It was Friday the 13th of December and after our 4 days in Cologne and the North Rhine area we were back off to France today. We had an 8.10am train out of Cologne but all woke up early, just after 6am, due to some noise outside the apartment (and maybe some excitement about returning to France?). As we had mostly packed the night before it was a quick coffee we were dressed and out into the cold at 7.15 am. The kids were keen to get to the train station for some breakfast pastry purchases.

When we left the apartment it was both still very dark and rather cold at 1 degree.

Our close proximity to the Cologne HBF made the bag transfer not too painful. However, the lift decided with 7 people and 6 suitcases we were overweight. So I was turfed out and declared the fat one as the lift was happy when I left 🙂

Due to our level of organisation we were quite early, so tried to keep warm while waiting for our train and snacked on German bread and pastries.

There was a last minute track change but thankfully only to the next track, so no more hauling bags up and down stairs or lifts that were critical of our combined weight!

Our train out of Cologne was actually on time and actually ran ahead (an experience we’d yet to have with German trains). We had a slight issue fitting our suitcases in with the lack of luggage racks and raised the ire of some American tourists (also with large suitcases, go figure!). Otherwise our almost 3 hours through to Karlsruhe (a city in Southern Germany that we changed trains in a few times), was uneventful, with the kids buried in various screens.

When we reached Karlsruhe we actually saw some sun during our 30 minute transfer. However it was still a mere 2 degrees standing on the platform. The joys of European train travel in Winter!

The last part of the trip from Karlsruhe to Strasbourg we had the same issue with the suitcases, having to resort to them being in the aisles. Luckily it was a short hop and the train mostly emptied at Strasbourg, 40 minutes later.

As we arrived back into France, and emerged from the rather pretty train station, Strasbourg was also chilly at 3 degrees but had actual sun (sidenote, we didn’t see it much after this!).

We were back to French rather than German. We can only speak a modicum of both and it’s always amusing when you swap languages throughout a day. Strasbourg being on the border seems to have a lot of German being spoken along with the French.

At the train station we sorted out our tram tickets and got ourselves onto the correct tram. We were on the way to our apartment, which was located in the Orangerie neighbourhood, just outside of the Grande Île, the island the is in the centre of the old town. While on the tram Soren again tried to lose his beanie, and we note the people in Strasbourg are much more polite than those in Paris and followed us around returning all our lost items!

After our seemingly endless walk , dragging bags through the streets of Strasbourg (which was actually only 850m but involved a lot of cobbles), we immediately noted Strasbourg is rather beautiful. We reached our apartment to find it was up 4 flights of winding narrow stairs. We’d forgotten that!. Oh well that worked off the next 2 vin chauds as Anto, Alan and I dragged an awful lot of luggage up to the 4th floor.

The view from our apartment was very pretty, and it was such a beautiful afternoon. It was our first visit to Strasbourg and we were very keen to explore. First on the agenda though was food as it had been a long morning.

When we arrived at our Airbnb the owner had someone there fixing the heating which had unexpectedly broken. Given the outside temperatures we were keen to have that fixed. While that was being sorted out we took advantage of being back in France and procured some fresh baguette and French cheese.

Now full of French bread and cheese and with working heating, it was off to explore some of Strasbourg. We immediately noted that there was a few very good looking patisseries within 30m of our apartment. There were also plenty of restaurants and a couple of supermarkets so we definitely weren’t going to have to stray to far for food.

As it was now after 2pm, the agenda for the afternoon was to head back into the Grande Île and do a little exploring and find a few Christmas markets.

Strasbourg is known for it’s amazing markets and we had many on our list to check out. We jumped on a tram and head back towards the old town and soon spied a market, and plenty of pretty views across the canals.

The security at markets here is way more intense than we had seen in both Cologne and Paris. There were police with weapons everywhere, and bridges onto the island were blocked to all cars. There was an incident at a market in Strasbourg in 2018 incident which killed several people. So no one was getting a vehicle anywhere the markets any more. The trams were also diverted past the markets and skipped some regular stops. This was probably more to do with the throngs of people drinking vin chaud crowding around the tracks!

We had to check out the array of food and drinks available at the markets, and they were definitely different to what we’d found in Cologne. We had our first Strasbourg vin chaud and discovered it was way sweeter than the glühweins in Cologne. We have since discovered they mix it with honey.

The selection of food at the markets was a bit different to our recent Cologne experience, with a greater variety of stollen, spice bread and pretzels with currywurst amongst the new items.

It was approaching dusk and the market crowds were starting to pick up. Kim and Alan decided to return to warm of the apartment for a rest but the rest of us continued on our market quest, finding endless markets to admire.

By 4.30pm the lights were in full force. We found amazing light displays in every street. The building decorations in Strasbourg are beautiful, with stuffed animals and Christmas decoration adorning many buildings throughout the old town.

We quickly found the market in Place Kebler, with it’s giant Christmas tree and many, many food options. This market was particularly busy and we were surprised we didn’t manage to accidentally lose a kid here.

We found Galeries Lafayette Strasbourg and they had many of the same themed windows as the Galeries Lafayette in Paris, which was again a treat. The lights around this area were amazing, and we were walking around just looking up!

We found plenty of things in the streets for the kids to admire. Bears out for dinner and ski lift carriages to ride in!

We eventually found ourselves in Petite-France, which is in the south-western part of the Grande Île. This area is full of beautiful canals and half-timbered houses. We hadn’t yet had a chance to check it out in daylight but by night it was pretty spectacular. It was incredibly dark and zero degrees but a clear night which allowed some amazing reflections on the canals.

Plenty of canal tours operate through this area and the kids were captivated as they watched a tour boat go through a loch as we stood on one of the bridges. Waving at all the people on board was apparently very entertaining and did distract us from the cold for a bit.

A visit to Petite-France in the daylight was on the agenda for the next day. It certainly reminded us of wandering around in Venice at night, almost falling into a freezing canal as it was both dark and crowded and not all the canals had fences!

We were all hungry so we decided on another market dinner since the food smelled rather delicious. We wandered back to the market at Pace Kebler and on the menu for tonight were an apple crepes for Zinnia (apparently we’d agreed this was an acceptable dinner), currywurst with spaetzle for Soren and a local Alsatian potato and Muster cheese dish, munstiflette, for Astrid. I had a delicious vegetarian galette, which actually contained vegetables.

Like the markets in Cologne, it was now getting incredibly busy at the markets and we were all getting cold and tired. It was now below zero degrees and it had been a long day. We decided to catch the tram back, via a quick detour past one of the patisseries between the Univerisitie tram stop and our apartment.

At the patisserie, the kids decided they need the snowman cake. It turned out to be one of the most delicious cakes ever and had about 12 different delicate layers and must have taken hours to make. We did decapitate and devour him pretty quickly! Anto and I also had another less ornate but just as delicious gateau. It was good to be back in the land of amazing patisserie treats 🙂

Our apartment was 3 bedrooms and Soren and Zinnia had to share the giant fold out king sized lounge bed, which was big enough we could put a wall of pillows between them to stop any fighting. They initially complained about getting stuck with the lounge room but then agreed they got a pretty good deal!

Our little afternoon and evening explore of Strasbourg had left us even more keen to check out more of the beautiful city and of course, Christmas markets, tomorrow.

Up next….

Beautiful Strasbourg by day with plenty more markets and some entertaining swift-water rescue viewing in Petite-France. Anto and Kim go on a cheese buying fest, before Anto and explore the Orangerie park and more freezing our collective butts off checking out the amazing lights and Christmas decorations.