Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
The best thing about travelling in hostels is that you get to meet people - nothing like sharing a dorm to get people to open up. I ended up hanging out with a Scottish physics student from Glasgow university, playing air hockey in the hostel basement - perhaps that's not everyone's idea of what to do in Europe, but it worked for me. Of course, my other roommate is a bit sketchy, and I have to be careful with where I leave my stuff, but I stayed a couple nights in hotels and it's just not worth it - only if I was travelling with a group of people would I consider staying in a hotel if there were alternatives available.
I've spent the last two days, wandering Strasbourg and taking in the sights; probably the most famous is the sandstone cathedral on the island - words cannot express how massive and impressive it is. It was built in the 12th century, has some of the oldest stained glass depicting Christian fables and somehow survived the allied bombing of Strasbourg in WW2. I couldn't spend as long as I would have liked inside, as it's Sunday and I thought it would be disrespectful to stand around snapping photos during mass, but I was glad I visited the place.
It's always hard to capture the spirit of a building like this, anyhow. Do the gray leaves in the stained glass show up in my pictures? Do you get a sense of the scale? Can you see that the entire cathedral is covered in intricate carvings, of sandstone, repaired constantly because of wear? I don't think I have the skill as a photographer to capture and display most of it. Needless to say, the place is amazing.
I think I may be getting spoiled though, because I'm beginning to get a little bored by taking photos of monuments and churches.
I did get to try one of the local specialties, a Kougelhopf, or Kugelhopf; it's a bunt cake, basically, either made sweet with raisins and almonds or savoury with walnuts and bacon. I was aiming for the sweet version and ended up with the savoury - well, worse things can happen.
Tomorrow, I'm going to rent a bike and follow some of the bicycle paths around - maybe see how far up the Rhine I can get in a morning? I have to be careful, though, because tomorrow night I am leaving for Frankfurt and I have to pack all my stuff and shower at some point during the day. Still, if I pack well even arriving back around four in the afternoon should give me plenty of time.
I'm starting to plan farther in advance than I have been previously, as it's getting into tourist season in France; already I've had to sleep in a two-star hotel rather than stay in a hostel because of constraints. It's still only a measure of planning a week to two weeks in ahead, though.
- comments