Adventures in Strasbourg and the Loire Valley! Part One

In France, the school systems do this wonderful thing where they give the students a week off in February (and two more in April!). So, last Saturday my friend Grace and I left Arras to begin our February break in Strasbourg, where we stayed until Wednesday morning!

Alsace

We arrived Saturday night around 7:45 after an hour train ride from Arras to Paris Nord, and then a two-hour ride from Paris Nord to Strasbourg. Our first goal was finding our hostel, which was actually easier than we anticipated, and once we checked in for the night we decided to stay in and relax before starting our explorations the next day. Our hostel was decent; it was very clean, we had two twin beds and a private bathroom, but unfortunately no TV or Internet. It actually ended up being kind of fun without having any outside connections to the world, yet it was also a bit of a bummer to not be in contact with my friends or family. But, it all worked out and now I know that I can go three and a half days without Internet, so that was comforting.

The River Ill with the mist!

When we left the hostel Sunday morning (after eating a continental breakfast that we paid 2 euro for), it was very cloudy and a little foggy/misty. This added atmosphere definitely added to the beauty of this old city. Nothing was creepy, it wasn’t a fog/mist from a horror film, but it definitely made everything a little more ethereal and interesting. However, Strasbourg is absolutely gorgeous. I can’t really say it any other way than that, but it is so true. As it has historically been fought over between Germany and France (it is super close to the German border), there are influences from both countries on the architecture, culture, food, and the language. The exposed-timber houses had a very old-world feel to them, the street signs were all in French and German, and beer has a greater presence than wine here.

Our plans were basically just to wander the city, visit a couple museums, and try to not look too touristy and speak the language as best as we could. I think we succeeded in this, as we really enjoyed all of the (free) beautiful sights just from walking around and we never spoke English to any one besides each other. Seeing as we were fed and well taken care of, I believe that we were pretty successful too in our language endeavors.

Exposed-timber houses on the river

German/French signs, also part of the canal lock system

Petite France

The church that came out from the mist

The River Ill borders the main part of the city, and so there are a lot of bridges and canals and boats in Strasbourg as well. We walked a lot around the river and got to see more pretty houses and a really cool church that kind of came out of nowhere after a slight turn of the river. With this natural border, it was so much easier to navigate the city (which is the ninth largest city in France) than I had anticipated; everything is located in a relatively narrow diameter. For example, we went to Petite France on Monday and we were totally surprised after we walked through it to see the steeple of the Notre Dame cathedral so very close. A fun story about Petite France: it is named as such because in the 14^th or 15^th century, the citizens of Strasbourg would send anyone with syphilis to that section of Strasbourg. Syphilis at the time was known as the disease of France, and so that section was named “Petite France.” Fun times.

Petite France

The Notre Dame of Strasbourg is stunning; when we first came upon it Sunday morning in the mist, Grace and I were speechless. It is made out of a red, orange, and brown stone and has so many intricate designs and statues, and the steeple towers over everything else in the city. It practically was disappearing in the mist and clouds that first morning, which was pretty awesome and a great photo opportunity. I think that the façade is more interesting than Notre Dame of Paris and that the Strasbourg Notre Dame is definitely the most beautiful.

Our first glance of the cathedral

We were able to visit a lot of really cool museums in Strasbourg, which offered some nice student discounts too! At the Alsatian History Museum we were able to be inside a traditional exposed-timber house while also checking out different aspects of Alsatian/Strasbourg life throughout the years. I really enjoyed just walking around the house itself because the different rooms become a little complicated but are also really pretty, and the structure of the house is so different from what we see in the States. The Palais Rohan offered three museums in one building: the museum of decorative arts, of Beaux Arts, and an archaeological museum with artifacts from the Alsatian region. Grace and I enjoyed seeing the different rooms in the decorative arts museum; she got a lot of inspiration for her future mansion. The Beaux Arts museum had a lot of pretty frames, which sounds really dumb at first, but the frames used from the Renaissance especially are absolutely gorgeous to me. I was slightly creeped out by the archaeological museum, but it was also really intriguing at the same time. They showed a lot of artifacts from when the Romans controlled Alsace, in addition to different animal bones and human skeletons, and the various pieces of pottery and jewelry. The final museum we visited was Le Musée de l’Oeuvre Notre-Dame, which is located directly across from the cathedral and is host to art from the cathedral dating back to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. We were able to see some original statues that were on the façade, a lot of gorgeous stained glass, and some paintings from the Strasbourg area as well.

Roof of the Alsatian history museum

Courtyard at the Alsatian history museum

Roman helmet

Museum of Decorative Arts

See!? Gorgeous frame

An original statue from the cathedral

So much detail in the stained glass!

As we were trying to make our experience as French as we could, Grace and I spent a lot of time in the cafes/brasseries/restaurants of Strasbourg drinking café au lait and people watching. These places, however, are the most confusing things in the world. Each restaurant has a different way of ordering food and giving the check at the end of whatever you happen to order. Once Grace and I went to a brasserie with the intention of ordering a drink and some food, and we ended up only ordering a drink because we had no idea how to order food. Some places don’t give out menus, and the waiters don’t ask what you would like to eat after taking your drink order so it was definitely a guessing game for Grace and I in this respect. We found a café though that suited our needs very well, the Café Rohan, and we enjoyed a lot of pizza, salad, wine, and café au lait there during our stay.

Pretty building

Another delightful surprise!

Strasbourg ended up having a lot of delightful surprises for us in the way of culture. Storks are EVERYWHERE in this city. Well, the image of a stork, not the actual bird itself. There were post cards, stuffed animals, baby booties, hats, place mats, magnets, etc. that featured storks at every souvenir shop. Apparently before 1970 they were really prevalent in the environment, and so storks have become a symbol of the Alsace region. We also found a lot of Mario-related graffiti throughout the city, and there were pretzel, gauffre (Belgian waffles of a sort), and roasted chestnut stands everywhere.

This is an exceedingly long post, but I think I have covered most of what we saw/experienced in Strasbourg for the three full days Grace and I explored there. If anyone has any specific question or remark or anything just let me know and I will add as much as I can! I’m also going to have a separate post for the Loire Valley part of our trip, just to kind of break things up a bit and to not be too tedious for a blog entry!

The steeple of the cathedral from Place Gutenberg

One Month, Some Macarons, and a Museum!

The past week and a half has been so busy! With classes almost every day, attending the wrong class by accident, and having a quiz and two tests, I haven’t had time to put together a good blog entry. However, that will be remedied now!

Last Wednesday I was able to celebrate my first month in Arras (weird! I know!). And I did so with deliciousness- six macarons (en français) from a swanky little shop in central Arras. They were amazing- even the weird jasmine and rose ones! The pistachio flavored one was my favorite, in case anyone was wondering.

One of the gorgeous hallways in the museum

The courtyard

Some Plague-related Medieval art

For this week’s adventure, Grace and I decided to hit up the local art museum. It was free, which was awesome, and it showcases a lot of really beautiful, varied, and interesting art- double awesome. Cool, cool, cool (sorry, we’ve been watching a lot of Community…). We were expecting to spend about an hour or so in a nice museum with a small collection, maybe some interesting architecture; but in reality, exhaustion kicked in once we got to the third floor.

The floors are split up by time periods: the first floor is Medieval art, the second 15^th-18^th centuries, and the third floor had a mix of 18^th to 20^th centuries (these are all rough guesses stemming from my three art history classes). The coolest thing about the entire museum was truly the fact that most of the art comes from Arras or features Arras in some form.

I had forgotten how morbid Medieval art can be- the Black Plague really influenced their art. There were a lot of skeletons and skulls throughout the first part of the collection; however, there were also a lot of carvings from the ancient walls from the cathedrals in Arras.

An exotic-type bird

We then were able to see the featured exhibit: carriages and coaches from Versailles! This entire exhibit fascinated me. Upon walking into the first room, they had a huge scaled-down diorama of Arras and paintings that featured both carriages and Arras. Then the hall leads to a section that has a miniature carriage used as a selling piece for Louis XIV to help him choose one to buy. There was a piece on the coaches for children. One of these at the exhibit was a coach for Louis-Charles, the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

Louis XIV on his way to Arras, with his entourage and coach (which is holding his wife, Marie-Thérèse) 

Coaches that functioned as sleighs were apparently really popular in the 18^th century, as there was a room with at least eight or ten of these carriages.

A carriage built for snow!

The literal 8 to 10 foot high carriage, in all of its golden, gaudy glory

 Finally, we got to see the royal carriages of Louis XVIII and Charles X. These were the gaudiest, the grandest, the most gold, and the biggest carriages. Gold, everywhere. Everywhere. The one must have been 8 to 10 feet high, and I’m really not trying to exaggerate. The final coach was much more reserved, as it was made during one of the Republic periods after one of the revolutions that wanted to expel the grandeur and frivolity and disregard of the monarchies of the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

The top of the carriage, you can see an "N" for Napoléon

Some detail

The giant but beautiful wheel

The steps to the carriage were even too high to step onto easily

Some Arras porcelain!

One of my favorite paintings in this museum

After the carriage exhibition, we explored the rest of the museum. There were tall paintings, tiny paintings, a lot of porcelain from the Pas-de-Calais region, some clocks and fireplaces and chairs, and almost everything in between. 

My favorite pieces of the entire museum were the ones of actual 18^th century dresses; they were just so gorgeous, and anyone who knows my obsession for the movie Marie Antoinette will understand this sentiment. However, the best part was this display of a dress with a painting featuring a woman wearing the exact same dress. So cool.

A beautiful dress

The painting that features the beautiful dress above

My favorite dress

Another beautiful one, pretty much straight out of a Marie Antoinette movie!

 Some other highlights include the various maritime paintings, a few portraits, and just in general enjoyable pre-20^th century art. Definitely worth a visit if you’re in the Arras area, and definitely worth the ridiculous amount of photos I’m posting on this entry.   

Oh, La, La, Paris!

Not to disappoint, but my travels to Paris weren’t so much “oh, la, la!” as “oh, it is FREEZING! And this crazy weather! Look at that pretty painting! OH! There’s my favorite! Ah, let’s try to speak French to this Parisian… Where do we go now? It’s FORTY-FIVE minutes in the SLEET to our train station and it’s LATE?!” But! It was all a tremendous, fun, awesome success, in my opinion.

Notre Dame!

Our early day started at 9:17 in the morning when we boarded our train to Paris, which is about a 50-minute train ride, so not that bad at all! We then walked the forty-five minutes or so to the Seine, under some rain, some sun, some wind. Once we finally saw the river though, it’s amazing. The river wasn’t actually that pretty Saturday, but once you actually get to the river, you can see so many beautiful things that make up Paris. From our spot near Boulevard de Strasbourg, we could see the top of Notre Dame, the top of the Eiffel Tower, and the beautiful bridges and buildings that run alongside the river.

The not-so-pretty Seine

We then walked some more to get to the Musée d’Orsay – our goal for the day! Along the way we stopped at a bridge that was sporting several different locks. I’m not sure how many of you have heard of this little phenomenon, but basically lovers write their initials on padlocks, lock them onto the bridges, and then throw the locks in the river, thus, everlasting love. Here’s an article to check out if you want to know where I got the information from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/lovelocks-return-to-the-bridges-of-paris-2293506.html. Despite the controversy these bridges across the world have brought up, I found it to be a gorgeous spot for some photography, and also a place to be heckled out of 20 euro for a charity (I hope).

Lover's Locks Bridge

Once we arrived at the museum (free for us French university students!), we finally got to explore the art that Grace and I absolutely adore, the Impressionists. We decided to not leave any painting unseen, and so we started on the first floor and made our way up to the very high up 5^th floor to see as much art as we could bear. And, just a side note here, besides the fact that this is a museum filled with gorgeous works of art, the museum itself is a history lesson and a piece of art. It used to be a central train station in Paris, that instead of being bulldozed down to make room for some more development (like we love to do in the States), it was renovated into a modern art museum, and I found it absolutely gorgeous.

One of my favorite parts of the museum, you can kind of see the Louvre by the peoples' heads.

 Some highlights from the days art exploration: Grace was able to see her favorite paintings ever, Manet’s Olympia and Luncheon on the Grass (Déjeuner sur l’herbe), Phoebe reveled in Degas’s dancers, and I got to see my favorite Van Gogh Painting, Stars over the Rhone. All in all, a very successful endeavor at the Musée d’Orsay!

The beginning of the benediction ceremony

Lunch came next, at a little café next to the museum where we all got to enjoy some nourishment to make up for all of our walking and exploring so far in the day. It was very good, I had a tomato and mozerella salad with bread and pressed lemon juice!

We then decided to head over to the Île de la Cité to see Notre Dame and any other sites that were in between the museum and the church. Once we arrived there, after experiencing more rain, sun, and wind, we realized that it is the 850-year anniversary of the cathedral’s birth, and there was a band inside playing and a benediction ceremony starting at 5 p.m., so it was extremely crowded. 

The inside of Notre Dame

The bell Jean-Marie

Notre Dame

We pushed through the crowds inside so Phoebe could see the church for the first time ever, and it was worth it to see the display of the church’s bells and the inside of the awe-inspiring, timeless Notre Dame.

More Seine

The back of Notre Dame, with another Lock Bridge

The Hotel de Ville

Street-made crepes were our next goal, and we succeeded and finding some right outside the cathedral. We then walked around the back and enjoyed the view of Notre Dame from the river, as well as a rainbow that celebrated the day’s crazy weather, and some sleet.

L'Arc du Ciel!

We decided then to start to make our way back to the train station, as it was at least a 45-minute walk away and we had a very loose idea of where we were going. On the way though we stopped to admire the Hotel de Ville and then continued on our way while it began to get dark and sleet pretty consistently. Finally, we found the train station where we huddled in the cold to await our delayed train back to Arras.

In addition to our Paris-filled day, it also happened to be the night of my roommate Nerea’s birthday party, which also celebrated Carnival, so of course it was a costume party. I decided to go as a pirate! But the party also featured a karate master, a cowboy, a cop, and Roman!

I bet you didn’t realize that the Spanish LMFAO was in Arras last night, huh?