New Year in Strasbourg

We left Austria and drove north west - even making a brief appearance in Leichtenstein and then Switzerland for lunch (at the Movenpick cafe)...the good old Swiss still rolling with the Swiss Franc just to be difficult..

We whizzed through Switzerland past Zurich and Basel and back into France to Strasbourg - not a bad effort to take in 4 countries in one day!  A couple of obligatory photos of Switzerland:

After settling in at the apartment, it was time for a TV dinner of thai chicken curry: 

The next day, after baguette and croissants for breakfast (wooohoooo, we were relishing our last hurrah in France after the great Austrian food fail!) we went to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art which was just around the corner. No Giacomettis, which Harv and I have been on the lookout for, but not a bad old collection of big names, plus an awesome contemporary section.

We even found "the Thinker" - I hadn't realised there are actually 12 original sculptures by Rodin, one of which is this one, all in various galleries all around the world, including the Rodin museum in Paris.

  

 

In Kandinsky's music room, the goons even enjoyed  an audio-visual extravaganza :  

 

The dog installation is called "The Voice of his Master" - I had to take a photo as his expression  reminds me of Lup Lup Leiwaaaaazen!

 

After that we wandered through the old town on the Grand Ile of Strasbourg, starting at the fingers of water around the area known as La Petite France which is very picturesque. We all agreed (as we passed the many patisseries) that it was great to be back in France  - although the German influence here is clear. They say that Strasbourg, with its location on the banks of the Rhine in Alsace - which the two counties have scrapped over for centuries - now walks a perfect line between France and Germany. Since World War II it has been a symbol of hope for peace between the two countries and across Europe - the European Parliament and other European Institutions are here. 

 

We kept wandering until we got to the beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral - the scale and intricacy of it is breathtaking - impressive even after having seen quite a few cathedrals over the last few months..

 

  

Then we wandered towards the Place Kleber and stumbled into, wouldn't you know it, CLAIRE's - Zoe's favourite shop which has been talked about ad infinitum since she first came across it in Perigeux, then Toulouse. There were squeals of excitement from both girls and nothing but dust as they ran towards it.....it took a while to get them out of there, but then we cruised around the square, up to the Christmas Atelier and down again where we followed the smell of waffles until we found them....best chocolate waffles ever!

It was 5pm New Year's Eve all of a sudden and time for a drink!! We had a few drinks in a wine bar and then found out that oddly a lot of the restaurants closed for a few hours before opening again for the evening. So it was not looking good for us until we came around the corner to L' Academie de la Biere like a beacon in the darkness - it was cosy and bustling, with an elaborate beer menu & even some local rugby on TV - happy days... quite a bit of Uno/Dobble ensued.

  

By about 9pm we were done, so it was home for a movie - Billy Madison -  Bill was out voted on the movie choice by 4-1 and then tried to keep the party alive by getting stuck into the red wine, but by 9.30 Amelia had made me a cup of tea which we had with our jam biscuits ....we were really going off on New Year's Eve!

We had a very lazy New Year's Day morning and didn't make it out until about 1.30pm. We did a bit more cruising around, found another Academie de la Biere and more waffles! Then home for another chilled night - and that was a wrap! Goodbye France, it's been awesome...

 

 

Zoe says: I loved Strasbourg so much because it was so fun - we went to the museum and we saw lots of cool paintings. After that we went and got a waffle - it was deeeeeelicious.  We also found Claire's - as soon as I saw it me and Amelia ran straight to it but I ended up not buying anything. Amelia bought a make up kit for 7 euros. Academie de la Biere was so cool and guess what? We even found two of them.

Amelia says: Strasbourg was superb - the first thing we did was go to the Museum of Modern Art where one of the original Thinkers officially stands. The other things we did were visit the cathedral, go on the panoramic bridge and lots of other cool stuff. Then we came home and watched Forrest Gump - it's very sad but very cool. One of our favourite quotes is that movie is : "Run Forrest Run" and "Life is like a box of chocolates". If you have ever seen the movie I think you will agree that they are some of the funniest quotes. Another movie we watched was Billy Madison - this was on New Year's Eve. We did a mini sweet shop for mum and dad. It ended up that Dad owed us 4 euros but apparently he can never get around to it - yeah right dad.

Harvey says: Strasbourg was very cool - I loved the art museum. I didn't know that there are actually 12 original "Thinkers". New Year's Eve was really fun except there weren't many restaurants open early - none of us stayed up until midnight. It was a really good place for sleep-ins!