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  #1  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2022, 11:11 AM
Qubert Qubert is offline
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Strasbourg, France: Continential Confusion

As a train nerd, one of the hardest decisions I had to make was where to ride the TGV. Suggestions poured in such as London (ruled out due to fears of what border control would be like), Brussels (eh, I'll do a Netherlands/Belgium trip for that), The French Riviera (too far plus everyone does that) then my brother-in-law suggested Strasbourg.

I've heard of Strasbourg, if only for christmas markets and being a center of EU bureaucracy, but this city is in fact a stunner. I called this "Continential Confusion" because as you'll clearly see this city didn't read the memo about being a part of France, until yours truly got a first hand education that it spent much of it's time *not* being a part of France. All the back and forth between France and Germany has resulted in a charming aesthetic, jovial locals and lots of pork.

View from the TGV:



"With View" indeed:























































I also stopped inside the Alsace museum which gave a much more in-depth look at how this area truly was a inter-cultural zone between the Franco and Germanic worlds. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in understanding this section of the Rhine and the cultures along it.







Oh, and here's the pork...



No joke, the French *do* love french fries and Coca-Cola.









The train nerd in me couldn't help but get a couple train station shots in:



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  #2  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2022, 12:29 PM
Crawford Crawford is offline
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The joke is that Strasbourg is the nicest German city. It's kinda true. There's no German city of its size with such a nicely restored, historically faithful core. It looks basically like what every middle German midsized city would look like if WW2 hadn't happened.
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Old Posted Oct 20, 2022, 12:57 PM
JMKeynes JMKeynes is offline
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Beautiful!
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Old Posted Oct 20, 2022, 3:21 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
The joke is that Strasbourg is the nicest German city. It's kinda true. There's no German city of its size with such a nicely restored, historically faithful core. It looks basically like what every middle German midsized city would look like if WW2 hadn't happened.
Looks a lot like Basel too.
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Old Posted Oct 21, 2022, 4:36 AM
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Thank you for this glimpse at an idyllic center!
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Old Posted Oct 21, 2022, 2:26 PM
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Beautiful!
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Old Posted Nov 14, 2022, 3:00 AM
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xzmattzx xzmattzx is offline
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Great pictures! I love the half-timbered and medieval buildings!
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  #8  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2022, 7:29 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
The joke is that Strasbourg is the nicest German city.
That's because it's actually French.

Nah, seriously, that's why traveling the country is fun.
Each and every region has its own mood and traditions, often influenced by neighboring countries, which is something natural.
You can see it in the architecture. For instance, Nice and its surroundings have some kind of Italian vibe, for the same reason that Alsace looks a lot like traditional Germany or Switzerland.
These cities just sit on borders.

France is a nation that was gradually developed around a centralized state that started off from old monarchy. The French Republic itself remains a rather centralized system, that's supposed to maintain some kind of unity between all regions of the country, up to the overseas. It doesn't work as anything federal where local powers are stronger, even though the central government grew a bit more flexible over the past couple of decades.
The system is questionable in that it is mostly profitable to the Paris region where much of the wealth has been centralized. Often, some complain about that, like in Lyon for instance, that's a city with a lot of temper.
That being said, it's never been homogeneous. Somehow, each region has maintained some of their traditions, that actually keeps the whole thing diverse enough.
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  #9  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2022, 11:38 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mousquet View Post
That's because it's actually French.

Nah, seriously, that's why traveling the country is fun.
Each and every region has its own mood and traditions, often influenced by neighboring countries, which is something natural.
You can see it in the architecture. For instance, Nice and its surroundings have some kind of Italian vibe, for the same reason that Alsace looks a lot like traditional Germany or Switzerland.
These cities just sit on borders.

France is a nation that was gradually developed around a centralized state that started off from old monarchy. The French Republic itself remains a rather centralized system, that's supposed to maintain some kind of unity between all regions of the country, up to the overseas. It doesn't work as anything federal where local powers are stronger, even though the central government grew a bit more flexible over the past couple of decades.
The system is questionable in that it is mostly profitable to the Paris region where much of the wealth has been centralized. Often, some complain about that, like in Lyon for instance, that's a city with a lot of temper.
That being said, it's never been homogeneous. Somehow, each region has maintained some of their traditions, that actually keeps the whole thing diverse enough.
In the case of Strasbourg and Nice, they were actually German and Italian respectively, and their Frenchification is quite recent.

BTW, Strasbourg is so beautiful! Qubert, thanks for sharing the pics with us.
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  #10  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2022, 7:49 PM
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Originally Posted by Yuri View Post
In the case of Strasbourg and Nice, they were actually German and Italian respectively, and their Frenchification is quite recent.
I don't think the German or Italian states as we know them today existed yet back then.
Italy and Germany were still split into several kingdoms, principalities, counties and such entities.
I'm not aware of details as their history is a bit complicated, but see about it if you're curious.

The County of Nice joined the Second French Empire on their own free will in 1860, while Italy was hardly unified.
Alsace and Lorraine were annexed by the German Empire when they defeated the French in 1870, but we got them back following our victory in 1918.
I mean, it's not like we would have stolen any territory from the Italians or the Germans.
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  #11  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2022, 11:43 PM
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Originally Posted by mousquet View Post
I don't think the German or Italian states as we know them today existed yet back then.
Italy and Germany were still split into several kingdoms, principalities, counties and such entities.
I'm not aware of details as their history is a bit complicated, but see about it if you're curious.

The County of Nice joined the Second French Empire on their own free will in 1860, while Italy was hardly unified.
Alsace and Lorraine were annexed by the German Empire when they defeated the French in 1870, but we got them back following our victory in 1918.
I mean, it's not like we would have stolen any territory from the Italians or the Germans.
Yeah, I almost wrote "German" and "Italian" instead to mean the several German and Italian states not their unified 19th century versions.
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  #12  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2022, 6:31 PM
Rooted Arborial Rooted Arborial is offline
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But, but, but...

Beautiful images, but no Cathedral images!???

The "Notre Dame" cathedral there is a fascinatingly unique assemblage.
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  #13  
Old Posted Nov 18, 2022, 6:49 PM
Rooted Arborial Rooted Arborial is offline
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Oops.

The 10th picture has a peek at part of the spire.
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