This past Friday was Armistice Day (celebrating the end of WWI), and a national holiday in France. I spent the day in France, Switzerland and Germany, which seemed to cover pretty much every side. This was my first time ever visiting Germany and Freiburg is a cute little town. I was supposed to meet Brooke there at 1pm (leaving from Besançon at 9:40am), but both my train out of Besançon and my connection out of Mulhouse were delayed, which meant I missed my second connection in Basel (see map below for my route):
I went to the ticket counter, worried that this was going to be a crisis. The affable Swiss employee informed me that not only could I just take the next train, but I didn't even need to change my ticket. He was very helpful, but I had a tough time with his Swiss French. Now I better understand why the French always make comments about Swiss French not really being French, the pronunciation was so different that it almost sounded like another language. I guess it's sort of how lots of Americans feel about Canadians speaking English...
I had an hour to kill in Basel, so I figured I do a little exploring. I walked out of the train station only to find.... a Burger King and a Starbucks. Curse you, globalization!! I didn't walk very far, for fear of missing my next train, but I did snap a picture of the Basel train station from the outside:
I got to Freiburg around 2pm and Brooke was all ready to show me the city. After grabbing a snack (brattwurst weiss -- white bratwurst) we climbed up to the top of Freiburg Minster, the cathedral (in German Freiburger Münster). What a cool view!
The inside of the cathedral was pretty neat too, especially the stained glass. There were two roasaces (giant rose-shaped or circular stained glass windows on the front of the cathedral) instead of one, and they were off-center. I've never seen anything like this before. It must have been intentional, or a really huge goof. The cathedral's Wikipedia page offers me no clues, although I did discover Freiburg's French sister city has been Besançon since 1959.
I found the architecture of Freiburg to be really adorable. Of course, as my first excursion to a German city, it's possible that this is the norm for many of them, but I found it novel:
For dinner Brooke and I found a cute little restaurat called Erzherzog Albrecht that seemed to fit our price rage. It ended up being a total bargain: 14 euros for a plate of delicious rahmschnitzel (pork schnitzel) and spaetzel (a type of noodle typical of the Black Forest/Alsace region) and a pint of the local hefeweizen, tip incuded. Brooke's ravioli and local pils were equaly delicious and we left thoroughly satisfied. I thought it was sort of neat that the restaurant was run by a family whose last name is Maier, spelled the same way as my mom's maiden name. If I needed any more confirmation of my German heritage...
The train to Strasbourg took about an hour and a half, and when we arrived I called up Colin, the son of one of the teachers at École Champagne. On Thursday Véronique, said teacher, overheard me telling some of the kids that I was going to Strasbourg with a friend for the weekend. She asked where we would be staying and when I told her a hotel, she offered to call up her son and see if we could stay with him. He and his girlfriend Carole live in Petite France, the most quaint district of Strasbourg. They're both students in the university's architecture school and they were very welcoming. We got in around 9pm and went out with the two of them and Carol's cousin to a café/bar called Jeannette et les Cycleux (where I had planned for us to hae lunch the next day, actually). Carole suggested the 5 of us share a bottle of Pinot Gris, one of the 10 varities of wine grown in Alsace. It was my first time trying Pinot Gris and I thought it was delicious! I had to do quite a bit of translatig for Brooke, since Colin and Carol weren't comfortable speaking very much English, but we made it work.
The next morning Brooke and I set off for the cathedral, which we had seen the night before while walking to the bar. Notre-Dame de Strasbourg is magnificent! It was begun in the early 1200s and completed 200 years later. It's made of the rosy pink sandstone from the nearby Vosges mountains, and, as far as I know, is the only cathedral in France of its hue. It was designed in the gothique rayonnant (high or late Gothic style) ad is considered one of the finest examples of this style. It embodies the Gothic ideal of verticality -- your eyes are practically forced upward. Brooke and I ascended the 330 steps to the platform, which was almost too high up to see Strasbourg properly. I thought the best views were the ones we got looking out of the windows on the way up and down:
Afterward we went inside -- to find the typical gorgeous stained-glass windows, a a unusually bright painted organ and a gigantic astronomical clock (which dates from 1838-1843).
Even though the Christmas markets haven't started yet, there were lots of tourists in Strasbourg for the weekend. Especialy around the cathedral we were constantly surrounded by a crush of people. We did a little exploring; then headed to Jeanette et les Cycleux for lunch. My guidebook recommended their planchette : 10 different meats, cheeses, and toppings served with fresh bread. I thought it might be a fun way for Brooke to sample lots of different things, so we split it:
My favorites were the goat cheese and the bleu Auvergne (local blue cheese). Brooke's were the Munster and Brie.
After luch we headed over to the Office of Tourism and picked up some audio guides to do a self-guided walking tour of the city. It took us around the cathedral, into the courtyard Palais Rohan (designed by the same man who did Versailles and inhabited by Mairie Antoinette and Napoleon, at different times), and along the quais (riverbanks) of the River L'Ill (pronounced LEE-luh), which winds its way through Strasbourg. We had to cut short the walking tour to make it in time for our dégustation (wine tasting).
Above: Brooke in the courtyard of the Palais Rohan.
On the way we made a slight detour into a patisserie, and afterward were very pleased that we did. Brooke also shares my love of macaroons and we purchased the two best I have ever tasted. Brooke's caramel one was particularly sensational (but my chocolate one was superb). We may or may not have tried to go back for another round on Sunday, only to find out we were 30 minutes too late -- probably all the better our waistlines and budgets, but our tastebuds sure were sorry.
I found this wine tasting on the Office of Tourism website. It advertised an hour-and-a-half session tasting four different Alsacia wines: Reisling, Sylvaner, Pinot Noir and Guerwitztraminer for 10 euro. Both Brooke and I thought the session was a success. We did indeed try the 4 different wines and Mr. Arbogast, who conducted the tasting, explained a bit about the history of Alsacian wines and how they differ from other types of French wines. He also had some kuglehopf -- a very traditional Alsacian bread -- for us to try.
We already had a couple of options for diner, but I asked Mr. Arbogast for his recommendations. Unfortunately we weren't the only ones with these recommendatios, and we tried 4 different places before finding one with space before 10pm, Aux Armes de Strasbourg in Place Gutenburg. The food was pretty good, but our table was right by the door and the servers who walked by kept jostling my chair. Overall, the experience was not quite as stellar as I had hoped, but I think Brooke enjoyed her cerf (venison) and I was shocked by how much I enjoyed my choucroute garnie (sauerkraut served with local sausage and ham). Last time I was in Strasbourg I avoided the sauerkraut because it just didn't look appetizing to me. But before I left Steff insisted that I try it, so I gave it a chance. Now I would recommend it too!
While planing our trip last week I discovered there was a jazz festival going on while we were there, so we got tickets to see a three-person group from Switzerland called the Colin Vallon group and consisting of a piantist, a drummer, and a bassist. The concert started at 10:30pm and was held in a little local theater less than a 5 minute walk from our apartment (I forgot to mention, Colin and Carole went to Carole's parents' house for the weekend, so we had the apartment all to ourselves on Saturday and Sunday). As soon as we sat down I knew the concert was going to be tough -- all of that walking around and delicious food meant that I was really sleepy. It turned out, too, that the music was not quitewhat I expected; perhaps my personal definition of jazz is too narrow, but this discordant music was not at all what I would have labeled jazz. It was as if the three musicians were playing entirely separately, without hearing the others. Very, very occasionally their three ryhthms would overlap and the creation would be auditorially pleasing. But most of the time my ear was straining to find any kind of similarity or concordace. That is, when I wasn't fighting the urge to fall asleep. When I looked over Brooke appeared to be in the same state. So, at 11:45pm we admitted defeat and headed home. Bed felt so good!!
Sunday was an abbreviated day -- we did a boat tour of the city at 10:30am, did some quick last-minute shopping for gifts, did some more exploring around the city and had lunch at a restaurant from my guidebook, Flam's. This place specialized in flammenkuche, another Alsacian specialty. It's similar to a thin-crust pizza, and the basic recipe involves gruyere cheese, onions, little pieces of ham on top of a base of creme fraiche. Brooke ordered the "Flam of the Moment" (with potatoes and I don't remember what else) and I ordered the fromager (cheese special). They brought each of ours out as half-and-half, so that we would both be able to eat them hot out of the oven. It was just as delicious as the guidebook promised!
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