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There is a unique feeling to any big city early on a Sunday morning, whereas you were battling for space to breath the day before, now you can cross roads freely and have entire boulevards to yourself. We had to leave Paris on the first train east of the day, the 0825 TGV to Strasbourg operating on France's newest high speed line permitting speeds of 200mph. The ticket price though did not match the romance of travelling along one of the fastest railway lines in the world, booked in advance at least, a first class ticket only costs 39 Euro's so we treated ourselves to some rare luxury on our journeys, and spent the next two hours completely chilled out.
On arrival in Strasbourg we had only just over an hour to get from the station, to the hotel and back out into the suburbs for a 12pm start to the English language meeting. Which we failed to achieve, largely because on a Sunday in France only the couple of Jewish food outlets are open and finding one was not immediately obvious. But for all our hard effort we finally arrived at the Kingdom Hall only half an hour late and enjoyed the final hour of the meeting. Afterwards we found ourselves invited to what was described as 'afternoon tea', which even for the most British amongst us sounded like a cup of tea and a digestive or two, perhaps if you were to splash out a scone, so we made sure we filled up on some more Jewish cuisine in the meantime.
By 4pm then we arrived at the house of a sister who moved from Birmingham around 11 years ago, which of course lead to the usually conversations of 'o so you know x, y or z' whilst we are thinking, 'do you know how big Birmingham is?' In the corner of one of the most impressively furnished apartments I have ever seen was a table layered in champagne bottles, cake stands and freshly made French tarts, this was proper afternoon tea, afternoon tea which began at 4 and finished at 9 with no savoury food served at all, but of course you would consider eating savoury until at least after 9 on the continent!
It was a real treat to be so well fed and watered, with some great company ranging from Mauritius, to Canada, from Alsace to Normandy and of course Birmingham.
As for Strasbourg itself, well we haven't really had a chance to give it any time it deserves but from the boulevards and squares which we have passed through on the trams yesterday it looks beautiful, perfectly preserved tall French apartments, with long tree-line boulevards and a network of autumnal coloured canals passing under artistic bridges. The cathedral stands almost as prominent as Cologne's across the city in a demanding gothic style, we were recommended to visit it because it apparently displays the name Jehovah in the Hebrew tetragmatton, but time is slipping away quickly and we must make for our next city and country, Basel in Switzerland.
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