Strasbourg Explorations

Notre Dame Cathedral

Strasbourg is a much more significant city than I realized.  It is not only the capital city of the region, but is also the formal seat of the European Parliament and Union.  The culture, language and architecture is a blend of both French and German influences.  The Grande Ile where we are staying is a World Heritage site.  The University of Strasbourg is the second largest in France and accounts for the very young population we've encountered.  Their Cathedral is the sixth tallest church in the world and tallest extant church.   Johannes Gutenberg created the first European movable type printing press here.  Thus the first modern newspaper was published here.  

Wine is an important component of the region and practically revered by the population.  Tonight at dinner the diners at the table to our left described each wine by its terroir, how it was aged, whether it accompanied the dish appropriately.  We've tried a few and like the Risling the best.  

Earlier in the day we visited the Notre Dame Cathedral.  Although described as high Gothic, it lacked that soaring feeling one usually gets.  It was rather wide and built with dark sandstone.  The apse actually looked Byzantium to me.  It has a somewhat noted astronomical clock whose animated characters move at different hours.  We caught a small show at the quarter hour.  One must make an appointment to see the entire show at noon. 

We ended the day with a little shopping.  Macarons, yum.

Pictures at flickr.