A Small Taste of Strasbourg

Everyone knows by now that we are in this tiny town, Chaumont, where there is nothing. There is no University, the closest bakery is 15 minutes away (and we thought this was France), and we haven't seen the sun for months. So what did we do for Christmas? Good question! We got the heck outta this place.

But when we woke up to catch our train for Strasbourg, France, the good Lord decided to show us what we would be missing in Chaumont:

Taken from our kitchen window just before leaving.

So we put on our packs and hiked through the beautiful snow to the train station. It was about 10 in the morning and we had two train changes before we would arrive in Strasbourg at about 14h. It was Sunday, so we had that afternoon and Monday to stroll around the city before heading further east.

There is not a whole lot to say about what we did, because we didn't do much of anything. We mostly just walked around the town and enjoyed the Christmas markets. If you don't know what the Christmas markets are, that is okay; we'll let you know. At the market, there are tons of little cabins set up and each cabin sells something different. Some sell Christmas ornaments, some sell artisan crafts, some sell food, some sell hot drinks! So we spent the majority of our time at different places, all of which look more or less like this:

Though we were sad not to be able to return to the ol' USA for Christmas, we definitely picked the BEST place to visit during the Christmas season.  Strasbourg is even called "The Christmas Capital of the World," so obviously it's the place to be. We literally spent all of our time enjoying the Christmas decorations of the city and enjoying the food.  We ate things like crêpes, gaufres (waffles) loaded with nutella and whipped cream, baguettes with melted cheese, onions, and bacon on them, and drank things like the famous vin chaud (hot wine) and hot chocolate.  Unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures of all the food...I guess we were too busy enjoying it.  Here are a few pictures of the beautiful decorations that we certainly did not forget to take:

This is where we ate for lunch one day

It's difficult to tell because this picture isn't very clear, but these people seriously go ALL out for Christmas.  I mean, every store, restaurant, whatever, has garland and holly and lights and Santas, the works.  It's intense.

As a side note (or maybe it's the whole point...): You all know that we love food, right? Well then, you must be made aware that the Alsace region (in which Strasbourg is located) has many specialties, mostly German-influenced.  Strasbourg went back and forth between Germany and France, so it's sort of a mix between the two.  You'll find German street signs, menu translations, etc. there.  Anyway, that being said, they serve a lot of sausage, sauerkraut, and best of all, tarte flambée/flammekeuche.  What is tarte flambée, you ask? Only the best food ever created, not to mention simple.  It's a very thin crust, like 1/10th of a pizza, crême fraîche (not so common in the states, but sort of a mix between sour cream and heavy whipping cream), and then any of the following toppings: onions, lardons (non-crispy bacon bits), mushrooms, and various cheeses.  You can find them in most restaurants for about 8-9 euros, so we ate our fair share of those.  Well Derek did, anyway.  This picture is just from the internet (how could we have forgotten to take a picture?!), but it does the tarte justice.  The pink things are the lardons.

 

Well, that's a bit about our Christmas vacation, but stay tuned for 2 more segments.  Also, we haven't forgotten about Paris, it's just on standby until we finish Christmas and then we'll try to squeeze the rest in before our next big trip!