Strasbourg

I used the throwaway camera for most of Strasbourg and was going to rely on buying a souvenir book, so I don't have much right now.

I found the newer part interesting looking as we drove through it. Strasbourg is a center for the European Union. We were left off in the designated area for buses to load and unload passengers and given strict instructions to be back, since the bus couldn't wait. We tagged along with Lise, who handed out maps and rehearsed with all of us where we were.

As we crossed the bridge over to the old part of the city, which is on an island surrounded by canals and the River Ill, she pointed out the carving on this building and noted that the half timbering was considered cheap construction, so they'd add the carving to disguise the timbers underneath and look more upscale. That half-timbering--at least so much of it--wasn't something I found as attractive as the simplicity of the stucco around Bitche, but it was interesting to see the old buildings wedged in between each other and the crazy angles of the horizontal beams.

We went to the cathedral and we agreed to go have lunch at the place Lise suggested and then come back to the church. We went to a cafeteria place where a number of us all got separated. It was a good deal but I didn't understand what was included in the meal and ended up with a good but pricey meal. Liz and I wandered up from our solitary cellar to find the group. I wanted to find an ATM and a throw away camera and Liz needed film, so Liz and I agreed to meet the group in front of the church at 1 and set off with Nancy Sommer.

It was easy to accomplish our mission in plenty of time, so we waited at the church, joined by George and Diane Byrnes. Mysteriously, the hour passed and no group. We decided by 1:30 that it was time to move on into the church since the weather was raw and the beggars were persistent. Just as our eyes were getting adjusted to the dark interior and I was pointing out to Liz the "beware of pickpockets" signs that were everywhere inside, some of the others showed up--Bill McNutt had had his pocket picked at the cafeteria! So Lise, Bill, and Lorraine were "touring" the town via the tram to the police station and calling his credit card company. Luckily, Lorraine had their passports and most of the cash.

We checked out the cathedral and the clock (I'm hoping Liz has some good pictures of that). It was interesting, but somehow it wasn't as moving as I'd found Chartres and Notre Dame. A different school of Gothic architecture with very different proportions to the cathedral.

As we left, Bill Moseley noticed this piece of graffiti on the church (lower right)--

Liz and I used the hour that we had left just to wander around and get a feeling for the old quarter. It was interesting, but perhaps it was the beggars and the pickpockets or the weather, I didn't get as good an impression of it as I'd hoped. It was so much about tourists, with lots of expensive shops and wall-to-wall restaurants and bistros. It felt like a false front behind which no one lived, perhaps because there was little sign that it was still a residential district. We didn't see a tabac or a grocery store.

We stopped for a coffee and a pastry--and the pastry was really disappointing and the combination really expensive. A neighborhood joint couldn't survive with mediocre expensive coffee and pastry. Encountering that place was probably bad luck, but it didn't help our feeling that the place had negative karma.

If the weather had been nicer and we'd been confident that we had the time, we would have tried to take the boat ride, which was reported to be very good. I know others found Strasboug really beautiful, but I preferred our home in Bitche.

John S. had stayed back in Bitche with Shep. They went up to the golf course looking for his Maginot fortress. It was much like Simserhof. It had the railroad track and cars and some of the same machinery. Especially the row of compressed air machines. John and his buddy were checking it out in the dark. They were walking on something underfoot for a ways. Finally they lit matches to see and there was an entire railroad car that had tipped over and spilled concussion grenade detonators everywhere. Cal Norman laughed as John told this. "That could have been an explosion heard in Berlin!"

John, "I never walked so gingerly in my life trying to get out of there."

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