Our tour guide extraordinaire, Maxime, had too much work with the hotel re-opening today, but he very generously lent us his car and sent us off to Strasbourg with a map. Rodney and I both found it really strange being on the right side of the road, but with our front-seat positions reversed. With Rodney now on the centre white line and me in the gutter, we found ourselves wandering occasionally too close to the gutter; all the time he has driven Eileen in Europe, he has driven perfectly positioned in the right lane. We stuck to the motorway in to Strasbourg and fortunately managed to find a car park fairly close to the cathedral.
We had a huge continental breakfast in an old café and nearly managed to eat it all, then we strolled off around the lovely half-timbered city.
We managed to get inside the enormous and dark cathedral for a good look around before they closed it at 11:22am, after that you have to pay to go inside because the huge astronomical clock ‘does its thing’ at midday and there is a short documentary beforehand. It seemed very strange seeing so many tourists being shooed out of a cathedral, but we followed the flock……
We spent hours wandering the streets, gazing up at all the old buildings and enjoying the ambience of the city, especially when the morning showers had passed over. Then we nipped back to Max’s car before the car park ticket ran out and drove back to Obernai. There is an enormous cross on a hill above Obernai, a World War II memorial; we stayed up there for quite a while gazing out at the enormous view over the city and valley below.
After a bit of a rest and the first bath in ages, back in our lovely room, we wandered along to the restaurant. We ate a really lovely meal, which somehow ended up being three courses, plus extras, and the we waddled out to the bar to meet Max; both of us feeling like a couple of stuffed geese. The only drink we could manage in the bar was a coffee for Rodney and a mint tea for me. We were so full and swore we would eat nothing the next day!