Strasbourg Trip

Spent 5 days in Strasbourg, with my second host family the Degeorges. Strasbourg is a city in the North East of France. I went with Alain, Dominique and a kiwi mate, Monica, from Lyon. We left Chambéry early on Wednesday morning, making our way up through Switzerland.

With the first stop being Bern.... This is Albert Einstein's old place! He came from Bern apparently, and if you look closely between the two bits of red writing you can see "Einstein haus". Bern was nice although the weather was a bit grey unfortunately.

Further into Switzer-land, just before crossing the border back into France, we stopped at a town called Basel. This place has gained a reputation for having extraordinary modern architecture, heres an example, by the famous Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.

The reason for the trip was to see the "Marché de Noël" (Christmas market) in Strasbourg, we saw others in other towns too, this photo taken at the one in Basel. There was a real Christmas atmosphere.... a Christmas atmosphere in WINTER! It was so cool walking around in the Freezing european cold, with all the streets and shops decorated for xmas. Felt like I was in a movie.










We climbed up Strasbourg's mighty Cathedral! Heres a view from the top.
So HUGE it doesn't even fit in the photo. Seriously this Cathedral is so impressive!


Spent one day in Germany, as Strasbourg is right on the border. Were in the 'Black Forest' region. Really nice little German villages. It's still crazy for me, just driving 20 minuntes everything being sooo different, hearing a different language for example!



This is Alain and Dominique (my host parents) with me. Back in France now. We visited that castle on the top of the hill in the background.









Here's that castle, the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg






The typical architecture style in Alsace, the region of Strasbourg... with wooden framing. So different to the rest of France. Actually that's something I've loved about France, how it's so varied. It's so different in all of the regions (well the ones that I've seen)... from here in the Alps, to Paris, to the south mediterannian coast... and now to Alsace! C'est beau la France

Le Marché de Noël de Strasbourg! Really good, but obviosly 10's of thousands of others thought the same thing - look at all of the people! A bit of Pushing and Shoving involved to get through there. Worth it though, I have seen the famous Marché de Noël de Strasbourg.

A shame this photo isn't really good quality... We were in the car and this train FULL of minis went past! Hundreds of them! All different colours, it looked really cool. Creative photo ay

On our way back to Chambéry on Sunday, we stopped at Zug in Switzerland to visit Kristina an exchange student who we had at home. We had a bit of a look through her nice town and then carried on.