Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time

A trip to Strasbourg, "la capitale de Noel", was like passing in to one of our christmas village set ups at home (sans snow unfortunately). But nonetheless, incredibly spiriting. Also, taking trains places is so awesome cause it’s so much less stressful and it takes less time and you can do things on the train and see pretty countryside views. Anyways, big fan of trains, on to the weekend.

Season: Liv and I met up for brunch before getting on the train to Strasbourg on Friday at this healthy trendy brunch spot in the 3rd that some girls had recommended to Liv. We shared an acai bowl and a quinoa salad. I hadn’t had an acai bowl in forever so it war pretty good - as was the salad. But I could have really gone for some eggs. The mugs were so cute though they were big and homey.

Train went off scotch free (again yay trains), and then we met Liz and Izzy at our airbnb which was a 5 minute walk from the train station. Strasbourg is a really cute city with a lot of cobble stone streets and little houses. The city center is also on an island and there’s a canal that runs around it, which kind of reminded me of Amsterdam. However, the city definitely reflects its history of constantly switching possessions of France and Germany. The city reminded me of a mix Paris and Munich. At every crepe place there were also pretzels. Sausages and spatzle were just as common as baguettes. The languages on every menu were in French, English, and German.

We headed straight out to the markets as that was the main event. There are lights EVERYWHERE on every street, so we started at the perfect time as it was just getting dark out. What I didn’t realize was that there isn’t just one big area where all the market vendors set up but lots of markets all over the city! There are 20 markets or something like that. And all of the normal stores were even christmas themed. It was just one big christmas wonderland.

Each market was slightly different but the vendors there were tons of beautiful hand painted ornaments, traditional christmas cookies, candles, lanterns, “pain d’épices” (spiced bread, kind of like gingerbread but loaves of it with all different flavors), jams, teas, wines, beers, liquors, hats, gloves, tablecloths, mugs, bowls, really anything you can think of. And as for food there were tons of crepes, waffles, “baguette flambée”s, sausages, spatzle, and of course “vin chaud”. There were probably three vin chaud stands at every market. It’s warm wine with mulling spices and is utterly delicious.

ornament stand!

ceramic french houses - perfect for the village!
but i didn't buy one :( you're welcome mom

classic christmas cookies

delicious waffle from the luxembourg market - it was different and doughy but warm fresh and SO good

So we spent Friday evening scoping out the markets so that we could get a feel of what had the best stuff to go back to tomorrow. Our vin chaud kept us warm while our toes started freezing up. Then we picked up some cheese and bread along with a bottle of Alsacian wine to head back to our airbnb where we had a little apero session that just turned in to a quite delicious dinner. It’s so nice to just hang out in an apartment with friends some times after being in a home stay for so long.

By 9:30 or 10 we decided we had to leave or we would just fall asleep. So we decided to go to a latino bar that our airbnb host had recommended. It was a little tough to motivate since it was a 20 minute walk away (basically all the way across Strasbourg lol) and it was freezing outside but we bucked up and did it. The bar was on a boat docked to the side of the river and in the basement there was a pretty lively bar with a disco ball and lots of spanish music. We got some mojitos as recommended by trip advisor and our airbnb host. Soon after a huge crowd of people dressed in santa hats came in. I’m thinking it was the Strasbourg equivalent of “santa con”. They seemed to be a lot of drunk english students…. and we were not quite on their level… so we sat at a table on the edge feeling super ~parisian~ and judgmental, had a few drinks, danced a bit, and headed home! We were really glad that we went out at night because the streets were a lot less crowded than they had been earlier and we could get good pictures of the lights.

Saturday morning was met with a slow series of unfortunate events… We discovered we needed to be out of the airbnb at noon and we weren’t allowed to leave our baggage there. So we headed to the train station to put our things in a storage locker there. However, the storage locker service is temporarily closed because of security measures concerning the recent attacks. It makes sense but was suuuuuuuper inconvenient. I immediately regretted bringing my laptop to pretend to do work on the train.

Nonetheless, we took the blows in stride and stopped by a patisserie for some nourishment. After we spent a bit eating a croissant and café allongé while sitting on a bench next to the river we felt a bit more ready to conquer the markets.

We started off in la petite france which is an adorable area of the city with old school houses and great restaurants. After that we basically walked all around the city, stopped at lots of markets, then decided to make our way to lunch in la petite france. As did every other person in strasbourg. Apparently you’re supposed to make reservations for basically all the restaurants there and we of course had no idea. Yet we were able to find what seemed like an authentic alsacian restaurant right by the river. When we walked in I felt like I was in a ski chalet. Everything was warm wooden and cozy and there were christmas decorations everywhere. Pretty much everything on the menu was heavy beef and potatoes (classic germany). So we opted for the munster salads and some foie gras (I think alsace might be famous for their foie gras…?). I also think munster cheese is a big thing there. Anyways, it was a good meal and we were energized enough to head back out in to the markets.

But first we wanted to go inside the famous Strasbourg Cathedral of Notre Dame. We arrived, saw the enormous mob of people trying to get in, and promptly turned back around. (If anyone asks we went inside). After walking around the markets a bit longer we decided there were FAR too many people around and we needed to hide out until most decided to disappear for dinner. So we set up camp with some tea in another cute wooden chalet-esque café for an hour or so.

cathedral... from really up close because there were so many people there was no chance at getting a clear shot from far away

the crew looking festive in front of a christmas tree

After tea we headed out to do our final round of shopping. Everyone at this point knew exactly what they wanted and where to get it so we headed to the markets by the cathedral for one last swoop. By then it was 6:30 so we still had some more time to kill before our train, but could not stand to be out in the cold any longer. So we sat down AGAIN at a restaurant paviano? i think it was called. Apparently it was a chain but it seemed lovely. Wonderful business structure and great decor. lol. I didn’t have any food but it did look quite delicious. By the end of the day with all of our market exploration (interspersed with several sporadic café breaks) we were quite exhausted and ready to get back to Paris. So we headed to the train, I grabbed some dinner from crossainterie in the station, and here I am currently writing this instead of my art history essay! We’ll be back to Paris in about 40 minutes so I guess I should work on my essay but I really don’t want to. However, I guess now that I’ve finished this I’ve run out of fake productive things to do. Maybe I’ll make a to do list. That’s always “productive”.

me, izzy, liz and our vin chaud!