I don’t have that many photos of Lyon, partially because we spent most of our time there at one museum and partially because it was raining pretty hard when we arrived. After two weeks of going through a heat wave, it was a relief to feel the cooler air on our skin. It had felt as though the heat wave had been following us across the continent.
We started by heading up the funicular to Fourvière Hill, which has an old set of Roman ruins as well as a couple very nice churches. It might have been a more fun area to explore if it hadn’t been raining so hard – it didn’t seem like a lot of things were open, so we worked our way back down to the main part of the city. We had a great lunch back on the bottom of the hill and then headed to our next site.
Most of our time was spent at a museum I had found online, which was Musée Cinéma et Miniature. This managed to capture two things I love! I find movie behind-the-scenes to be fascinating, and I enjoyed seeing all the different aspects of props and mannequins and costuming that creates so many of the famous characters of pop culture. They had a really cool section on Wes Anderson that had a whole section about how they filmed Asteroid City, and the elaborate sets that it takes to get those perfect aesthetic shots. The top floor was dedicated to miniatures, which were SO cool. I’ve always loved those kinds of dioramas – the Art Institute in Chicago has a great room of them, which was one of my favorite sections. These were beautifully done.
After the museum, we really didn’t do much. The next morning was a very long day – we were getting up early so that we could take a TGV back to the Paris airport and then board a flight to head back to DC. Plus, we had to repack, because the advantage of taking trains is that you don’t have to worry about the strict luggage limits or liquid rules, and so we had to get ourselves back into compliance.
Overall, I liked what I saw of Lyon. It had a nice energy, and it is absolutely somewhere I would spend more time on a future French itinerary. Also, it was a very nice change of pace to have French pricing for food instead of Swiss pricing for food on the last day of our trip!
I have loved the Olympics for as long as I can remember. It’s what drove me to try figure skating and gymnastics as a child (both unsuccessfully, I might add). I love everything about it – learning about the random sports that I didn’t know existed, the international camaraderie, the inspiring stories of overcoming the odds to make it to the world stage. The memory of the Beijing 2008 Opening Ceremonies will forever be seared into my brain. I’ve always wanted to go to experience it live, and when I found out it would be in Paris, one of my all time favorite cities, in 2024, I booked the tickets immediately!
I went through the official hospitality website for our tickets, where I selected a package that included the hotel stay and two events, along with transportation around the city. From there, I added on two more events for the time frame that we were looking at being in Paris, so we had a total of four events across three days and two nights. We minimized the time we spent in Paris that wasn’t directly related to the Olympics, although it turned out that’s what everyone was doing and it was actually really pleasant to be in the city doing the tourist activities during the time we did have!
When we weren’t at Olympic events, we did a lot of sightseeing! We went to Musée d’Orsay to get in some culture, went up to Sacre Coeur, and wandered through as much of the city as we could within the time we had. We even managed to meet up with a few friends for meals. Sam had never been to Paris before beyond spending the night in a horrible hotel near the train station after one of his connections was cancelled, so I was excited for the chance to show him how amazing the city can be.
Plus, it was all decked out for the Olympics! I loved all the signs featuring their mascot reminding guests to recycle, and the rings and logo almost everywhere you looked. The train stations had signage on the floor leading you to the lines that you needed to take to get to the venues. It was also cool to get a glimpse of some of the “behind the scenes” components – I loved the “official timekeeper” buses we passed right next to the Seine.
Our first event was Track and Field. I truly could not have picked a better event to start at. First of all, we had an awesome lineup. We had seven events: Men’s 400m semi-final, Women’s Hammer Throw final, Women’s 400m Hurdles semi-final, Men’s Long Jump final, Men’s 1500m Final, Women’s 3000m Steeplechase final, and Women’s 200m final. The night started out with a few medal ceremonies, which was cool but we couldn’t see much from the angle of our seats, and then the competition started!
Beyond the actual events that we saw, though, Track and Field is one of those events that feels like the quintessential Olympic experience. In the US, at least, it always makes primetime coverage, so it’s one that I grew up watching, and it’s also very clear who the winners and losers are. There’s not much background you need to understand it. We saw the races that my friends and family were talking about the next day. We saw Olympic records being set and races that were decided by photo finish. It was incredible.
Also, there’s something about seeing all of these sports live that lets you appreciate just what it takes to do them. Yes, I know they jump really freaking far in the long jump, but seeing the setup in person emphasizes it so much better than on TV. The hammer throw, too – watching how far those women could throw across the field was amazing. The athleticism on display was so spectacular across the board!
Before they start their attempt, the climbers all get a chance to take a look at the course and map it out in their heads, which was so fun to watch
The next morning, we headed out to an entirely different part of the city to go to our next event: Sport Climbing! Climbing was introduced as an Olympic sport in Tokyo in 2021, along with surfing and skateboarding. Of the three, I thought surfing was cool (although it was held in French Tahiti on the other side of the world for these Olympics), skateboarding was kind of lame (although they did a much better job with the venue in Paris, what I saw on TV was a lot more exciting this time around), and climbing was cooler than I expected it to be.
In Tokyo, they had it as one combined event, with three scores evenly weighted: Bouldering, which is how many short “problems” you can solve in a given time frame; Lead, which is how far you can get up a very tough course before falling; and Speed, which is a set course that climbers get up as fast as they can. Speed climbing is kind of a different entity, and there isn’t much overlap between that and the types of climbers who excel at the other two components, so they did a smart thing and separated those out in Paris. Our set of events was the Men’s Lead semi-final and the Women’s Speed final, which also included the quarterfinals and semifinals because they go just that fast.
Climbing was a great spectator sport. While the physicality is important, there’s also an element of strategy and problem solving on display, and watching the climbers back-to-back meant we could watch how different athletes approached the various sections. Also, the stakes are high – they only get one attempt, and a fall off the wall means they’re done.
And then, when we got to speed climbing… I saw it once before on TV, at the Tokyo games, but holy shit. It is unreal. That photo above this paragraph is the final times of the gold medal run for the women. Watching them scramble up that wall in under seven seconds seemed impossible. If one finger or toe missed one hold, they were out of the race.
Also, these were objectively our best seats. Setting aside that I know that from their category, their location, and their price point, we got another clue…. I ended up sitting right behind someone famous! Specifically, Chris Sharma, who I have been informed is rock climbing royalty.
Did I know who he was, when he sat in front of me? Of course not. I think climbing is cool but I don’t follow it regularly. As a matter of fact, when he first sat down, he was a little late and so I had held out a sliver of hope that maybe the seat in front of me would just be open only to have that hope dashed. And he’s reasonably tall. Which is not a trait you want in the person sitting in front of you in a crowd.
But my slight annoyance quickly turned into intrigue when a woman with a microphone came and pulled him out of the crowd to do an interview in the middle of the session. As soon as there was a break in the action, people from all over the arena were coming over to shake his hand, and get photos with him, and have him sign autographs. They were telling him how much he had inspired them. Finally, I turned to the guy on the other side of me, who clearly knew things about climbing, and I asked him.
“So, is this guy a big deal, in the climbing world?” I said.
“Yeah, he’s actually… he’s kind of the biggest deal?” he replied.
Later, when I sent a photo to a friend of mine who does follow climbing, she confirmed his name (which I’d figured out from Google but did want to verify) and told me that he was “the Brad Pitt of climbing.” Even if I couldn’t fully appreciate his level of celebrity in the moment, it was really cool to feel as though we were present for something important. To learn more about the history of what I was watching, one hastily searched famous rock climber at a time.
From there, we headed to our next event, which was Diving!
The diving arena looks extremely close to the stadium, except it’s actually a 40 minute walk away. Don’t ask how I know this.
I love watching diving on TV, but I found it a little harder to follow in real life. I’ve realized that I don’t actually know that much about what makes it good, and I really like seeing the slow motion shots and where they draw the angles over them – which, surprise, don’t feature in the live prelims of the event. It was cool to see an aquatic event, and helped add to the diversity of the types of athletic events that we saw, but I don’t think I appreciated it as much as I could have if I’d known a bit more about the sport.
From there, we headed back into the city to check out the Clubhouse 24 in Palais de Tokyo! We had access through the hospitality package, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I thought it was really cool. When we came in, they gave us a welcome snack and drink, and then we got to explore their various Olympics exhibits. We even got to meet our new fav, the Paris 2024 mascot!
Obsessed with the hat mascotYep, those are the anti-sex beds
Definitely worth the visit, especially if you’re an Olympic nerd like me. The food court was pretty good as well, and we grabbed dinner there. They had lots of viewing areas set up as well, but we had a long day ahead of us the next day and opted to head back to the hotel instead.
Our final event of the trip was Rhythmic Gymnastics! We went to two rounds of the Individual All-Around Qualifying. Note – only women do Rhythmic Gymnastics, and there are individual and team events.
This one hasn’t taken off as much in the US, mostly because we’re not historically very competitive at it. Of all the Olympic sports, this has always felt the most like dance to me, so I’ve always loved it. At the very least, I know what to look for, even if I don’t know the names of all the elements and the difficulty levels. And they’ve started letting them use more fun music, which makes it a lot more entertaining.
We saw them do two rounds, the ball and the hoop. They also have to compete with the ribbons and the clubs, which was the other session later in the day. Sam said he would have been happy with only one round, but I felt as though I was back in one of the dance competitions in my childhood and absolutely could have kept watching!
But alas, our time at the Olympics had come to an end. We had a few more hours to do visit a few more tourist sites, and then it was back to the airport to head to our next destination.
I had the most amazing time at the Olympics. It was, without a doubt, one of the best experiences of my life, and I am so beyond grateful that I got to experience it in all its glory in Paris. It was a true bucket list item for me and it managed to live up to all my expectations. Next up, Sam and I continue the journey with a flight to Vienna and then a journey back to Paris by train and the occasional bus!
In three days, Sam and I went to the adjacent regions of three different countries as day trips from Luxembourg. It’s the kind of thing that makes me marvel at both the distances and the transportation networks across Europe – coming from the Western US, you can’t even have a similar experience in US states, let alone different countries. It was a great start to the trip and I would recommend any of these destinations, but part of why I keep up this website is to reflect on my own experiences, so here goes.
Third Place: Metz, France
Full disclosure, we weren’t even planning on going to Metz because I’d made this exact same calculation when I was planning this trip based on travel blogs. But the universe had other plans, and instead of the nice, 2.5 hour nonstop train ride from Paris to Luxembourg, we had a stop in Metz and then another stop in Thionville and then a bus ride, and we wanted to have dinner with Sam’s friend in Paris. So we did a stopover in Metz. I was glad to get the chance to explore it a bit before we headed up to Luxembourg City. Perhaps ranking it last is unfair of me, because we only gave it about a half day, which was the least amount of time of any of these places, but I’m also not entirely sure what we would have done with the other half day.
Pros: It’s very convenient, only an hour by transit even if there’s no rail and you have to do a bus bridge. Cheaper than Luxembourg. French food, and in particular, French bread. Charming, small Old Town with a few cool old churches and castles.
Second Place: Namur, Belgium
Namur was my top choice for a day trip, because I really wanted to visit the French part of Belgium – when Alan and I went to Antwerp, we stayed pretty north, and I was interested in going to a new region. I compared Namur, Liège, and Dinant, and Namur had by far the best train connections to Luxembourg. Still, I am going to ding this one in the rankings because of how far it was. Two hours by train was the scheduled time, and it ended up taking us closer to three to get there because our train broke down and we had to get off at the platform and wait for the next one.
My phone informs me that our unintended transfer point was Libramont
Still, despite that strange start to the morning, I really enjoyed Namur. We were there during some sort of food truck festival, which made for a fun lunch.
The best thing we did was take the cable car up to the Citadel. The views were amazing, we had a lovely walk down the hill, and we even found the golden turtle that functions as a de facto symbol of the city, which was something I had wanted to see! We also headed to the Félicien Rops museum, who was billed as Belgium’s most controversial painter. After seeing the room in the museum entitled “Eroticism and Satanism,” I can see why.
Pros: I think the Wallonia region is the most culturally interesting of the three day trips, especially if you’ve traveled to the Flanders region of Belgium in the past. The linguistic division of Belgium is something that we talked about in French class, and the way that my travel has worked out, it was easier to come to Namur from Luxembourg than it was to visit Wallonia when I was in Antwerp and Ghent. There were some solid museum options and we definitely could have spent more time up in the area with the citadel, as they had built that area up more for tourists.
First Place: Trier, Germany
Trier wins because of its Roman ruins and because of its proximity to Luxembourg City. Only an hour away, and it is seriously dense with options of what to do. We started at their symbol of the city, the Porta Nigra, which was an old Roman gate. Fun fact, part of the reason it was preserved so well is because a Greek monk started living in it to get away from society. We also made it to the Roman baths, which were over a larger site with a subterranean portion, and there was an amphitheater nearby that we could have gone to if we hadn’t wanted to eat dinner before our train back.
We also headed to the Karl Marx house, which was a well done museum that read like a cautionary tale – what if you really like philosophy and you think that workers should have a few rights, and then a bunch of politicians decide to take your life’s work and use it to justify a lot of terrible things, like genocide or imprisoning people in Siberia? Pretty rough, if you ask me.
We also had a chance to explore some of the city center, which was beautiful and had a few plaques to commemorate history that Sam had to translate for me, including a very old pharmacy. Sam also found us a potato restaurant for dinner, which for me is the peak German food experience!
Pros: Between the short distance and the German rail system, this was definitely the easiest, logistically. I also think it’s the best option for history lovers, between the Roman ruins and all the other historical sites spread out across the city. Trier has the oldest bridge in Germany, dating back to the 2nd century, and somehow it’s still both standing and in use.
Regardless, all three were excellent and I don’t think it’s possible to go wrong here. We went every direction from Luxembourg City and found something cool – north to Vianden, east to Trier, south to Metz, and west to Namur (well, northwest, but we’ll still count it). It sits really well at the crossroads of a lot of interesting places, and it was the perfect way to start out this trip. Once we were done in Luxembourg, we headed back to Paris to start the main event: the Olympics!
Fun fact, this is my 100th post! I started this in the form of a Tumblr back in 2014, which is absolutely wild. It’s been nearly seven years, which I think might be roughly the amount of time it takes for every single cell in the human body to be replaced? Seven years ago I was in my sophomore year of college. A lot has changed since then, both in my life and in the world. Since 2014, I went on study abroad, traveled alone for the first time, graduated college, moved halfway across the country, started a job, got promoted (twice), started a masters degree, and bought a house. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next!
It’s also been over a year now since I was on a plane. The world changed completely last March, practically overnight. The last trip I took out of the country was Cuba (which I will be posting about at some point soon). The one I wanted to talk about on this post, though, was last Thanksgiving. In November 2019, my parents and I visited Europe together. I am so thankful that we went before COVID. I can’t just get on a plane and visit for a long weekend anymore. Seeing my family now requires quarantining and driving, planning to minimize as many risks as we can. It will probably be a long time before we’re all vaccinated and can travel together again, so I’m glad the last trip was a good one.
Highlights from London: – Going to the Tower of London in the rain and trying to imagine what it must have been like in the Tudor period – Staying in Trafalgar Square in a beautiful boutique hotel – Visiting Christmas markets and drinking mulled wine – Going out to pubs with my friend Will and getting a tour of some of the more off the grid places – Getting to go on the Harry Potter Studio Tour with my parents, who read me the first book back in first grade – That amazing Italian pizza place near our hotel – Going to the Shard and having cocktails as we look out over the city
Highlights from Paris: – The charming café that we found near our hotel! The waitress heard me reading the menu and came up to my parents and started speaking French to them because she assumed we were all French speakers, which, not going to lie, I’m a little proud of…. – Wandering around the Louvre during their night hours – Going on a dinner cruise down the Seine and seeing the city at night – Taking a day trip out to see Chambord and Chenonceau, which I’ve been wanting to see for ages – Dad trying escargot for the first time in that lovely little bistro
Highlights from Copenhagen: – Showing my parents where I went to school! Copenhagen was my first big trip on my own, and so it was amazing to get to show them all my favorite places – The Christmas market at Nyhavn. I used to stay away from Nyhavn when I lived there, because it always felt touristy, but all the little stalls were so cute and we had a favorite mulled wine place by the end of our time there – The fabulous restaurant a few doors down from our hotel with some of the best gnocchi I’ve ever tasted – Tivoli’s Christmas season – Just being back in Denmark. Copenhagen is one of the cities I love most in the entire world, and I have so many happy memories associated with it. I met one of my best friends in the world there, I learned so much about myself and about traveling, and I love being able to walk around and revisit my favorite places again <3
It was the first time I got to go to Europe with my parents, but hopefully it won’t be the last! I’m excited for all of us to get vaccinated and be able to take more trips together in the future.
Ok, time to finally post about my 21st birthday. I know, it’s actually been several weeks since I did the beginning of my trip, but since then school has started and I’ve been dragged into having real responsibilities, like homework and work and applying to jobs. So here it goes.
On Monday morning, Christine arrived to a rainy Paris. After she took a quick nap and I ran an errand, we headed out to the Louvre for a little culture. The line was long, but we waited it out and then wandered through the halls aimlessly and saw some cool statues, beautiful furniture and jewels, and some French artwork. Some of the places I remembered going the last time I was there, although the Louvre is so huge I’m confident that we wandered to some new places as well. We headed over to Opera Garnier once we’d had our fill of art, and then stopped by Galleries Lafayette to marvel at the designer clothing.
At that point, it was getting close to dinner time. For my birthday present, Christine had surprised me with tickets to the Moulin Rouge! We had dinner with champagne, which was lovely, and then watched the show, which was unlike anything I’d seen before. Partially because it was topless, but it also had some pretty crazy acts. There was the rollerskating couple that did the kinds of lifts that you see in ice skating, but they were just twirling in a circle on a raised platform. And there were acrobats who had incredible strength. The man lifted the woman above his head and then got all the way down to a laying position, keeping her above his head the entire time. The dancers did the can can, a woman danced in water with some boa constrictors, and they brought ponies out onto stage. There were black lights, feathers, light up costumes, and giant headpieces. It was a cool experience.
After the show, I wanted Christine to see the Eiffel Tower and L’Arc de Triomphe at night, just as Kelcy had done for me with my first night in Paris. They’re stunning when they light up. We started at L’Arc de Triomphe, and then walked down Champs Elysée for a while until we got close enough to the Eiffel Tower to see it sparkle. It was magical, as always.
The next morning, we started with one of my goals, and climbed Notre Dame. Which is a lot of stairs. The view is incredible, though. Totally worth it. The gargoyles were a lot creepier than they seem in the Disney animated version, by the way. A lot of them were eating small animals.
From there, we walked around and took in Paris. We went to Le Marais, where I got my gift from my parents- a ring with my birthstone- and we wandered into an exhibit on Paris Fashion Week. Then we headed across the Seine to the Latin Quarter. The theme of the afternoon was to feel parisienne, which I think we accomplished. The Latin Quarter is the epitome of Paris to me, with the cafés and bookstores, the boxy shops along the Seine, and that fountain when you get off the metro near Odéon. I actually remembered my way around this time, and took us to the place where I had eaten crepes nearly ten months before since it’s reasonably priced and delicious. We also got ice cream and enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere for a while. From there, we went to one of the other places I remember as feeling Parisian, which is the Jardin de Tuileries. It didn’t disappoint. The whole day was perfect. It captured the essence of the city, with the café culture and magic of Paris. As the sun set, we found our way back to the metro and headed back to the apartment. Both of us had to pack, since I was leaving for the US and Christine was heading to a hotel the next day. Although I wanted the trip to last forever, I’m so glad that Christine joined me for my last two days. I still don’t quite believe that I got to spend my 21st birthday in Paris with such an amazing friend!
Paris is special enough that it deserves two posts.
Here’s the thing about Paris: everyone romanticizes it. You watch Midnight in Paris, for example, and see the city devoid of people, with tranquil, clean streets where everything is in its place. And certainly, before I visited, that was my view as well. It’s not quiet, though. It’s a proper city, with noise and dirt and crowds of people moving rapidly through the metro and cars that honk all the time. And I think if Paris was exactly like my romanticized imagination, I wouldn’t like it very much. I love that it’s alive, bustling with movement and culture and even tourists. It’s that atmosphere that draws me in and makes me want to keep returning. Paris is the perfect blend of romantic beauty and realism, livable and yet still mysterious.
For those of you who have been following me for the past year, you may remember that I’ve already traveled to Paris, last November (x), and loved it. This was the first trip I booked after the initial details for Strasbourg were taken care of. Due to the timing of the quarter system, I arranged to spend my 21st birthday in Paris. While I originally thought I would be alone, my oldest and very dear friend Christine arranged to fly in on my birthday, so I’m splitting these posts into my time before and after she arrived.
I arrived Friday afternoon by TGV and quickly made my way to my Airbnb, which was adorable but made me feel terribly out of shape with its seven flights of stairs. I had done some research on reasonably priced shops in Paris since I had a lot of shopping to do for family Christmas presents, which led me to the 6th and then into the Latin Quarter. I stopped by Shakespeare and Company, walked along the Seine, stopped in Notre Dame, and got a cinnamon crepe. I ended up in Le Marais for the first time and went grocery shopping on my way back to the apartment. It was so strange to see some of the places I had visited last November. They looked the exact same but so much has changed in my life. This time, I didn’t get lost in the Latin Quarter, and I even managed to find my old hotel… nice to know that mental map took 10 months to develop.
Saturday was a day trip out of the city! Back when I visited Berlin, I took a bike tour with Fat Tire, so I had checked out their Parisian tours and found one to Giverny. We all met up at the train station, and of course it started raining. I apparently don’t have great luck when it comes to bike tour weather. Our group ended up being me and nine Australians. We all took the train to Vernon, where we went to a market and shopped around. I wish the US had bakeries the way France does. After we had all gotten our provisions for lunch, we headed to a picnic spot by the river. It was gorgeous, and as I ate my bread and cheese and strawberries, our guide explained how impressionists were the punk rockers of the art world. Although I’ve already learned about impressionism through DIS, I found the information about how art has evolved from these paintings very interesting. For the first time, I actually saw something in a Jackson Pollock painting beyond meaningless paint splatters, so that has to count for something!
From there, we biked out to Giverny, which is a tiny town that seems to only have bed & breakfasts, art galleries, and one token café. We headed to Monet’s garden, which was stunning. I think if I lived somewhere like that, I’d take up painting! It was split into two parts, the water lily area that contained the Japanese bridge and plants growing freely, and the area near the house with neat rows of flowers organized by their colors. When it started raining, we headed into the house. His studio was the best part of that because they had recreations of many of his pieces on the walls. After we were all done in the gardens, we visited his tomb and then headed back to Vernon to catch the train. During the course of the day, I had befriended an Australian family and they invited me to dinner with them, so we found a place near the train station between our two apartments. It was great to have an intellectual discussion about our cultural differences; we talked about politics, education, art, and how our countries handled their indigenous people. I learned a lot about Australia (which is still on my list of places to go!)
The next day, I left the apartment relatively early and went to a flea market, Marche aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves. Side note, I’m terrible at restraining myself from buying breakable things… but I was pretty productive and got a lot of Christmas shopping done! It was a nice little market, with a good variety of objects and decent prices. Personally, if I lived somewhere that had markets like that, I’d never buy a regular dish again when I could get something beautiful.
I stopped back at the apartment to drop everything off and then I headed out again. I finally walked around the two islands, starting with Île Saint Louis and then crossing the bridge toward Notre Dame. I ended up finding Saint Chapelle, which I had read about due to its stained glass. As anyone who reads this blog knows, I love stained glass, so I figured I should check it out. After waiting in a very long line, I made my way up the stairs into the high tower. Wow. It was AMAZING. Truly beautiful, and well worth the wait and the cost to get in. As much as I would have loved to just sit in the stained glass room all day, my time in Paris was unfortunately limited and I had other places I wanted to go!
So I headed off to Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum in Paris. I remember learning about the architecture in high school, about how they wanted to take the parts of the building that are supposed to be on the inside and put them on the outside. The views from the top are pretty great, with views all around Paris. I spent a long time wandering around the various pieces, trying to see what caught my eye. A few I liked: the strange reflective red glass, the three dimensional mirror, the teal stained glass piece, the dark carpeted room with a loop of rain sounds in the background, furniture aesthetic of the 80s. The works that made me think the most were a series of pieces by a photographer dealing with the uncanny valley, where she would take mannequins and manipulate them to look realistic, and make models and celebrities and turn their photos doll-like; through the pieces she considered what makes people alive. Creepy, certainly, but also intriguing. After a meal at the café, I headed back to the apartment to repack and skype my parents, because the next day was my 21st birthday!
I’ll talk about that on another post, though. À bientôt!
Bonjour, mes amis! The above pictures are from Colmar, France.
So, it’s my last week in Strasbourg! Since my last post in Bordeaux, I’ve been wrapping up my research, including writing myfinal report. I’ve also taken the time to revisit my favorite places in Strasbourg. Including, but not limited to: that ice cream place that scoops ice cream into a flower design, the Jardin de l’Orangerie, Place Kléber, the square around the cathedral, the Galaries Lafayette, and of course the lovely cobblestone streets of Petite France. I even went in one of the fancy jewelry shops and pretended to be wealthy and tried some of it on.
Today, I figured I would try to see a little more of Alsace, and so I headed to Colmar, which I’m pretty sure I saw on a list of “fairy tale towns in Europe” once. And I can see why! From the train station, you walk through a beautiful park with statues and fountains to get to the centre ville. I spent most of my day wandering, although I had a few memorable interactions with the French…
1. Since I didn’t have a map, I asked the lady in a Guess store where the “plus belles endroits” are, and she told me how to get to the area by the canals. She also told me about her children and how she considers talking on the phone in a store to be rude. She was probably disappointed I didn’t buy anything.
2. At a bookstore, a woman asked me to find a psychology book for her on this one shelf (at least I think that’s what she was asking? I had a hard time understanding her) and so I picked out one on psychiatry. Hopefully she’s satisfied with that…… I’m still confused about that exchange.
3. And at another store, I was searching for Christmas gifts (get excited, family) when two salespeople came over to ask if I needed help finding anything and if I’d been there before and if I was satisfied with their service. Considering I still have a stress reaction when people unexpectedly speak to me in French, the encounter was a bit overwhelming, but I answered all their questions and (I think) they even complimented my speaking ability!
Colmar is charming and beautiful, and I’m glad I took the time to do a day trip there before I left. Everyone I interacted with was incredibly nice, and I definitely recommend it if you’re in the area. Tomorrow, I’m packing up for the summer, because Thursday I’m off to Paris! I have three days by myself and then my friend Christine is joining me for my last couple days before I return to the US. If you told me a few years ago that I would be spending my 21st birthday in Paris, I would never have believed it! It feels like a dream come true.
I’ve always imagined Bordeaux as wine country, to the point that I was quite surprised to find myself in an actual city. I took a walking tour my first day, where our guide explained how their current mayor had made an effort to clean up the city by incentivizing citizens to power wash their homes and the streets in the city center were transformed to be mostly pedestrian. In fact, Bordeaux actually has the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe. I also learned that Bordeaux was under British rule for a while, the main bridge was built because Napoleon got angry about having to move his troops by boat, and whoever built the statues in Bordeaux was very into mythology. Our guide was great, she brought us some pastries that Bordeaux is known for to try as well. There were only 4 of us on the tour, so it felt more like someone showing us around the city as opposed to being herded around as part of a tourist group. After visiting some of the monuments and churches on the tour, I did some exploration on my own. I did a little shopping, saw a few more monuments, and got a pretty good sense of the city.
The next day was my bike tour through the vineyards! This was the real purpose of my trip, and I had actually structured the dates around being able to go on this tour. So my morning started early, meeting the tour guide at the office. There were twelve of us in the group, and everyone I talked to was incredibly nice. We took vans to St. Emilion, where we got our bikes and started off through the vineyards. The countryside is stunning, and I can’t imagine a better way to see it. The vines seem to stretch forever. Here are a few takeaways about the Bordeaux wine region:
1. There are between 7,000 and 8,000 chateaux in the wine region. This sounds a little fancier than it actually is, because a “chateau” is not defined by the fanciness of your house but by whether the entirety of the wine production is done on your estate, from the growth to the bottling. Our guide said she was very disappointed at her first chateau because it was only a farm….
2. The naming system is super complicated. It was explained to me several times and I still am not sure I understand enough to even attempt to explain it here. Just know that there are a lot of rules and restrictions, including on the types of grapes you grow. Additionally, each chateau can’t make more than one type of wine per classification, so their better wine is “Chateau [estate name]” and their lower tier wine has the estate name but is “jardin de…” or “plaisir de…” or something to that effect.
3. The best soil for grape growing is actually the least fertile soil. This is because it forces the roots of the grapes to go very far underground to look for moisture. Also, grapes for wine production are very different from the kind that you buy at the grocery store. They want a higher ratio of the skin of the grape, which has more of the flavors they want.
We got to try grapes straight off the vine while learning all of that. From there, we went to our first chateau of the day. This one was a family-run place, so we got to tour the bottom floor of where the family lives. With their library and Picasso collection… I can’t imagine having that level of wealth. Then we toured the area where they make wine, where they explained how the process worked. It was a bit of a review, since we’d toured a wine place in Spain (throwback to that time I almost got stuck there x). This chateau was a much smaller operation, and a lot less industrial than the one I’d seen before. After the tour, they led us out into the garden, where we had lunch and a tasting outside. We tried both tiers of their wine, which were both very good! We also had bread and cheese and ratatouille, so the whole thing felt very French. It was lovely to sit in the sun with good wine, good conversation, and good food.
When our lunch was over, we got back on the bikes and headed back to St. Emilion. Pro tip: if you drink wine before biking, rehydrate! The bike ride back was a lot more difficult than it needed to be because I didn’t drink enough water. But I was feeling better by the time we got back in the village. We took a quick tour around St. Emilion, which is a charming little town that feels as though you’ve gone back in time. From there, we got back in the vans and were driven to our second chateau of the day. This one was corporate owned, so it was a bigger operation that practically oozed money… even the elevators had fancy benches in them designed to match the original style of the chateau. They brought us to a fancy tasting table, which you can see in that photo above and literally lit up with a white background so that you can get the best view of the color of the wine. They gave us two types as well, and I liked the second one we had better. Once all of that was done, we were driven back to Bordeaux, where I had a nice quiet night with some pizza.
I spent my last day wandering around a bit more. I went in a few churches, including Basilique St. Michel. Fun fact about that one: something happened to all the original stained glass, so they replaced it in the 1960s. With 1960s style. Which is pretty great, because it totally doesn’t seem to fit with the church, which is a classic gothic cathedral. As I’ve probably mentioned before, I think stained glass is really cool so it was fun for me to see a different style. The St. Michel area of Bordeaux is the older neighborhood, so the streets are narrower and there are plenty of interesting squares with cafés and shops to explore.
All in all, a very nice trip. I’m hoping to do a day trip in Colmar before my time in Alsace is up, and I’m definitely looking forward to my trip to Paris in a couple weeks! I’m down to less than three weeks in France, and then it’s back to school and normal life…
First of all, I’d like to talk about how nice everyone here has been. Out of the many emails I’ve sent out requesting interviews, it’s true that most of them never got responses. But of the people who did respond, they’ve been amazing. This week, I met a man who’s an expert in furniture, and he printed out all of the French expert rules for me, told me about all of his cases, and showed me his furniture workshop. And then, at the end, he asked me if I’d been to the Musée Historique, and upon finding out I had not, he called up a friend of his there and got me free admission!
And the Musée Historique was very cool. Their headsets were location based, so when you stood near a section of the exhibits, that piece of information would play, and it would keep moving on as you walked through the museum. Plus, I learned a lot about the history of Alsace. Although I knew it was culturally partially German and partially French, I hadn’t realized how much the territory had actually changed hands! In particular, the section on World War II talked about how Alsaciens were seen as Volkdeutsch instead of French, but many Germans didn’t consider them to be German enough. There were also some pictures of places in Strasbourg where they’d had Nazi rallies. It was strange to see the same places I’ve taken touristy pictures in the museum as part of the exhibit.
I’ve also done a few other touristy things this week, including walking around the European Institution section of the city and going to the Alsacien Museum, which was overall a little disappointing but had a lot of artifacts from Strasbourg through the ages. I also went to the Parc de l’Orangerie, which is currently my favorite place in Strasbourg! It had a mini zoo that contained storks, flamingos and a lot of other birds, a small lake where you can rent boats, a garden area with beautifully arranged flowers, and a lot of cafés. I went to a café for lunch and I got a sugary drink that attracted a lot of bees, much to the chagrin of the other customer at the restaurant, who spent half an hour laughing at me as I flailed around and attempted to swat the bees away with my napkin. That incident aside, I will definitely be returning to that park again before I leave Strasbourg!
Anyway, I’m off to Bordeaux on Monday, so my next post will be about that trip! À bientôt.
Yesterday I did some more sight seeing in Strasbourg, including walking over seven miles to see a new side of the city! While my feet hurt, it was cool to see a different area from the places that I’ve spent time in so far. I checked out the National Library, several churches, and got pretty close to the German border before I turned back. I finally went inside la Cathedrale Nôtre Dame de Strasbourg, which has some pretty awesome stained glass and gorgeous Gothic ceilings. There are some nice cafés in that area as well, so I had some delicious chocolate crêpes.
Being here in the summer has made me miss a few things about the US. Namely, air conditioning and window screens. I’ve had a summer with no air conditioning before, when I lived in Maine for ballet camp. That one was worse, because we were dancing eight or more hours a day, but it’s never a pleasant experience to feel hot and sweaty all the time. And it’s hard to sleep, because I like to sleep under sheets but Europe only believes in comforters. Which are definitely too hot for this summer. And as much as I want to have the windows open, that involves allowing flies and mosquitos in the room. Every night this week I’ve woken up to another bite….
Besides the heat, though, I’ve been fairly productive with my research and looking into jobs and my other summer goals! I’ll keep you posted.
