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Published: June 30th 2009
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We were up earlier this morning in order that we could have a chance to say goodbye to Zack, Anna, and Stephanie before they all headed out. It was a bright clear day, and the view from the apartment was quite spectacular. We have had a great stay and it was hard, for Joshua in particular, to say goodbye.
We packed up again and got our bags set to go. Steve returned from dropping Zack and Anna off and we had a few more minutes to talk before heading out. Steve is taking a German language test today and so has to be downtown. He has kindly offered to help us get our stuff up to the funicular and then down to the train station, which made the move easier.
At the trains station, we said goodbye to Steve and then found a spot to set down while we waited for our train which we were about an hour early for. Joshua and I went to the shops below and each bought a Swiss Army knife, which we had been thinking about for days it seemed.
The train that we took to Strasbourg was a smaller, sort of
regional train (though still expensive). Our plan is to store our luggage at the station in Strasbourg for a few hours before taking our next train on to the town of Saales where Sandy lives.
The land along this route was flatter, which less dramatic scenery than our route from Geneva to Zürich. There was a lot of larger farms and parts of it looked like they could easily be Southern Ontario.
At 12:45 we reached the more industrial city of Basel which lies very close to the French border. The area around the station had a lot of graffiti, the first that I have seen in Switzerland, though even this looked carefully done and well worked out.
By 1:15 we had reached a town called St. Louis on the French side and by 2 pm, the town of Calmar in a more rural area. Here the land was quite flat with hills off in the distance to the south. It also looked more dry than most of what we had been passing, though there were lots of vineyards. Large irrigation machines that crawl across the land, like the ones we had seen in Australia, became more
frequent.
At 2:30 we reached Strasbourg. At the station, we found the luggage office and were able to check our heavy bags. We then headed to the ticket office to buy our tickets to get to the town of Saales today as well as the tickets from Saales to Paris for Friday.
The interior of the Strasbourg railway station is an older building, but walking out of it you see that it has been sort of encased in a modern sausage shaped glass structure that adds to the size of it. From the outside, this blending of the new and old is quite dramatic and seemed to be repeated in a number of parts of the city.
Across from the station is a large park where we stopped and ate our lunch in a shaded area. With only about 2 hours before our next train, we didn't have much time to see much of the city, but followed what looked like a main street down to the a bridge in the distance. The architecture is quite Germanic looking, with lots of visible wood beams on the outside of the houses.
After the bridge we spotted the
baroque spire of the Strasbourg Notre Dame Cathedral in the distance. We decided to head towards it, but were also interested to see if we could find the European Parliament buildings which are also located here.
Like Zürich, Strasbourg has a very space age looking tram system which seems to run very efficiently. We made our way towards an area that looked promising for government buildings, but after asking around we found we were still some distance away and would not have time to make it to them.
On our way back we stopped by a the Strasbourg Notre Dame Cathedral to take some photos and to look inside. Outside it is carved with incredibly ornate details and has flying buttresses supporting the walls like the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Inside it is huge, though we only had time to take a quick look.
Back at the train station, we picked up our suitcases and made our way to our train. The trip to Saales was comfortable but uneventful. This train was well set up with a sort of added section with hooks on the ceiling for bikes as well as lots of room for storing
luggage. This was quite good as we often have trouble finding enough place to put our bags without leaving them in the corridor or having to hoist them up to high overhead racks.
The train station is Saales is small but functional, with a gravel path where you get off the train. Sandy found us just after we got off the train and we were able to fit all of our stuff into her car before taking a very short drive to her house (she lives just up from the station).
At Sandy's house, we met her children Raphael, Anastasia, and Sasha before taking a tour. Their house is large and their backyard is the size of a city park compete with a trampoline (which made Joshua very happy) and a bike jump course.
The kids all got playing right off the bat and we settled in for a cup of tea before Sandy started preparing dinner. After a lovely pasta dinner, her partner, Daniel, came home and the four of us hung around talking into the evening, before bedtime came around.
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