My Solo Excursions: Strasbourg, France

One morning while visiting Mr X in Germany I rented a car and drove myself across the border to spend some quality time in France. I love France. The only car I could get just happened to be nearly the size of a minivan, which really stinks in Europe where the lanes and the parking spaces are painfully small. But I was just happy that it had a built in GPS system...otherwise I probably would have been too chicken to go. (Without a GPS I am sure I would have gotten hopelessly lost on the way there and ended up calling Mr X from the side of a road who-knows-where sobbing buckets of tears.) Anyway, I made it to Strasbourg quickly and efficiently - too quickly because I ended up getting a speeding ticket. The next challenge was finding parking for my enormous vehicle. I ended up driving like a mad woman, around in circles all over town, seemingly almost always in the wrong direction but eventually I found a good place to park.

I had to cross the Île River via the Ponts-Couverts, located at the end of Petit France (that's the area of Strasbourg located on the Grand Île (the Main Island). Below is a good photo of what it looks like, courtesy of wikipedia.

This is the beginning of Petite France (the rest are my photos):

I wandered around for a couple of hours, perusing the delightful shops and gazing in awe at the quaint architecture and cobblestone streets.

Eventually all that aimless walking made my stomach grumble so I stopped in here for a bite to eat:

I enjoyed a savory flammekueche for my meal, it's a specialty of the region. (I had it once before the last time I visited Strasbourg, but this particular one was much more delicious - I don't know why.)

After my meal, I made my way through Place Kleber and then toward the famous Strasbourg Cathedral in Petite France. Below is just a picture of a well known building adjacent to the cathedral...I'd tell you what it was called but I forgot. Sorry.

This is a clock face on the outside of the cathedral. I'm showing you the picture because later I climbed up one of the towers and saw the inner workings of this clock.

I'm a sucker for stained glass photos and I take pictures of them wherever I go. This is from the inside of the cathedral.

I decided that I needed to burn of some of the macaroons that I munched on earlier that day so I opted to climb the bazillion stairs to the top of the cathedral tower. It took a really long time and I had to stop and catch my breath a few times. (Incidentally the next day my thighs were SO SORE from this climb.) Here are the stairs:

I stopped several times on the way up to rest a bit and of course I snapped pictures like crazy. So here we go - you can tell how far I'm getting up based on the pictures.

The last area before I reached the top was where the inner workings of the clock were. I thought it was very deserving of a photo.

Here's the top of the tower (unfortunately you can't go ALL the way up):

And of course, a view from the top:

PS - I bought so many macaroons in Strasbourg that the shop actually gave me a frequent-macaroon-eater card. After the 7th dozen, I could get a dozen free. I tried to convince Mr X to go back after I left a few times so he could score that free bag but he's not as disgustingly addicted to sugar as me, bless his heart.

My Solo Excursions: Heidelberg Germany

While I was visiting Mr X he still had to do work during the weekdays, of course. So I ventured out alone several times. Sometimes it was just me wandering about the local town. But for a couple days I took of for the entire day to run around on my own. The first day I successfully navigated the public transportation system and treated myself to Heidelberg, Germany. It's a lovely town so I took loads of photos. Mr X had already visited there a couple months before I got there, when there was still snow on the ground. If the picture has no snow, it's from my trip. If there is snow, it's Mr X's.

The above picture was taken during Mr X's trip because he was lucky enough to get to take the funicular up to the top of the hills behind the city where the ruins of the castle were. (See the first picture for a view of this.) I desperately wanted to take the funicular because I had never ridden on one before but it was closed for repairs when I visited the city. I had to take the stairs:

Here are various pictures of the castle:

This (obviously) was taken from inside the castle. I have this weird obsession with spiral staircases.

This was the entrance to one of the many bridges crossing the river that winds through the city. It was built a VERY long time ago.

This is a picture of the place where I had lunch. It was one of my favorite German meals. It was Käsespätzle . Fantastic.

I obviously didn't take the picture of the food below - but this is pretty much what kasespatzle looks like. I even found a link to a recipe although it just looks like too much work to me.