular park in the center, and within had a war memorial. On the outer rings of the circle was Palais du Rhin, on the other side was the B.N.U. (national university library) and T.N.S. (national theater). We then headed towards the Palais de Justice, stopping at a cafe called Faleinella to get croissants, tea, and eclair. The Palais de Justice sits right next to Englise Catholique St Pierre-Le-Jeune. We next went to Englise Protestante St. Pierre-Le-Jeune and headed to Le Petite France. Back in little France, the crowds were absent short of a very large tour group or two walking past. We were able to see it in relative peace while we hunted for a much desired crepe shop for 'lunch'. I ended up getting a crepe with Nutella, coconut, peaches, and chantilly, nicely satisfying. We then went through Le Petite France and I ended up finding a cool piece of art, and afterwards we were able to see how the lock works for bringing boats from lower levels to a higher level of water. After that we meandered back to the hotel, because it was time for Lisa and Steve to head to the train station. Once they left, I had time to do a little shopping and visiting about on my own. First stop, a book shop to get myself another book in English for the 5+ hr train ride back. Next, a cute shirt was found in NafNaf and essentials were found in Sephora (there aren't any in Germany, so I had to stock up). I found some cute earrings, and ended up going to a nice cafe near Le Petite France called Salon de The, in La Part The. As the weather was getting colder and colder, I ordered a hot chocolate, and a vegetarian Tarte Salee Jour. The tarte was more like a quiche, set with a creme gelee with tomatoes, onion, broccoli, very delicious. Of course I was reading one of my new books while consuming my delicious pre-dinner meal. After that it was time to go, and just as I collected my belongings from the hotel, the rain started. Luckily it didn't take me long to get to the train station, which looks more like an Olympic stadium from the outside. The train ride back was delayed for both trains, leaving me to run to the second one, and then 20 minutes from Bonn, our train had to stop for mechanical delays, luckily we were able to get to Bonn. All along the Rhine though, there was massive flooding. Some buildings next to the river were easily up to 6-8 feet under water. Hopefully not a whole lot of damage was wrought. May I mention thanks to Lisa and Steve for meeting up with me on their own adventures!