Europe Day 6: Strasbourg
A taste of Alliance Française
Strasbourg felt an authentic medium-fit French city. So much so that it reminded me of sitting, as a teenager, in afternoon French classes at Alliance Française in Addis. There were workbooks that showcased images of France while attempting to explain how subjunctive should be conjugated. Strasbourg must have been well represented in those books, or at least the idea of it, because on this morning I felt like I was walking through its pages.
The centre of town was close to the station, I had a good couple of hours to wonder before the next train. A couple of small bridges and then the comfortably winding commercial streets balanced with both local and touristy oriented shops led into the old town. French cafés, the “boulangeries”, a mix of vintage European architecture, baroque plazas, and churches enveloped by trees: all this gives a very medium sized French feel.
Maybe the locals were at work or on holiday somewhere else, and the real tourists had not woken up yet. So it was just me, moving through the city, looking at Strasbourg, capturing it as the last city I was going to measure with my feet on this trip.
