France: An Anniversary in Strasbourg

Hey, Kev's here! For our 17th anniversary this year I thought to myself "How could I make this the most special anniversary yet?" Since moving to Germany a few months ago we had gone on trips to Belgium with the kids, have Austria secretly planned for Christmas (with kids) and London next year (with kids). Not dissing the kids, but man a trip just ourselves sure would be nice, but how?

So then came the striking idea: FRANCE! We haven't been there, but Paris would be to far away. Well since Christmas spirit is alive here now, and polling the best Christmas markets to attend, I heard about Strasbourg, and joyfully we could drive there and it was only 2 hours away! Win, so off we went. 

We situated the kids with promise of bribes and took off. We were so excited when we crossed the bridge in the middle of no where and crossed over into France: picture worthy moment! We had to snap this real quick because there was a semi truck coming! 

Strasbourg is a beautiful city in France, quant and pretty, and luckily today it wasn't unbearably cold. Unfortunately Heather had forgotten to take a dramamine before we left, and thanks to a million back road switchbacks so she was horribly sick. You can't tell it from the pictures but she felt horrible. So after finding a pharmacy, we bought something similar to dramamine and hoped for the best. She's such a trooper!

Talk about a super cute town. Everything was decorated primarily for the Christmas Market. We loved seeing the huge decorations over the restaurants and businesses.

Owing to my affinity for Cathedrals, we stopped first at Cathedral Notre Dame de Strasbourg. It was started in 1015 and took 424 years to finish, and for 227 years it held the record for the tallest building. It still does hold though the record for the highest extant structure built entirely in the Middle Ages. What's crazy though is that this church is one of the churches that had 74 of its stained glass structures stolen by the Nazis, and recovered and returned to the church by the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section of our military in the U.S. In case you haven't seen The Monuments Men it's worth it describing this adventure! What I love about this picture though is the tapestries. They are gigantic and 600 years old!

Inside during the Christmas season was the joy of the many creches and nativities that were on display. They highlighted many of the events during the nativity.

So this cathedral is famous for the astronomical clock. It's the 3rd clock that has been in this location since 1681, but this current clock has been there since 1843. It has a working perpetual calendar, orrery, which is a planetary dial, a display of the moon and the sun and the solar and lunar eclipses, all on one clock that spans three stories high. It has 18 inch figures of the Savior and his apostles, to include a life size rooster that crows three times at solar noon. This thing was huge and incredible to see.

Of course the outside architecture was amazing and so detailed as you can see from the prior front doors used a long time ago.

After going around more of the outside and seeing of the different sides of the cathedral we realized that it literally was the center of the Christmas market. We visited the different shops, enjoyed some crepes (yep - crepes in France) and some other fun little shops.

As the day progressed it so so nice to just spend time together, without the kiddos. Unfortunately the medicine we got for Heather didn't work well, and after a very well endured afternoon of nausea, we decided to call it and went home. So it was a shorter day, but just wonderful to spend time with my best friend! Happy 17th anniversary Love!