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Strasbourg


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Strasbourg was a frequent destination for us, living in Stuttgart. We would bring visitors there to sight-see, and we would go there ourselves for daytrips. It was about one and a half hours west of us, an easy ride. We used it as an example of how close things were in Europe with the following story: I worked for an American company on an American military base so I had American holidays off, but the girls attended an International school that followed German holidays, so there were times when the girls had school but I had the day off. On those days, we would often shoo the girls out the door in the morning, hop in the car and drive to France (often Strasbourg), shop and sightsee, have lunch, and drive home to be back in Stuttgart before the girls got home from school!

Stained Glass in the Cathedral of Strasbourg
The Cathedral Dwarfs the Surrounding Buildings

These words describe just one of the many trips we took with visitors that bought us through the French Rhine region and Strasbourg:

 

October 1992

Our "big" trip of the visit came over the weekend of the 2nd through the 5th of October. We took the kids out of school and did a looping travel vacation. First we went to the Black Forest, travelled a lot of twisty, windy roads, and visited Triberg, the cuckoo clock capital of the world. We stayed the night in the Alpen Post hotel in Neustadt, outside of Tittisee in the Black Forest. On Saturday we headed for Basel, Switzerland, via old windy back roads through the Black Forest. We dipped our toes into Switzerland (it cost us SF 40 to do that because of the Swiss Autobahn Tax - but I got a windshield sticker for my money), then we headed up the French side of the Rhine River to Colmar in France. We tried to stay in Turkheim outside of Colmar, but everything was full so we had the tourist bureau lady find us a B&B in someone's home outside of the city. The proprietors were building a second house on their street in the little French village of Herrlischeim, and they rented out rooms in the new building. We ate dinner in Turkheim, after trying a bunch of restaurants that were all full (except the last, obviously), then we headed back to Herrlischeim to sleep. On Sunday, after a breakfast of coffee, french bread, and fruit, we headed for Strasbourg, France. We saw the astronomical clock, and strolled the lanes with the shops near the Cathederal. After lunch we were off to Saarbrucken and beyond. We drove through the Alsace region of France, and stopped at the village of Trois Epis. Once we got back into Germany, we headed for Saarbrucken. Near Saarbrucken we turned northeast for Idar-Oberstein, and spent the night there in the City Hotel, a very nice place right in the center of town. We had dinner at the Alte Gotte restaurant, where we all had Speisbraten and lots of beer. In the morning we headed for Trier Germany, but turned off the highway before getting there to head towards Mehring and the road that winds along beside the Moselle river (Rt 53). We stopped to taste some wine in Klüsserath along the Moselle, and ended up buying 24 bottles! After lunch in Piersport, we continued on to Bernkastel-Kues, where we wandered around the picturesque town center and stopped to have kafe and küchen (coffee and cakes) at the fancy hotel in town. We arrived back in Stuttgart, tired but happy, late Monday night.

 

 

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