Cathedral entrance
La Petite France
La Petite France, Strasbourg. March 1993
First visit to France!
On Matt's First Big Trip to Germany, we also visited Strasbourg and Colmar [see: Colmar]. The running joke of that trip was that MAP's answer to the distance from Stuttgart to any destination put forth was "about two hours". Well, within that two-hour radius was France and maybe because I had studied French for 12 years and had never set foot in the country, I figured it was about time. It was decided - we were going to Strasbourg mainly to see its legendary cathedral.
Schengen did not officially come into full force until 1995, but passport-free travel between many states started earlier. I took my passport with me just in case, but we just zoomed over the Rhine and we were in France. That blew me away after so many years of queueing for immigration in all my travels. Finally, I was in France. We parked near the cathedral and had a look inside. It was not my first gothic cathedral, but it was in FRANCE. I was just wanting to "ooh la la" all over the place. I don't remember a lot about Strasbourg Cathedral except that we could climb the bell-tower for a fabulous view over the city. It was a hard slog and I thought MAP's GF of the time was not going to make it. We were all so young and I was amazed at how out of shape she was. We were all rewarded with great views and no doubt MAP had the extra bonus of an earful in German about making his GF climb all those stairs.
Strasbourg had one of those incomplete cathedrals that dot Europe. Some of the grand houses of worship in Europe were built over centuries and never finished mainly due to funding. Strasbourg cathedral SHOULD have had two symmetrical towers, but one just never got finished. Buildings like that always bothered me [see: Federal Triangle]. I wondered why in the modern age, it was not finished off using modern methods and traditional materials? Hence, Strasbourg cathedral has one very tall spire and another that was stillborn. Gothic cathedral, check. Time to move along.
The other thing to do in Strasbourg was visit a little 16th century gem in town called "La Petite France" (which was really "La Petite Allemagne", but let's not quibble over some lovely half-timbered houses). The place really was photogenic and we lingered there for a while. I was in France, France, France. (even if it was the German part). I still remember how beautiful it was - like a childhood storybook come to life. One thing people from places with LONG histories never understand is how people from countries with SHORT histories are blown away by "old stuff". I think Europeans will never get the "history rush" Americans experience in the Old World.
As for Strasbourg itself, the name derives from the German Straße (street) since it was an important crossroads of its day. The city also is host to many international organizations as well as the European Parliament. However, this little factoid is my favorite forgotten detail of the Franco-German city:
"La Marseillaise" is the national anthem of France. The song was written in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in Strasbourg after the declaration of war by France against Austria, and was originally titled "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin" ("War Song for the Army of the Rhine"). The French National Convention adopted it as the Republic's anthem in 1795. The song acquired its nickname after being sung in Paris by volunteers from Marseille marching to the capital.
(Wikipedia)
Strasbourg, a much contested city on the Rhine whose residents speak a French dialect which is actually German, gifted France and world with the French national anthem only to have it associated with another city.
We moved on to Colmar.
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