Today’s excursion was to Strasbourg where we visited the cathedral and had a walking tour around Le Petite France, a quaint district that dates back centuries. I didn’t know much about Strasbourg, but it has quite a storied history. Amazingly, in 1988 it celebrated its 2,000th anniversary! So it existed long before the Romans arrived. Strasbourg is home to the European Human Rights Council and the parliament of the European Union.
Strasbourg is in the Alsace district of France and it has a very distinctive collective culture of both French and German. After the Middle Ages, this region was controlled by either France, Austria, or Germany over and over again. And astonishingly, between the end of WWI and the end of WWII it was French, German, French, German, and then finally French, as it remains today. Strasbourg has a large historic German section that was built in the late 1988s and early 1900s. The German emperor was trying to convince everyone that they should stay German, so he went on a building campaign to impress everyone. All the buildings being built were grand, they added electricity, public transportation, good sewer systems, and great public spaces. We bused through the German section and it looked very nice.
The cathedral in Strasbourg is quite old, having been started in the late 1200s. It’s hard to get one’s head wrapped out just how old things in Europe are. What we call antiques in the U.S. are nothing compared to what antiques are here in Europe. While some parts of this cathedral are Romanesque, it really is considered one of the greatest Gothic cathedrals. Until 1874, the cathedral was the tallest building in the word. It remains the highest still standing extant structure built entirely in the Middle Ages. It’s spire, however, is actually see-through, which is very unusual. I know you’re probably sick of looking at cathedral pictures, but I’m going to post a bunch. Here are external shots.
Here are internal shots.
A big attraction in the cathedral is the astronomical clock. The clock shows much more than the official time; it also indicates solar time, the day of the week (each represented by a god of mythology), the month, the year, the sign of the zodiac, the phase of the moon and the position of several planets.
After visiting the cathedral we walked around some of the Le Petite France section. This area also has a storied past. At one point it was the section where tanneries were located and so people didn’t live near it because of the smell from the tanning process. Because no one wanted to live there, it became an area where the undesirables in society were forced to locate. It had a bad reputation, and of course, it was an area of ill-repute. Now it is a very fashionable and desirable area and the wealthy and well-to-do want to live there.
On our way back to the ship our tour guide pointed out a very small, unassuming building displaying the American flag. It was the U.S. consulate to the European parliament.
So that was our day in Strasbourg, a very diverse and interesting city. With the parliament of the EU in Strasbourg, France and the Headquarters of the EU in Brussels, Belgium, there is some talk of locating all EU administrative organizations in one city to reduce the travel of the representatives and the administrative expense of running two large organization components of the EU. France votes no, and Belgium votes no. Strasbourg wants very much to remain an important center of the EU. However, with the French election this Sunday, EU participation by the French may be in jeopardy. We’ll see what happens.