A sojourn to Strasbourg

After making our way back down the Rhine, we arrived fairly late in Karlsruhe and spent the morning sleeping in. Once we awoke, we decided to pop over to Strasbourg, France for lunch. It's pretty cool to be able to hop in the car and be in a different country in under an hour; and what's more amazing is the change in culture that happens in such a short distance.

As usual, the cathedral is the center of town. Strasbourg Cathedral is very impressive gothic cathedral, full of intricate detail in both the interior and exterior. One of the highlights for me was the astronomical clock, complete with automata and clockwork mechanisms for tracking the position of the sun and moon. It even indicates equinoxes and leap years. It's a truly wonderful piece of machinery.

The cathedral also has a beautiful organ, however while the red and gold case is from the 14th and 15th century the mechanism is from the 1980s.

I was getting a bit sick of cathedral and castle photos, so as Strasbourg is an area fairly busy with photos I decided to turn my camera on the people in the mains square. I'm really glad I did - the photo above is one of my favorites from the trip. The graffiti between the two men translates to "work, consume, borrow, die."

I also think this lady should perhaps have stood somewhere else…

After touristing for a while we found a non-pretentious and non-touristy French cafe to have lunch in. We ordered sandwiches, and of course they came out on baguettes and were absolutely fantastic.

We went he long way home, through the Black Forest and up and down the mountain. Most of the time was spent enjoying the view from the car, so not that many photos were taken. It was an amazing trip, reaching about 1km above sea level, and winding our way up and down a few peaks. It's summer, so the weather was mostly fine and the road was full of motorcyclists. I certainly can't blame their enthusiasm -- I'd love to take the Mustang for a trip up and down the winding roads.