Day 76: Obernai to Strasbourg

May 4, 2025

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We were woken up around 2 a.m. by a tremendous rainstorm, with thunder and lightening. What did the waking up was water spraying in through the window, which we had left open for air. It was interesting watching our building and the nearby ones dealing with the storm. They were all so sturdy and so well roofed that we felt completely snug, except for the spray coming in.

By morning, the rain was less but still significant, and it was a quite cold 10 degrees. That meant for the first time in quite a while we would need our full survival clothing kit. We loaded the bikes under the awning of the outdoor dining area, and set off through the obviously deserted streets.

The buildings seen from our window. It feels like a mountain village, maybe because it is!

As we loaded the bikes, I noticed this slightly irreverent poster.

Let's see you line up for ice cream now, tourists!

I had not been looking forward to fighting our way back through the road construction and the camper van parkings to leave town, but I needn't have worried. Our route took us instead up the bloody mountain behind the village.

After climbing for a bit, we had a view of both the city hall tower and the church spires.

Because of the rain, it was a chore to bring out the camera, so photos are scarce today. Even so, I captured this from above the town. I took the time to take out the camera for it because I found it a bit shocking. Inside the wonderful Disneyland-like restored core, walking with the crowds and visiting the bakeries, it's easy to forget that all the stuff comes from factories and warehouses that are nowhere near as pleasant.

It makes me think of H.G. Well's "The Time Machine", in which the gormless Eloi flit around enjoying goods placed out for them by the Morlocks, who work in factories under the ground. It turns out that there is a price for the Eloi, because in fact Morlocks eat Eloi. Well, this time we climbed out of beautiful Obernai centre before any Morlocks turned up!

We had climbed pretty high, which can be seen in the profile of the track, above. It gave us an outlook over vines and down to cultivated fields. But we had little time to appreciate this, as the track then took a dive, down at 17%, an angle that had us off the bikes and hanging on. Our various bike mechanics in Spain and France had not prepared our machines for this!

In that arrangement of mountains, vines, fields, we are in the mountain bit, looking down to the other two.

But not for long. This will soon go steeply down.

The rain kept us from trying to create a portrait of the towns we then passed though, such as Bischoffheim or Rosheim, but I think they were sort of normal, rather than super cute. I did dig the camera out at the second gate of Rosheim. I did that because indeed it was an interesting scene. But also I was still stewing over the first gate. The gates to the old town are narrow and can only admit one car at a time. So cars approaching each other have to take turns. When we approached the entry gate, a car on the other side stepped on the gas and blew through, basically forcing us out of the road. So this led to a lot of grumbling on our part about French drivers, and the photo of the gate through which we left the old centre (watching more carefully for lunatics trying to enter).

Once we passed Molsheim, we turned east toward Strasbourg, following the canal of the Bruche river. Normally this would be a flat and dead easy, slightly boring canal ride. But this time we had low temperature and rain, and we were really freezing. Dodie is a little short on clothes to keep your main core warm, having already mailed one piece home, and I am always short on ways to keep my hands warm. So we rather suffered along.

There were some distractions, such as this Egyptian Goose.

This one has a lot of white - probably a cross with something.

And there were these basically Greylag geese.

The white face looks like a cross as well.

And then there was this brood of baby Greylags.

We saw horses like these in several fields.

Something that caught our attention, as an example of some kind of French craziness, were the rules for riding your horse along the canal. Like what is special about Wednesday and Saturday afternoon?

As we entered Strasbourg, we thought we would have a straight shot on bike path to our hotel. But of course thus is France, and the whole long street had been ripped to pieces.

They were still pretending to have made a way for the bikes, but it all struck me as rather dangerous. At one narrow point, even a police car made to squeeze us off the road.

We did arrive at our hotel, called the Franciscan Convent. Reading the fine print in their welcome booklet, it seems this was not necessarily a former convent, but merely existed in a neighbourhood that used to have a lot of Franciscans. Still, we were glad to get a storage room for the bikes, and a room for us that while small, was fine. This allowed us to warm up slightly, and then to head off in search of Strasbourg's sights.

The street with our hotel is just outside the historic centre, and consequently is rather plain.

Strasbourg centre is basically an island in the river Ill. We quickly crossed that river, at the Kellermann quai, putting us inside the old city.

Having just crossed into old Strasbourg, things look nice but not fabulous.

Here is a tram running by some rather nice apartments.

Our first major stop was the huge but empty space called Kleber Square. The square is named for an 18th century general, whose statue stands in the middle.

Along one edge of the square is the Aubette building, which apparently is elaborately decorated inside. Our tour was to be too quick to warrant checking that out.

Along another edge are the narrow and tall buildings shown below. In this part of Strasbourg you do not see the full on fachwerk buildings so much, but rather ones of this subtle style.

On another corner, this detective agency. The Ladies' #1 Detective Agency is the only other one we know.

And here was Galleries Lafayette. Their flagship in Paris is a real work of art, and they have pastries and stuff that are completely unaffordable, but great. Fortunately they were closed today, Sunday.

Leaving the square, we noticed the large amount of bicycle parking that occurs all over town. A distressing proportion of the parked bikes are derelict.

Here is the main pedestrian walking/shopping street.

We were on our way to the section of town called Petite France. This is roughly equivalent to the Little Venice section of Colmar, except that it is more extensive. Like in Colmar, this area is rich in fachwerk buildings, and with the water flowing about, it also has a history of tanneries.

One of the buildings was undergoing re-roofing. At the distance i though this was with tiles, but from this photo, it looks more like wood. Not sure, because wood like that would not last.

A unique feature in the Little France area are some bridges and guard towers that were involved with protecting the city's southern flank. The bridges, first built in the 1200s, used to be covered, to protect soldiers that would be manning them during an attack. There were (are) also four towers around them. In the 17th century the defensive strategy switch to an idea from the famous Marquis Vauban, who designed lots of forts around France. This idea led to the construction of a dam across the Ill. The dam has 13 arches, from which it could release water. In the event of attack, the idea was to open the dam and to flood everything downstream. This was actually triggered, in 1870 to fend off the besieging Prussian forces.

One use of the dam, for us, was to give a good view of the bridges and towers from the earlier strategy. The view comes when you climb to the top of the dam. They do have an elevator, something appreciated by Dodie, but of course taking a page from the train stations, the elevator was not working!

Viewed from atop the dam, some of the bridges and towers meant to defend the southern flank.

We walked next to the Saint Thomas church, which is the main Protestant one in the city. It is suitably old, with its latest incarnation built between 1200 and 1500.

The interior looks normal, but this church has a few special and/or weird features.

It is usually the Catholics that have strange carvings and statues, but look at this mausoleum from 1777 for marshal Maurice de Sachs:

From the fleur de lis, I take it this is Marianne, not sure about the kid.

Or how about this tombstone, depicting an emaciated Nicholas Roeder von Tiersburg ( a patron of the arts) from 1500.

Very interesting indeed was this organ, made by the Silbermann family in 1741, and played here by Mozart in 1778. The image on the right is of course Mozart, I think the one on the left is the man (Alfred Kern) who restored the organ in 1979.

We wandered next into Gutenberg Square, which features a statue of Johannes Gutenberg. Gutenberg lived in Strasbourg from 1434-44. He published his mass produced bible in 1455.

The paper Gutenberg is holding says "Et la lumiere fut" (and there was light - from the Book of Genesis)

From Gutenberg Square it is just around the corner to the short street that leads to the Cathedral. You see the cathedral at the end of the street, and it is always amazing.

The cathedral has a huge bulk, and a facade just slathered with carving.

Inside the cathedral there is a huge amount of space, and all sorts of gret cathedral type stuff. There are for instance, dozens of stained glass panels, either with depictions of saints, or other biblical themes, in very complex looking glass work/painting.

Here is a unique display of creche type scenes.

Here is a really large array of candles.

The Jesus figure here not only has mastered that hand thing, but he also holds a fleur-de- lis. For the record, the fleur-de-lis became the national symbol of France during the Middle Ages, when the Capetian dynasty took power in France . The Capetians adopted the fleur-de-lis as the emblem of the French monarchy, and it became the official symbol of France in the 13th century, during the reign of Louis VIII.

Looking around the cathedral square, we see the Cathedral Hotel. I think we once stayed there, and Trisha too.

There is also the very notable Kammerzell House, built in 1427. It houses a restaurant and a small hotel today. It has that stunning Late Gothic style.

A look back at the combination of the Kammerzell House and the Cathedral. Strasbourg is similar to but still much different from Colmar and the wine villages. The whole area is fascinating!

Our 8 km quick stroll around Strasbourg.

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Tomorrow we will head up the Rhine, but still clinging to the French side, for what will be our last day in France before jumping into Germany!

Today's ride: 48 km (30 miles)
Total: 2,519 km (1,564 miles)

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Scott Anderson I can't believe you're almost done already! I'd forgotten that you started nearly two months before us.it feels like it's gone really quickly.
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8 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonI know. We are having difficulty realizing that we are nearly finished. It feels like we just barely started.
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8 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesWell, it just means you can come back sooner. Do you have a fall trip lined up yet?
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8 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesWe put our pennies into another birding visit to Costa Rica, together with cycling in Yucatan again. So Europe only the following Spring.
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8 months ago