Spent a few days in Strasbourg and Freiburg. That was cool. Well. That was cool but Michel made a strong allergy to some component of a flammekuche and I spent a part of tuesday night at the hospital... With the help of goddess Cortisone, Michel is now better (note to Didier P.: Didier, j'avais oublié tes coordonnées à Paris, et puis ce choc allergique a un peu chamboulé nos plans; on remettra ça plus tard). A few things I noticed during this short trip:

  1. Strasbourg, the first cathedral in Europe where the sacred images show the Christian Church covering the Synagogue. But Alsace is still the only place in France where I do NOT need to spell my name... Well. That's not totally true. They always add a second trailing "n". Glazmann... Well, most central-european jews came from Alsace and Ruhr anyway, so...
  2. radars: on highway A4, there are two radars when you leave Paris, one just after Strasbourg, and just nothing in between. 465 kilometers between the two cities. Immediate effect: german tourists and brainless frogs keep driving at 180 km/h, just like before. Well done Sarkozy...
  3. A lot of fascist gangs in Alsace... Seriously, we saw a lot of fafs. Scary.
  4. Freiburg is more alive than Strasbourg. More shops, more crowd, a lot of things to see. But less bars and a ridiculously low number of restaurants and places to eat.
  5. if you are a geek and want to visit Strasbourg, I strongly recommend the Novotel or Ibis "Centre Halles" (we should let copinedegeek.com know about that :-) ). Both hotels are connected to a mall with a Surcouf store... Surcouf is the french Fry's Electronics, meaning it's smaller, more expensive with less choice. The politeness of the people working there is about the same, if you see my point ;-) Still an interesting place to see, if you're a geek.
  6. Strasbourg's suburbs are... well... Well, I can understand why some suburban places around Strasbourg are dangerous and why some people burn cars there during the New Year's Eve. There more hope and social life in Marineris Valley on the moon than in those suburbs, really.
  7. the gutters of Paris are famous. Water in the streets. All the streets. But they are really nothing compared to Freiburg's old city's gutters, organized like a network of small rivers. Clean water, coming directly from the river. Children jumping above, throwing leaves or small boats in the water and following them laughing.
  8. Nordsee.... No Nordsee here, unfortunately. Less than a restaurant, but better than a fast-food.
  9. ENA in Strasbourg. I hope the teachers coming once per week from Paris enjoy the trip. I just wonder if the students prefer the Petite France and Strasbourg's weinstubs or Paris's Quartier Latin and parisian bars....
  10. in Strasbourg, we saw a group of very old german tourists. >= 80. All of them. Some were probably even in their 90s, meaning they were born at a time Alsace was german. Hum. It's not another millenium yet.