Holly's visit - Strassbourg

Dear All,
After we left Klingen we drove to the city of Strassbourg, which is in Alsace and present day France.  This city has been either German or French multiple times, and is a very old city.  We arrived after dark, checked into our hotel, and went immediately to (yup you guess it) the Christmas market.  Our hotel was in a great location and was only a 10 minute walk from the city center.  Strassbourg was several times French and the next day German and vice-verse.  The interesting thing about this change is that oft times the new government would require the inhabitants to speak the language of the conquering country, and to be called by their name in the new language.  For example today my name is Johann, tomorrow I must go by Jean until the German's win the next war, then it's back to Johann.  Strassbourg is a pretty town with many beautiful old parts and old buildings such as the one below and many cultures.

This beautiful wood carved building belonged once to a very successful merchant and is on the corner of the cathedral square.

This is the famous cathedral which has only 1 of the designed towers.  The exact reason  the 2nd tower was not added has now been lost to time.  The construction of the building took about 250 years.

This is the inside of the cathedral looking from the altar.  You can see the pulpit in the lower right hand corner, and the Rose stained glass window in the back.

This is the organ between the Rose window and the pulpit.

This is an astronomical clock which tells the time, the day,  the season, and the year.  It is the only astronomical clock in a church that we know about.

The next few pictures are from a section of town called La Petite France   This is Holly walking towards the house, the house is directly on the river.

These houses are call 'Fach Houses" because they are made of wood and then mud or plaster stuck into a lattice of twigs between the wood beams.  These houses were probably built in the 17th and 18 hundreds. and they are painted periodically which enhances their natural beauty.


You can see the lock used to raise or lower the water for boat transport.



Many of these old homes have been converted to restaurants now.



This area did not get destroyed in the war.  Look at how beautiful Germany must have been at one time.

We enjoyed this day in Strassbourg and all we saw, and Mom and Holly enjoyed all they purchased.  I have put into these blogs only a dusting of all the pictures taken while Holly was here.  We took a couple hundred pictures, but Holly probably took over a 1,000.  The pictures may fade with time, but our memories will remain and be enjoyed many times over.