Strasbourg, Germany and Home

We just returned from a trip to Strasbourg via
the train.  Jeff, Alec and I took the train down
to Strasbourg on Thursday.

waiting for the train in Metz

gee, thanks mom for the lunch

We arrived in Strasbourg, a city
"founded by the Romans in 12 BCE(the city of roads)

 has always occupied a strategic position in Europe."

http://www.otstrasbourg.fr/article.php?id_article=30&url_ret=rubrique.php?id_rubrique=23 

train station in Strasbourg
the front is completely enveloped
by a glass arch

Open is one word to describe Strasbourg;  wide open

cobbled streets where cars are not allowed;  only a tram

crosses the center area of Strasbourg.    

 Canals encircle Petite France where numerous restaurants

 and boutiques

dot the area.

petite france

         

amazing rooflines

bicycles are alive and well
in Strasbourg

 

water too high in the canal
for a boat tour

lunch anyone?

  

Alec and Jeff scoping out a place
to eat....again

this looks like a good
restaurant dad

Alec likes tarte flambée, closest thing to Pizza he can find.

Johannes Gutenburg
inventor of moveable type
 printing letterpress 

notre dame cathedral 

 Notre Dame cathedral   "is an absolute masterpiece of  Gothic art.  

The first stone was laid in 1015 and the spire was completed in 1439."

http://www.otstrasbourg.fr/article.php?id_article=32&url_ret=rubrique.php?id_rubrique=25 

There are hundreds of sculptures surrounding the exterior

of the cathedral.

 

.

I often think of the sculptors, working high

upon the Cathedral Walls, placing gargoyles that

only they could see clearly at close range.

Within the cathedral is the astronomical clock "from

the Renaissance period and the mechanism which 

dates from 1842."

http://www.otstrasbourg.fr/article.php?id_article=33

     

" The Astronomical Clock, a masterpiece of the Renaissance, 

is the product of a collaboration between artists, 

mathematicians and technicians, Swiss watchmakers,

sculptors, painters and designers of automata."

http://www.otstrasbourg.fr/article.php?id_article=33   

 

            

We also visited the Palais Rohan where we walked through

time within the walls of the archaeological museum, which 

include "several millennia of the history of Alsace, from

 600,000 BC to 800 AD;  a treasure trove of artifacts.

oil lamps, roman

dangling from my ears are
replicas of these horses

funerary urn
(Jeff now wants a casket,
he is afraid of what I would make for
an urn!)

no, South Carolina did not invent
face jugs.

Rachel and Ludo joined us Friday evening for

supper with friends.  On Saturday, Jeff and Alec

stayed in Strasbourg;  flea markets and more food!;

and of course, continued education.

Rachel, Ludo and I, along with Christian and Odele,

friends of Rachel, went to Baden  Baden, Germany

to see an exhibit by 

who "is one of the most important contemporary artists in 

Germany and worldwide."

http://www.museumspass.com/dn_expositions-temporaires-allemagne/exp-fr-anselm-kiefer-15-560.html?setLang=fr

His work is monumental and defies description.

Anslem Kiefer

It is amazing that, within an hour, I went from walking the

streets of Strasbourg, France to experiencing 

Kiefer's massive paintings in his homeland of Germany. 

Baden Baden, Germany

Joan Miro sculpture

women 

men

Back to Strasbourg  Saturday evening to catch the train home to Metz.

   

I think we will definitely return in warmer weather to 

tour the canals by boat, take the tram out to see

the European Parliament buildings and  the botanical garden

 and to walk the streets again.