Christmas 2012 in Strasbourg, France

I know I am posting this AFTER I posted something about being in Berlin for New Years... But hey, that's the order that I got around to doing it.  After living in Germany for about 5  months, this was the first personal trip to another European country that I have taken.  I'll admit, it was a semi last minute trip too.  I think I planned it, with a friend, about 2 weeks before we actually took the trip.  Unfortunately, that means that it was more expensive than it needed to be...

In the end, this was a very enjoyable trip.  We drove to Strasbourg on 12/22/2012 and stayed in the Hilton Strasbourg until Monday.  It was a nice enough hotel, but a little expensive.  If you have ever stayed at a Hilton, you know what you get since it's the same at ever Hilton.  The first afternoon/evening was pretty good.  We started off the day by walking around and getting the "picture taking adrenaline rush".  So many historical and architecturally cool buildings around that aside from stopping for a bite to eat at a pretty good pizza place (for the life of me, can't remember the name), all we really did was take pictures.  We walked until we saw a cool looking Church, then saw another in the distance and walked to that.  Realizing at that point we had no real clue where we were and backtracked until we saw what looked like an area of government building.  Giant stone block constructed buildings.  Also fascinating.

 After we wandered around for awhile, we came across Cathedral Notre Dame de Strasbourg, which was the tallest building in the world from 1647 to 1874 (because the existing tallest church, had burned down...).  Let me tell you what, this is an amazing site to behold, and my pictures do NOT do it justice.  The first is the closest I could get to getting the entire church in one picture.  It fills you a little bit with awe, that a church like this could have taken longer to build (424 years) than the United States has been around (236 years) and is still more than twice as old (573 years) than the US...  Wow...

 I was also very amazed at the detailed work on the Cathedral, artwork, and sculptures like this completely covered most, if not all, of the front of the church.

The stained glass windows were a site to behold as well.

This may be one of the reasons so many people flock to visit the site as well, the astronomical clock.  It was hard to get a good look, since there were so many people here.  But you get that when you visit right around Christmas.

After ogling and awing at the Cathedral for awhile, we also explored the Christmas Markets of Strasbourg.  Strasbourg has a website declaring it the  "Capital of Christmas", but it's christmas markets were fun to wander through.  There are supposedly 12 of them, ranging from a couple of stands to filling up the square where the Cathedral sat, spread throughout the city.  We only had the opportunity to browse through 4-5 of them in our exploration of the city.  They are definitely worth a visit, though it's hard to take more than half a day wandering through them when each market sells similar things from festival foods, nativity scenes, ornaments, candles, roasted nuts and whatnot.  You have to enjoy the glühwein though.  Hot spiced/ mulled wine is amazing in cold weather, and they provide you with souvenir mugs to help you remember your trip!  Though every Christmas Market I've been to in Germany does this for you as well :-)

That evening we ate at La Nouvelle Poste (http://www.nouvelleposte.fr/), which was a side restaurant that was almost tavern style.  The food was quite fantastic.  We even finished off the meal with Crème brûlée, awesome.  

The next day we enjoyed the walking tour of Strasbourg, which you can get by visiting the Tourist Office right off the front right corner of the Cathedral.  It's a self-guided audio tour that provides some great information on the history of Strasbourg.  We also visited Strasbourg's Historical Museum and used that audio tour, which was neat in that it reacted to sensors and automatically played when you stepped in front of exibits and gave a lot more interesting accounts of Strasbourg's history.  It concludes with visiting a huge model of the city that was built for military purposes and kept in the museum.  Very cool.  Finally we ended our day with more wandering in the christmas markets and food trying.  

For our last day, we couldn't think of much else we wanted to do in Strasbourg, so we went traveled south to visit a castle that was reasonably nearby.  This was a great choice.  Haut-Keonigsbourg is a fantastically restored castle that is within 30-40 minutes of Strasbourg proper. 

For those that like tour guides, there is an audio tour that will run you through the different historical aspects of the castle, from why there are dual walls and the armory (which was really interesting to me). 

I'll admit, there was soo much information in the audio tour, that after awhile I kept forgetting to hit the next section and probably only listened to half the information.  I really enjoyed the multiple cut-offs in the castle.  By that I meant that if the castle was attacked, it was designed to have multiple points where it could hold off invaders.

 Ranging from no where to hide after breaking in the first wall, and multiple drawbridges that could be pulled up at various points in the castle.  Its interesting to see how these structures were designed with defense in mind, even had it's own well inside the castle. 

I would love to have this castle in case of a zombie apocalypse.

 Suffice to say, this was another enjoyable trip.

Berlin New Years 2013

Living in Germany for the last five-ish months has been a fantastic experience.  After settling in, and starting to meet people I started to do some traveling, including visiting Strasbourg France, Mainz Germany, Wiesbaden Germany, Rothenburg Germany, and Berlin.  Aside from the variety of castles that I've been able to experience, it has been amazing to see the history that is displayed throughout Germany.

 This last weekend, I had the pleasure of being able to visit Berlin, Germany for a New Years celebration with a few friends of mine I've come to know here in Germany.  I had a pretty awesome time there.  Berlin has become a rather fascinating experience.  To think, that not even 40 years ago it was rather difficult to enter and exit portions of Germany and Berlin.  For our stay, my friend organized a home away (www.homeaway.com) where you can stay in an apartment with a group, cheaper than a hotel.  I'll admit, the apartment was a little lackluster, but if you spend all your time in the hotel/apartment while visiting a new place then you are doing something wrong. :-)

The first day, after driving 5 hours to get there (autobahns are fun to drive on!  Just make sure you stay out of the left lane if you're not going greater than 160 kph), we started exploring and came upon a Christmas Market that was still going.  It was a great time, enjoying glühwein and festival food around a fire pit in the slightly chilly weather. After that we also enjoyed a ride around the Ferris Wheel that was set up.  All in all a great day. 

We took the opportunity to partake in a walking tour (http://www.neweuropetours.eu/) and I have to say it was an awesome experience.  The tour guide we had was amazing.  She gave great historical points and nuggets of information that made the trip well worth it.  (Did I mention, it's free?  Though I highly recommend donating to this amazing tour when complete)  In our walk around Berlin we saw some amazing things, things like Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust Memorial.  The Holocaust Memorial is quite an experience. 

After seeing many other sites and exploring, including seeing Museum Island, we went to a party which allowed us to go on top of a building and see the New Years celebration in Berlin.  Now Berlin, and Germany in general, doesn't treat fireworks the same way as I was used too from the United States.  It isn't a celebration financed and organized by the locate city as much as it is a free-for-all by all the local citizens who want to celebrate and shoot off fireworks.  Literally, when midnight came around, the entire city of Berlin came alive with explosions of color and light.  An amazing experience.

Our next, and last day, was a low key and relaxed one.  We explored some more and tried some local restaurants.  I'll say my photos don't do the experience justice, but I highly recommend visiting Germany, and Berlin if possible.  New Years is fantastic, Christmas Markets are amazing, and all the other festivals throughout the year are something to behold as well.  My experience was an awesome one.