If you are like us, we knew little to nothing of the city. To begin our tour we went on a 75 minute canal cruise as the old part of Strasbourg is something like a form of Venice. The wonderful old buildings were all built because of water access.
Today we enter the canals at a point where the European Union has two of their important centres here:
The Law Courts
and the Parliament Building
The glass-domed canal boat was not good for photos but here are a couple taken along the way:
Stepping ashore we head towards the Cathedral:
Summer means flowers - and they hang or are boxed everywhere. They bring such colour to the city.
And here we are at the square in front of the Cathedral
And the Cathedral exterior
This detail is found in the frieze above the door. It, of course, includes lions (which I adore)
The interior...
An amazing clock...
and the organ loft...
Being Saturday this was market day, so the streets were filled with pedestrians, stall holders and the regular store shoppers.
Even as we walked to our bus there were more canals. The city was an eye-opener to us particularly of their importance to the EEC, the fact that some of the best cultural television programs come out of the Arte cultural alliance based there, that it's a very important student city and that it's wonderful old buildings are very well preserved. It's nice to be so delightfully surprised.
But for now it's back to the boat for the trip to Speyer and Heidelberg.
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