During our trip we have visited some well preserved old towns. Brugges, Cesky Krumlov and Strasbourg. They all have an element of the theme park about them. The old town is restored and maintained in a particular way, and it is surrounded by the "real" modern-day town.
That said, all are fabuous glimpses of what most European towns would have looked like hundreds of years ago. They are all excellent travel destinations.
The superlatives are getting a bit over-used. Apologies.
The trouble is that they are all deserved - this whole holiday has been . . . (fill in your own) .
Strasbourg is magnifique.
As we walked to the hotel, we noticed that there was a really nice vibe in the town. There were plenty of tourists, but not too many. The buildings were enough to make us stop and say "Look at that!" on several occasions. People were smiling.
We dumped that bags and went just around the corner to the cathedral. A magnificent piece of architecture, both inside and out.
The facade of the cathedral is covered in a lacework of stone. The spire consists entirely of stone lacework. It looks very delicate, complex and graceful.
The tourist information centre gave us a town map which had a list of the top 10 sights. Something of which I would normally be rather wary - lots of people all going around to take the same picture of the same place.
On Monday morning we thought "Let's be a little bit silly, and do them in numerical order" - so we did that until siesta time, around mid-afternoon.
Later we went out and had dinner at one of the nicest squares I have ever visited. Good food, great location, excellent company.
I was going to put in a photo here, but the connection is so slow and I don't have a photo editor to resize my photos before loading them. I tried using the GIF format to see if it would be faster. It took about 20mins -and then it didn't show - all I got was a blank box with an X in the corner. I just can not do it again.
On Tuesday we were going to travel to Paris mid-morning, but when we went to make the reservation (which is compulsory for the TGV) the person behind the counter said that there were a limited number of seats allocated for Eurail passengers and that there were no seats available from Strasbourg to Paris. At all. All day.
They did suggest travelling to Nancy on an inter-city train and getting the TGV from there - which we could do if we left at 3:30pm. OK. So we had a very relaxing day checking out the last few of the Top 10. The last one was completely obscured by scaffold.
The train to Nancy left late and so we missed the connection and had to wait two hours in Nancy for the next TGV.
It was brilliant! The sun was low in the sky and the countryside looked absolutely beautiful. Villages were bathed in evening light. The sun / shadows on the crops was an impressionists dream.
When we arrived in Paris at 10:15, it was just getting dark. I was totally disoriented when we came out of the metro and we found the hotel more by good luck than good management.
That said, all are fabuous glimpses of what most European towns would have looked like hundreds of years ago. They are all excellent travel destinations.
The superlatives are getting a bit over-used. Apologies.
The trouble is that they are all deserved - this whole holiday has been . . . (fill in your own) .
Strasbourg is magnifique.
As we walked to the hotel, we noticed that there was a really nice vibe in the town. There were plenty of tourists, but not too many. The buildings were enough to make us stop and say "Look at that!" on several occasions. People were smiling.
We dumped that bags and went just around the corner to the cathedral. A magnificent piece of architecture, both inside and out.
The tourist information centre gave us a town map which had a list of the top 10 sights. Something of which I would normally be rather wary - lots of people all going around to take the same picture of the same place.
On Monday morning we thought "Let's be a little bit silly, and do them in numerical order" - so we did that until siesta time, around mid-afternoon.
Later we went out and had dinner at one of the nicest squares I have ever visited. Good food, great location, excellent company.
I was going to put in a photo here, but the connection is so slow and I don't have a photo editor to resize my photos before loading them. I tried using the GIF format to see if it would be faster. It took about 20mins -and then it didn't show - all I got was a blank box with an X in the corner. I just can not do it again.
On Tuesday we were going to travel to Paris mid-morning, but when we went to make the reservation (which is compulsory for the TGV) the person behind the counter said that there were a limited number of seats allocated for Eurail passengers and that there were no seats available from Strasbourg to Paris. At all. All day.
They did suggest travelling to Nancy on an inter-city train and getting the TGV from there - which we could do if we left at 3:30pm. OK. So we had a very relaxing day checking out the last few of the Top 10. The last one was completely obscured by scaffold.
The train to Nancy left late and so we missed the connection and had to wait two hours in Nancy for the next TGV.
It was brilliant! The sun was low in the sky and the countryside looked absolutely beautiful. Villages were bathed in evening light. The sun / shadows on the crops was an impressionists dream.
When we arrived in Paris at 10:15, it was just getting dark. I was totally disoriented when we came out of the metro and we found the hotel more by good luck than good management.
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