it was only a short walk to Gare de Lyon station where we had arrived the previous day. We found the metro and made our way to Gare de L´est, changing over lines at one point. Masters of the Paris metro system!
At the station we got tickets to Strassbourg, which were unfortunately about an hour away from the time we got them. That was okay though since the travel time was only to be about two hours.
The train trip was fine and we arrived at the central station in Strasbourg at about half past 1. The station was quite cool, a curved shape of glass windows, against some green lawns in front. We walked to the hostel, about 20 minutes away, and took in some of the scenery.
The hostel, Ciarus, turned out to be pretty fantastic. Very modern like Wombat in Vienna but with a lot more sophistication to it. The only drawback was no kitchen. The wifi cost 1 euro per day, much better than some, and almost free when it comes down to it (plus, it´s fast). The rooms were extremely nice, fitted out well with sinks and an en-suite, nice new beds and warm covers.
The interesting thing was that it seemed the whole hostel was full of high school kids on tour, in big groups of loud young people. I felt a bit old again. I also noticed that we were pretty much the only English-speaking guests there. I suppose this must not be a popular destination for travellers from the UK and USA, and more for those around the area. It must be a popular school trip destination because of the political significance of the place. Strasbourg is home to the EU council and some other such things.
We were hungry and headed straight out, getting a chat to the folks as we walked out onto the street. It was quite cold here, like it was in Paris the night before. Months of 30 degree weather and now there was a need for us to use our jackets (which had been completely unused so far) and the optional pants now became mandatory. Don´t you love it when pants are optional?
The city was quite beautiful, with the canals lined with trees, and old bridges to cross. It didn't capture me like Prague or Torino, though. We walked down to the main square where the large church is. Lots of lots of tourists, and all maybe 17 years´ old. I think the average age of the city during high tourist season must be 18, and in our hostel it must be 16-17. Really.
Many of the buildings had that fantastic Alsace look, and it gave many photo opportunities,
The church was fairly impressive but we moved on quickly to go find food. There seemed to be some Strasbourg delicacy called Kugelhopf, a large pastry resembling an upside-down mushroom and covered in raisins. They looked pretty good but we decided to get proper food. Many of the restaurants seemed to be closing down by about 2:30 and others were too pricey for us.
We eventually found a little bakery where we got some things similar to those baguette pizza things we had in Krakow. We ate near a small square where there was a large wine cask and some vines. The vines were planted there by the town sometime to commemorate something for someone. Hmmm.
We made our way back up to the church area and then down another road. We found where the boats leave for river tours of the Lil, and we walked up and sat for a bit at a little square with a weird fountain art piece. We headed from there to Little France, an area with a huge concentration of those old-looking houses. On the way we passed a sign pointing to the fish markets, which Emma translated as March of the Fish. I got numerous images of marching hordes of fish in camo fatigues going to overthrow their cruel human oppressors.
The Little France area was quite pretty and every few steps gave another opportunity for taking a photo, to the point where I think I was taking far too many. I actually filled up my camera´s card for the first time (although it was already overdue for a download and I only had about 50 shots left anyway). We stayed and walked through for a while and then started to make our way back to the hostel.
We stopped at a mini-mart on the way back and bought some canned food and stuff for lunch. Back at the hostel we spent a while doing internet things like catching up on blogs and the such.
On two nights of the week, including this night, there were free crepes being made by the hostel. How fantastic! We both had a couple big fresh crepes with jam on them and watched the end of Hellboy (1) which we´d been working our way through before we see the second one.
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