Journeys›Photograph

Summer Week in Strasbourg and Colmar

·Erstein, Grand Est, France·#boating#strasbourg#summer-travel#france#alsace#colmar
Two young people sit on black bollards in front of a grand, ornate stone building with a dome and columns.

Middle of our summer week exploring Alsace, based out of Erstein, and today we did both cities. Strasbourg first: the girls straddled the bollards in front of the Palais du Rhin like rodeo riders before we'd even reached the cathedral, whose front is so dense with carving you stop reading it after a while and just crane your neck.

From there into Petite France, the old district where five canals of the Ill split and rejoin. UNESCO-listed since 1988, half-timbered houses mostly from the 1500s and 1600s, and the name comes from a hospital that once treated soldiers for syphilis — the "French disease." The girls sat on the stone bank with their feet near the water while I read that part aloud.

The three of them took a rowboat out later, oars going in roughly opposite directions for the first stretch. A white stork stood on a nest the size of a kiddie pool on top of a chimney, which felt very Alsace.

Colmar in the afternoon, its own little Venice, houses in yellow and pink instead of white, and half the tourists in France packed onto one flowered bridge.

An upward view of a Gothic cathedral facade with a large rose window and intricately carved arched entrance.Two blonde children sit on a grassy embankment beside a river lined with historic buildings.A cobblestone street lined with historic half-timbered buildings, market stalls, and several people walking under a blue sky.Historic half-timbered buildings line a canal under a partly cloudy sky, with a bridge and people in the distance.A white stork stands in a large stick nest built on a chimney, with green trees and blue sky behind it.An adult and a child hold paddles in a green boat, with another child seated, on water.Two children and an adult in a rowboat on a river, surrounded by green foliage, with one child raising an arm.A colorful street with half-timbered buildings, people, and flowers along a canal with reflections under a cloudy sky.

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