Monday, March 21, 2011

Trip to Strasbourg, France


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Hi  Everyone,
Here is a continuation about our trip to Strasbourg, France a couple weeks ago. Jiri and I took an overnight Eurolines bus from Prague, Czech Republic to Strasbourg, France. It took around ten hours to travel, going across Germany most of the night,and  finally reaching Strasbourg around 6:30 Saturday morning. Our trip through Germany was mostly uneventful.  Our bus stopped in Plzen, and then crossed the German border where our bus was stopped by the German police.  

Border Inspection

There is an interesting procedure Czech tour buses must undergo before traveling too far into Germany.  The German police typically signal each tour bus to follow the police car to a rest stop area.  At the rest stop, the police board the bus and check everyone's passports.  The police are looking for illegal immigrants, drug sellers, and who knows what else.  It's always funny for me when the police finally take my passport.  They see I'm an American, and immediately become very animated.  I guess they become excited at the prospect of finding an illegal American in the Eurozone.  

This has happened to me a couple of other times, but the police are quickly disappointed once they review my passport and find I have a legal residence permit for the Czech Republic, and I am not an illegal traveler in the Eurozone.  On this trip, the German police took away what looked like at least of a third of the passengers' passports, taking them to their police car to verify all the information. Thankfully, everyone seemed to be legal and the bus had no problems going on with the trip.  We were stopped for about thirty minutes with the police at the rest area.  

A Long Ride

After that, our trip was uneventful and long, and we finally pulled in to Strasbourg early on Saturday morning.  It was cold, but it felt very good to finally be out of the bus when we reached Strasbourg.  Jiri got our luggage and we began the long walk to our hotel.  We stayed at the Victoria Garden Appart'Hotel (point A on the map below). Thankfully they  had a luggage closet where we could put our suitcases till check-in time rolled around.  Check-in time was around 10:30 that morning, so we had some time to become acquainted with the central part of Strasbourg Saturday morning.

Our Hotel

Grand Island & Notre Dame Cathedral

The central part of Strasbourg is called the Grand Island, and is an UNESCO World Heritage site.  You can see the Grand Island on the map above--it is the part of the city that looks like a ring.  The ring is formed by the canals that surround the Grand Island.  The city center is the oldest part Strasbourg, and is a wonderful mix of new and old architecture, parks, canals and more.  The city center offers a very lively shopping district, along with restaurants, museums and more.  One of our first places to visit was the Notre Dame Cathedral.


Before the city of Strasbourg existed, it was the site of a Roman city called Argentoratum.  The current site of the cathedral was first used as a Roman sanctuary or holy place.  Later, Christians used the site to build the cathedral.  The Notre Dame Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church dedicated to the Virgin Mary.  The first church of this name was built in 1015 and was of Romanesque style, but was later destroyed by fire.  Renovation of the church began in 1176 and was completed in 1439.  At this point the cathedral was redone in the Gothic style.  One interesting note is that the church stands at 142 meters (465.879 feet), making it the tallest building in the world from 1647 to 1864.  The church is a beautiful mixture of French and German influences.  We actually visited the church twice in order to take it all in.

The cathedral has so many things to see and treasures to appreciate.  Some of the stained glass windows in the church are from the 12th to 14th centuries, there is an exquisite astronomical clock from the 17th century Renaissance period, and precious statues and tapestries all over the sanctuary and side chapels.  The organ in the church is huge and overwhelming, but beautiful.  Part of the organ dates back to 1385, and the organ works to this day.

The Astronomical Clock

One interesting note about the astronomical clock--it seems they have the same legend we have about our astronomical clock here, in Prague.  Both legends say that the city managers hired a clock maker to construct the clock and its works.  Once the clock was built and running, the city managers hired a bad guy to attack the clock maker, blinding him, so he couldn't make similar clocks for anyone else.  I feel sorry for the clock makers in Strasbourg and Prague!

That's all for today!


God bless,

Sher
Photo credits:  Jiri Vacik

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11 comments:

chaplain.cz said...

Hi Sher,
Good to read about your trip & thanks for the lovely photos of Strasbourg Cathedral. Glad you enjoyed your time there though sorry, as described in your previous post, that you had allergy & health problems courtesy of your hotel.

Very interesting to read about the German police stopping your bus & checking everybody's passport/ID. Whilst the EU has open borders, the police within each member state have the right to make spot checks. I guess they were looking for people from outside the EU such as Ukrainians & Belorussians who may have entered illegally from the East. I'm sure that the surprise of being presented with your American passport brightened up their day!

Sher said...

@chaplain.cz: Thanks for your comment! Yes, the cathedral was beautiful. And Strasbourg was a very interesting place--I'll talk more about our stay there in my next post!

Both times we've traveled by bus and went through Germany, we were stopped by the German police. The first time was when we visited Zurich last summer, and there was one guy who had a problem with the police. We were stopped that time about an hour or so. They finally let the guy stay on the bus, but did take some of his belongings. The same thing happened when our bus was going from Germany into Switzerland. We weren't able to figure out what the problem with that guy was...but it was interesting!

Yes, both times the German police were surprised, and then disappointed...they couldn't catch an American those times :0)

Have a great day,
Sher :0)

Duni said...

Hi Sher,

wow, sorry about those overzealous German policemen. What a pain ;-)
Still, you weren't held up too long and got to Strasbourg safely. The cathedral really is beautiful.

take care,
Duni

Sher said...

@Duni,
Thanks for your comment! You don't need to apologize about the German police :0) It is similar to when Europeans travel to the US and have to deal with security and immigration...it's not pleasant and sometimes the officers can be a bit overzealous! This is just one of the interesting experiences of traveling :0)

The cathedral there is beautiful! Trying to choose the pictures of the church to use here was very hard and took me a long time!

Have a great day,
Sher :0)

chizcake said...

Hi, dropping by here, i added your blog to my links, have a nice day!

Sher said...

@chizcake: Thanks for stopping by and linking to my blog.

Have a great day,
Sher :0)

Renata said...

Hi Sher!
I was searching google about an issue I have, and found this really interesting blog. I will definitely come back and read your posts more carefully!

But now, I think maybe you can have an answer to me... I was in a bus from Prague to Nürnberg, and got this police check just like you describe (driving to the rest area, getting a lot of passports, checking forever for a really long time...) but I was not really convinced about it yet. My doubt relies on whether they were really police or not, because the car was a citizen car, from a small city in Germany, not a police car as one would expect! The ONLY think identifying the couple who stopped us as police was the woman's "Polizei" jacket, and one gun for each one... Was that the case for you too, or they were in police car, and no doubts about what they were really doing?

I'm kind of worried, as my Brazilian passport is really wanted for falsification. I went outside to watch them doing whatever with the passports in the car, and they were talking to someone on the phone, and taking pictures of passes and IDs they got... Quite unprofessional and not german-like way to do things... Is it really like this, or I should be really worried?

Thanks a lot!

Renata

Sher said...

@Renata: Wow, I'm sorry to hear you had such a scary experience when you traveled by bus from Prague to Germany.

I have to say I'm no expert in this, as I've experienced this only once or twice. The police car that stopped our bus was like the one that stopped your bus--it looked like a regular car--not a police car. However, the police that came onto the bus to check passports did show ID.

Did the police who stopped your bus show their ID to you or the bus driver?

It's a scary experience. When they saw my passport, their eyes really lit up--like they had found someone interesting. However, I was legally in Europe, so they were disappointed when they found the proper stamps, etc.

There's not much you can do when in such a situation, but comply. To me, it sounds like what you experienced was very similar to the experience Jiri and I on our trip.

Have a great day,
Sher :0)

Anonymous said...

Good to hear that was the same with you... Was really weired!

I kept asking the driver who were those guys, told him it was strange they didn't have a police car, and so on, and he was just saying it was normal, normal, normal... They might have shown an id to him, but he did not tell me that, and I think I was so nervous that this didn't even cross my mind!

Anyway, if this is really how things go, I'm more relaxed! Thank you very much! =)

Renata

Sher said...

@Renata: It can be a scary experience, especially when you're not what's going on. Those police can sometimes be a abrupt, and they don't like to explain anything. Thankfully my husband had previous experience with the German border checks.

I'm happy to have been able to help you more relaxed about your own experience!

Have a great day,
Sher :0)

Sher said...

@Renata: It can be a scary experience, especially when you're not what's going on. Those police can sometimes be a abrupt, and they don't like to explain anything. Thankfully my husband had previous experience with the German border checks.

I'm happy to have been able to help you more relaxed about your own experience!

Have a great day,
Sher :0)