Another Year. Another City.: Day Two in Strasbourg

Friday morning, Mike and I woke up first and figured we'd go to grab croissants and beignets while Kelly and Sean got ready. That might have been the best decision we made all day because those pastries were melt-in-your-mouth incredible. I just want to eat all of the beignets.

The Christmas markets didn't open until eleven, but we were out of the door around ten because we wanted to go into the big cathedral in the center of the town and we figured the earlier the better. I think both Mike and I have fallen in love (even more than before) with gothic cathedrals since we've begun our traveling adventure, just because every gothic cathedral we see is so breathtakingly beautiful and this one was no exception!

This is the astronomical clock of Strasbourg. Just like in Prague, the characters around the clock move at a certain time. You have to have tickets to it and when we went to go get tickets, the line was SUPER long, so we decided to forgo the show. Maybe we made the wrong decision with that one, but the thought of waiting in line for an hour to watch some toys dance just didn't seem that appealing.

They had a great display of the Christmas story in French of which I casually snapped pictures of every Bible verse. NBD. Just letting my French language obsession show a little bit.

"To the world the angel Gabriel sent a young girl. Her name was Mary."

"Mary set out quickly to the mountain town of Judee....and greeted Elizabeth"

"Jesus was born in Bethlehem when Herod the Great was king."

"The wisemen opened their bags and offered him gifts"

After the cathedral, we made our way to La Petite France in hopes of having lunch there. We never make reservations when we're traveling, mainly because we're just not that organized, but also because we've never needed to. Well, apparently you need to make reservations in Strasbourg during the Christmas market season because finding a restaurant to eat lunch at was almost impossible. We finally found a small French restaurant that had room and we settled in with a glass of wine.

Kelly and I ended up getting Coq au Reisling, which I thought was delicious. We also all split an appetizer of escargot, which I fell in love with when I studied in Paris. If you don't think about what you're eating, it really just tastes like garlic and pesto and who doesn't love that?

Two hours later....let's dwell on that for a minute... we finally got the check and were anxious to get back out to the Christmas markets.

After walking around for a little bit longer, Kelly suggested that we go and see this wine that was located at this hospital since it is supposed to be one of, if not the, oldest bottle of wine. It's only been opened twice before and is pretty famous and a huge tourist attraction. The bottle is located in a cellar with other wines that is located at a hospital. Apparently, back in the day, people would pay for their hospital bills by donating land that became vineyards. The winery still produces wine, but all of the profits are donated back to the hospital. Pretty cool!

The oldest wine in the world!

Before heading back to the apartment, Mike and I grabbed a crepe. We had been in France for over 24 hours and hadn't had one, which almost seems criminal.

After a little rest and relaxation, we decided to head out for Italian food and we weren't disappointed. Mike and Kelly got pasta dishes, which looked delicious, while Sean and I got pizza. I probably could have split a pizza with someone because it was so big, but it was so good!!

We stopped at a bar on the way home for a few drinks before heading back to the apartment to watch the Army/Navy game. It was a close one, but Navy got the win! Go Navy!