Strasbourg, France

Today was a great day trip to France. We drove to the city of Strasbourg (about an 1 1/2 hours from Landstuhl), which is in Alsace and is known as the Christmas Capital of Europe. Our first stop was the area town called Petite France. As you can see, it's a pretty well preserved section of town with cobblestone streets and buildings from the 1600's. It was fun walking around and hearing the people speak French after a month of listening to German.

Our next stop was the Cathedral of our Lady of Strasbourg, built in the 1200s and considered a Gothic masterpiece. The square outside the church was completely packed with people because the annual Christmas Market was in full swing. The cathedral was beautiful from the outside, especially with the Christmas lights and decorations surrounding it.

We jostled our way through the crowd and eventually made it inside. The interior was really nice. There was a large, complicated looking contraption called an Astronomical clock. We were there too late to get a demo, but it looked interesting. There was also a nice tribute on the wall to the American military for their sacrifices in freeing Alsace during WWII.


We wandered the cobblestone streets for a while, then found a place for dinner that served flammekueche, also known as tarte flambee, which is as an Alsation specialty that looks sort of like a pizza. I've added a nice stock photo from Wikipedia to illustrate.
We rounded out the night with some more shopping. Take note of Mary's fabulous new hat in the picture below.