We awoke to a mix of sun and cloud in Strasbourg, France, on Sunday, October 27th, 2024.

The view from our room.

The balcony looked a bit sketchy to me. I think the pigeon is heavier than he appears.

The view of our room.

Breakfast was included with our room and we ate a very average meal before we checked out. They did let us check our bags for the day so we could go out exploring before our train trip back to Paris.

When I had looked up Strasbourg on the map, I noticed that it was right up against the border with Germany and there were bridges to cross the Rhine River to the city of Kehl. I was looking forward to adding Germany to my country count as that gets me to 8 I believe. Lol

We headed to the tram that would take us across the border.

At least that was our plan. We managed to pick a tram that went near the bridge and back to town.

So, we strolled onto the bridge and towards Germany.

Straddling the border. My left foot is in Germany and my right in France.

There was 1 lady sitting on the top deck enjoying her coffee all by her lonesome.

The flowers in Germany still looked good as well.

We walked down to the river and wandered through Rhein Promenade – riverside peace park.

We walked along the river for a bit and we went over to Weißtannenturm – Well-known observation tower on the Rhine with views of France & the Black Forest.

It’s a 30 meter climb to the top, or, if my math was correct, 198 steps.

I tried, but failed to get anyone to climb up with me, so I slowly made my way to the top. And the view was totally worth it.

A panorama with my 40mm lens.

My traveling companions keeping the bench warm.

A panorama with my 85mm lens.

The Kehl water tower. It’s a 50 meter tower that was built in 1904. It was shutdown in 1980 and the tower was renovated in 2003. Apparently, it’s a very popular tourist attraction, but we didn’t go over there.

@spookie_bugz posed for me at the top of the tower in the homeland of his forefathers.

A panorama with my 18mm lens.

I had lollygagged at the top long enough, so I descended to meet up with my group at ground level.

We decided to walk along the lake to explore the town a bit.

As we walked along, the church bells tolled. I can’t link a video on here because I’m too cheap to pay for that plug in, but they sounded very nice.

While we were looking at the water I noticed a couple of turtles. And, with heavy cropping, so can you.

As we got near the end of the lake, we veered off to go more into town. We passed by Stadthalle and saw there was a tattoo convention going on. Decided I didn’t need any ink, so we kept walking.

We made our way to Market Square and saw the rather impressive Friedenskirche – Protestant church.

And I thought mosquitos were big in Canada.

We walked around the square trying to decide where we should find some lunch. Being Sunday, choices were a bit limited.

We decided that the patio at el Bolero Mexican restaurant looked good.

I thoroughly enjoyed a very good strawberry margarita while looking at Friedenskirche, awaiting what turned out to be some very good Mexican food.

I wandered around the square a bit more after lunch grabbing a few more church photos before we moved on to see what else was around.

We wandered up and down a couple of streets. Not a lot of things grabbed my attention but I liked the sign on the building.

I found another pretzel. We also got some for the road as we figured it was time to head back to Strasbourg. This time, we took the tram right across the river and into the middle of downtown.

I tried to grab as many photos as I could in the late afternoon light.

Another round building from a wide angle panorama.

We came across the bilingual French-English church, Liberté! Church and I liked the way the sun was hitting it but it was pretty tight quarters to photography it.

I think Curtis was starting to look for places to grab supper.

Soon we were wandering by Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-Strasbourg. It is a massive Catholic Church that, was the world’s tallest building for 227 years (between 1647 and 1874), and, when we were there, was bathed in some nice pre-sunset light. Unfortunately, the square in front of the church is much too small to easily photograph it to show it in all it’s glory. I tried to shoot it as a panorama but I didn’t like my results, so I’ll include a few pieces of church shots.

It was pretty crowded around the church so we headed off and found ourselves at Place Gutenberg. I liked how the buildings were lit up and the Carrousel looked interesting. I mean, it’s not everyday I see a 2 level merry-go-round.

My sunset light was gone and it was time to find some food. We ended up at The Dubliners, an Irish Restaurant. We sat outside and I enjoyed a really good burger watching the world walk by.

It was fully dark when we made our way in the general direction of the hotel to pickup our bags.

Bags retrieved, we headed over to the train station for our 2 hourish trip back to Paris.

There really wasn’t much to see along the way being dark and all. The photo I took of Lucille and Curtis “not sleeping” will remain on my phone and not be seen here.

As we approached Gare de l’Est, Curtis decided he didn’t want to take the subway and walk, so he arranged an Uber to pick us up. It was my first Uber experience. Seemed okay.

We got back to the apartment a little before midnight and went to bed pretty much on arrival.

I got in almost 18 and a half thousand steps today. Not bad all in all.