Our European Adventure: Strasbourg, France "Capitale de Noël"

The weekend before New Years Ryan and I took an overnight trip to Strasbourg, France. This was our first visit to France and a 2-hour drive made for a nice weekend getaway. The city was founded in 1262 and is quaintly known as Capitale de Noël or the Capital of Christmas. Strasbourg has been hosting Christmas markets in Kléber Square since 1570 and now boasts to have an astonishing 12 Christmas markets spread throughout the city.

Kléber Square

One of the landmarks we could see from almost anywhere in the city was a marvelous cathedral known as "Cathédrale Notre Dame de Strasbourg". The detail carved in the sandstone facade was remarkable. On our tour we discovered cathedral construction began in 1176 and was completed in 1439. The building stands 466 feet tall and is the sixth tallest church in the world.

Much of our time in Strasbourg was spent walking around the city. We were able to utilize the cities extensive tram service to assist us from downtown to our hotel. Our favorite part of the city was the “Petite France Quarter”. In this district of Strasbourg we enjoyed the Covered Bridges, Barrage Vauban, and scenic views of homes built in 16^th and 17^th centuries. The old houses reflecting in the cannel water of the Ill River made this a picturesque location. We walked across several bridges linking the arms of the Ill River. These bridges are known as the “Covered Bridges”. The 4 stone towers atop these bridges are all that remain of the medieval covered bridge built in the 14^th century. We marveled at the panoramic views of the city from the top of Vauban Barrage or “Great Lock”. This is one of the only buildings that remain of the defensive dam built to protect the city in the 17^th century.

Ill River At Night

I hope you all enjoyed a little history from our visit to Strasbourg. We had a great time on our adventure and I will now leave you with 3 important lessons we learned on our journey. #1 Make sure your GPS is loaded with maps of the country you plan to visit (sadly it took over an hour to find our hotel as the GPS wanted us to make a u-turn and head back to Germany). #2 When walking on cable stone streets make sure you wearing good shoes. #3 It cost us 2 Euro to have our windows washed at a stop light (You will have to ask Ryan more about that one).