Day 36 - [R]hine River Cruise (Strasbourg, Alsace region), France

Suddenly French after all this German

Morning view from my cabin porthole

Back to busy touring today. The morning was a highlights walking tour of Strasbourg and the afternoon, a wine tasting in the Alsace district. Fr the morning tour, we were driven around to Strasbourg city from our docking location in Keln, Germany (the other side of the Rhine). We were then led into Strasbourg through an old defence bridge/dam structure that spanned one of four branches of the River Ill that run through Strasbourg.

Medieval defensive bridge/dam

Barricades could be dropped in each archway to dam the river and prevent raiders entering the city

The central passage of the defensive bridge

Walking into the old town of Strasbourg was a delight. Like all the medieval cities that we’ve visited, I just love the feel of the place, the ‘human-sized’ scale of the buildings and the jumbled but appealing (to me) architecture. Also, the autumn colours were more striking in Strasbourg today, so that made it even more charming.

Two of the four remaining city watch towers (originally 13)	The ‘inside’ of the defensive bridge	First view of housing behind the old city wall
Canal/river views of old Strasbourg, showing autumn colour

Strasbourg has preserved a lot of its oldest residential area. Apparently, it was not troubled by the two world wars. The houses shown here were built in the late 16^th century in this typical timber framed style. I think that it was this tour that explained that the steeply pitched roofs of these houses were built that way to create a storage space (for hay in farmhouses) because the water table is so high next to the river, that cellars were untenable. (In the hills, cellars were too difficult to cut into the rock.)

Ancient housing in Strasbourg
Street scenes in Strasbourg
Strasbourg’s version of ‘love locks’	Guttenberg, who invented movable type here in Strasbourg, apparently	Unusual version of the timber-framed house because infilled with timber

Of course, the central element in the walking tour was the cathedral. It was Cathedral Notre Dame, one of at least three in France. I think this one was claimed to be the third-largest cathedral in France (but I may have mis-remembered this claim). It was certainly huge. However, I’m becoming accustomed to huge cathedrals now, so it was only impressive, not overwhelming.

Approaching the Cathedral from the market square

The main entrance, detail

Trying to get the whole thing in one photo

Inside was very impressive (a little bit as usual). The stained glass windows were amazing and told the stories of Christ’s life. The rosette window over the main entrance is apparently the largest of its type. I was flabbergasted by the organ, suspended on one wall about 1/4 down the nave. The modern stained glass windows that were added in tribute relatively recently (this century, I think our guide said) were magnificent, especially that Christ’s face was made up of photographic images of local people taken specially for the project.

The nave	The altar	The rosette window over the front door
Stained glass stories of Christ	The chancel is lined with stained glass	Modern stained glass added for a special commemoration
The organ, suspended above the nave	Figurines for nativity scenes The three magi	Figurines for nativity scenes Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus

The most fascinating thing in this cathedral was the astronomical clock. We only had a short time before this mechanical marvel, but I could have been there for hours. It was built in the middle ages (I will look up the details later) and is a wonderland of mechanical marvel. While we were there, it rang 10 am, which was a clockwork delight. (I should have videoed it but didn’t really understand what was going to happen until it did.) This one piece was a definite highlight of cathedral tours!

Astronomical clock, overview	The calendar dial
Clockwork elements computing the position of planets and stars	Clockwork computing the time (I think)

After visiting the cathedral, we were ‘set free’ by our guide to roam around Strasbourg as we wished, with shuttle bus times clearly articulated. I was obliged to meet her back under the Guttenberg statue at 11:55 am because I was committed to the 2:00 pm wine tasting tour and the next shuttle after 11:55 am was 2:10 pm. I wandered off on a bit of a random walk through Strasbourg. It didn’t take long to walk out of the old town. Streets quickly became lined with more modern buildings, and the shops were all high-end brands. I’m not sure if I’d walked into the ritzy shopping district, or just that most high-end brands in my mind are European, and so of course they show up in shopping strips.

Panorama of a plaza being set up for Christmas markets
This is happening everywhere in Europe at the moment. They take Christmas pretty seriously here, it seems.

Street scenes in Strasbourg

The walk to the bus was through a different, more modern part of Strasbourg (like 18^th-19^th century, ‘more modern’) and offered some further lovely scenes.

A gorgeous garden in the city, late in its display

The canal bounding the old city

A statue to a Myceanean warrior (I think) Need to find out what this is about

After lunch back on the Sigrun, I joined a small group who were to be driven out to a winery in the Alsace region to sample their wines.I’ve picked these sort of tours deliberately as I think that I’ll most appreciate my European visit through its gastronomy. The bus ride was unremarkable, except that we passed into lots of flat lands, which has been unusual for most of the cruise. It was clearly a wine growing region. However, it still had the characteristic of fortified places on ridgelines and hill tops. They are called ‘chateau’ in France.

Vineyards in the Alsace region

Across the farmland to the Chateau on the hill

Across the vineyards to the Chateau

The Achillee winery is a modern installation on an 12^th generation vineyard operation. (The 13^th generation is apparently already born, but only 9 months old, so can’t really be counted as part of the operation, yet.) We were given a tour of the facilities, which are largely very modern, partly because the whole vineyard is biodynamic and organic, a transition that’s happened over the last 10 years. There are still remnants of the old ways. The huge white oak barrels are still used. Indeed, they cannot be replaced. Apparently, making them is now a lost art! In the middle picture, the closest barrel is a cremant (sparkling) blend that they started in 2016 and, after the first five years of maturation, each year they remove one third for bottling and top up with more of the latest vintage.

Vats and casks for initial fermentation

Ancient white oak casks for second fermentation or aging

Smaller casks for aging Note the Disney cartoon characters distinguishing the contents of each cask

The primary objective of the tour was to taste the local wines. The schedule said four wines, but the sommelier who hosted us generously managed to get six wines into the tasting. I’ll update the post later with my notes (they’re packed while I’m travelling and writing this). However, a summary is that there were four really nice wines in the set and the other two were pretty good, just not AS good on my palate.If I’d had a practical way of buying some of it, I would have. Unfortunately, my very favourite, the cremant from the big white oak barrel that we tasted was the last of that batch of bottles! They will draw more wine for bottling in coming weeks.

The Achillee winery

The internal reception/tasting area Could have been in any modern Australian cellar door

The wines we tasted Apparently, the tall, narrow bottle is characteristic of the Alsace region, not the reisling variety that I had always thought

A far chateau and the sunset

The sun was setting by the time we left. The bus trip home was uneventful (and mostly in the dark). Dinner on board was a German-themed buffet with many traditional German offerings. Like all the food on board, it was lovely, but not perhaps as exciting as the chef wanted us to believe.

Daily facts: Location: [R]hine River (Strasbourg, Alsace region), France Temp: 16 Weather: Sunny, patches of cloud