Christmas Vacation - Part 3 - France and Germany

After adventuring around Switzerland, we headed to Strasbourg, France. I'll be honest, the only reason this city made the list is that it is famous for having one of the best Christmas markets. The town itself is really cute and looks a bit German in construction as it is on the border between the two countries. Apparently, the Alsace region was traded back and forth between France and Germany over the course of history until it finally ended up with France in the early 1900s.

Strasbourg has a beautiful cathedral that was a very impressive sight. I have to admit that I was incredibly underwhelmed otherwise. The Christmas market that usually stays open until New Years Eve closed early this year on Christmas Eve so, we had missed it. There were numerous little wood shops with the shutters closed on all of them. We read an article in the paper about the tourists being really upset about the change in closure date. People book their holiday travel so far in advance and it was disappointing for many of us to arrive and realize all the markets were closed. 

We enjoyed a walk around the city and admired the sights but, despite it being a weekend, not a thing was open. We suspect that with Christmas being on a Friday, the shopkeepers just remained closed all weekend. This left us with little to do aside from explore, eat and drink. I remain very disappointed in the experience as I don't see any reason why we would ever go back there. France did not do a good job of scoring points with Dan, so it remains one of his least favorite European countries.

On Monday, we traveled to Stuttgart, Germany. There isn't much in this town either; however, it is famous for two museums: the Porsche Museum and the Mercedes-Benz Museum. On Monday afternoon, we went to the Porsche museum, had lunch there and roamed the exhibits. It was very well laid out and full of fun facts. 

That evening, we went to a sports bar near our hotel for dinner and soccer. We had just finished paying when the fire alarm went off. This was not a good sign since it was attached to our hotel. Turns out, someone's radiator or towel warmer or something had started smoking so everyone in the hotel was confined to the restaurant while the fire department de-smoked the hotel. Always an adventure haha. 

Tuesday morning, we went straight to the Mercedes museum first thing and roamed the 7 floors of cars and information. The museum was also very good, but was different in that it traveled a timeline of Germany and how specific world events (wars, technological advances, etc) impacted the company and its trajectory. Very interesting. After all this car inspiration, we rented a BMW and Dan drove the Autobahn from Stuttgart to Cologne. There was little traffic so Dan was able to explore the "no speed limit" idea. I don't recall how fast his top speed was and it's probably best that I don't. Though I never felt unsafe with him behind the wheel. After driving in Cape Town, with a stick on the left side of the road, the man can do just about anything.

We checked into the Marriott in Cologne and roamed the streets in search of a dinner place. We eventually found the area with all the restaurants and opted for an "American Sports Bar" (shocking). We walked home through the quiet streets and crashed after a long day. 

The following day, we walked to the Hohenzollern bridge with all the love locks on it. You may think this is a silly idea given that Paris just cut all theirs off the bridges. Firstly, I trust German engineering immensely. I mean I did just ride there in a BMW. Lastly, this bridge is the one on which all the passenger trains cross the Rhine.... soooo it can hold some weight. Several thousand metal locks are not going to impact the structural integrity of this thing. We walked and walked trying to scope out a spot for our lock. We eventually managed to find a suitable place, affixed our lock, each took a key and tossed it into the Rhine. There our lock will stay, in the shadow of the Cologne Cathedral.

 It had gotten cold and windy, so we wandered a little more and then picked a warm place for lunch. New Orleans creole food that was very good. A bit more roaming and then we went to a quintessential German beer hall for dinner. The kind of place where they don't ask what you want to drink, they just bring beer.

In conclusion, this portion of the trip was a mixed bag. I suppose that's to be expected. Not every place you visit will be everything you hoped for and you will always love some places more than others.... to each their own.
One more stop til we head home to Ghana (well one and a half... but more on that later.)