More Strasbourg Scenes

Next morning, June 12th, we moved to the P&R and took the bus back into town, mostly to see the great cathedral (next posts), but also to do another Michelin walking tour of the old city.

The German occupation of Strasbourg following the
Franco-Prussian war coincided pretty much with the
years of Art Nouveau, so one doesn't see much of
the beautiful architecture...but there are a few instances

La Place Broglie...the horse market in the Middle Ages, a central
square in later times, with the grand opera at the end; origin of 
the term "horse opera" some say 

The day's caryatids; not too many of these on the half-timbered
beauties

Abbatoir of yore

Canal scene

The day's video-shoot; don't know who she was nor why five
camera-persons were required

Love the curvy pink arcades

Another beautiful building

Europe's first iron bridge; so it said

We stopped for lunch as a restaurant by the adjacent Catholic and

Protestant churches; my Alsatian sausages

Vicki's schnitzel

The meal was fine, but the main interest were the
new-to-us golden ground cherries, physalis heterophylla,
served as a side nibble

Theologian/musicologist/organist/doctor/missionary/polymath
Albert Schweitzer was a native of the Alsace who did time
studying medicine and other things in Strasbourg; authored
The Quest for the Historical Jesus and Reverence for Life;
received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952

An approaching red ant threatened our moment
together, so I smashed it; certain restrictions apply in
my reverence for life

Chinese half-timbered look

The adjoining Catholic and Protestant churches; the latter was closed,
the former not so interesting

Another Art Nouveau

Galeries Lafayette; used to be the Kaufhaus des Westens (😁)

And another Nouveau

And an Art Deco; why are they so often movie houses?

Place Gutenberg; Gutenberg did considerable time in Strasbourg,
where he produced his first printing press; the rest is history, as
they say, and Gutenberg is sometimes referred to as "the man of
the millennium"; little in subsequent human history is imaginable
without him

Sic transit, Gloria; there is his statue, on Place Gutenberg,
tucked in between a hot dog stand and a merry-go-round

Last month's flavor of "Information Age"

More curvy streets

And one final monument I had to find...that of Strasbourg
favorite son Roget de L'Isle, composer of "La Marseillaise,"
which became the French national anthem, known to many
non-Francophones by way of this great movie scene (Major
Strasser and his German buddies, BTW, are singing "De
Wacht am Rhein," which rather neatly ties things together)

Interim Update #1,279: Swedish Death Cleaning And Sparking Joy In Missoula

We're back in our former hometown of Missoula, Montana. Two days ahead of our luggage, but that's how it goes. We're here to go through our stuff, much of which has been in storage here since 2008. Of course, we've done considerable culling over the years, but this time it's serious. What we don't get rid of here we'll put in a U-Haul truck and drive to our next temporary home, in Cary, NC, for further attention. It's mostly the Swedish Death Cleaning process (look it up), protracted over different locations and several months. Plus, as always, we'll be seeing friends here, and enjoying the best place we ever lived and worked. 

Yes, the blog is still in Alsace, June 12th or so. I'm working on it.

Thought for the day, at our current temporary home in East Missoula;
a block away to the left is the U-Haul center; to the right is our storage
center, our Missoula home since 2008

Strasbourg's Petit France

We decamped from Nancy and drove the relatively short distance to Strasbourg, in Alsace, finding the nice municipal campground and setting up in enough time to take an early evening stroll into the city for the Michelin walk of the old Petit France area. 

Strasbourg's importance was as a port on the Rhine, canals and
channels of which we walked past; pretty sure we never saw the
main channel; anyhow, it's a watery place, great for those watery
reflection pix

Three tall defensive towers survive from the olden
days; the red sandstone looks really nice in the sunset;
the Alsace is one of Europe's many contested places,
currently in French hands; we never heard anyone 
humming "die Wacht am Rhein" but wouldn't have
been surprised...

We'd see the cathedral the next day

Fortified bridge of yore

More sunset glow, more reflection

If you're into the half-timbered look, Strasbourg
is your kind of place

Also red sandstone

Most of it pretty old

But not too old for Thai cuisine

Final Nancy Scenes

After four days, we decided to leave the rest of Nancy for "next time," and ended with a stroll through the city's large downtown park, the Parc de la Pepiniere, partly to see the monument to Claude Gellee, dit Le Lorrain, and partly to just enjoy the usual French park ambience.

Another huge, beautiful urban park

Innominata

The statue of Le Lorrain is by Rodin; himself

Be impressed

Of course we found the rose garden

Next time...