Follow the Iron Road to Strasbourg 5-23-15

We definitely got an early start today as our train was leaving from Gare de l'Est at 07:25.  We jumped on the metro and made it to the station with plenty of time to spare, so we stopped and bought a little travel breakfast of croissants and hot drinks.  We got into the main station to look for our train and track number and as I was standing there I managed to flip my coffee out of my hands and on to the floor.  It landed directly on the top and the cover neatly separated from the cup and shot coffee all over a young couple standing a few feet away, a not so satisfying start to their and my day.  So I trotted back and bought another cup and finished it without issue.

It's about a 2.5 hour train trip on TGV and we were in Strasbourg by about 10:00 am, where we checked with our hotel and found that one room was ready and we could leave our bags.  The medieval part of Strasbourg is very small so a 15 minute stroll had us in the main square in front of the Cathedral, which as we later learned was the tallest building in the world from the 1647 to 1874 at 466 ft ( 142 meters) and is still the tallest structure built during the middle ages.

We bought city passes, which allowed us access to many of the touristic sites, museums, boat rides, bike rides, and walking tours either free or at reduced rates.  So our first venture out was the walking tour.   It had 26 stopping points where our electronic guides told us about that point and some of the history surrounding it.  We saw the wine cellars associated with the medieval hospital that was founded in Strasbourg, beautiful cellars and good (and expensive) wines to be taken out.  But being on foot we resisted.   We had lunch in a little out of the way boulanger which turned out to be very good, quiche Lorainne and green salad with a drink for around 10 euros each.  Next it was on to the canal which surrounds the medieval portion for a walk past the church where Dr. Albert Schweitzer was a pastor and organist, then the hotel where Jean-Jacques Rousseau lived in exile, the church with the tomb of Maurice de Saxe (an admirable soldier and grand-father of George Sand), and finally into an area called Petite France; where many of the tanning houses and water driven mills were located.  They divided the canal into 3 branches and ran mill races under each building to drive the required machinery.   All half-timbered buildings a quite picturesque.  

For dinner we stopped at a restaurant serving Alsatian specialties where it was choucroute and white asparagus for dinner, um um good but way too much to finish.