Strasbourg; Saturday, 15 December, 2012

A massive breakfast and then out into town. First stop of the morning was out to the Jardin des Deux Rives and then onto the Passerelle Mimram an elegant footbridge across the Rhine that connects France seamlessly with Germany. It was here in 2009 that there was a symbolic welcoming of France back into the NATO family after many years of absence with a symbolic crossing of the bridge by the NATO leaders, only slightly overshadowed by Silvio Berlusconi taking a long call on his mobile and therefore missing the press call.

The bridge ends in the small German town of Kehl which I had a quick wander around before wandering over to the station and catching the bus back into Strasbourg.

I took the tram across town to the area of the Ponts Couverts, the old covered bridges and the fortified dam/extra large pillbox - Barrage Vauban. After taking in the views here I headed back towards town through the Petite France area, a number of small islands that help split the river L’Ill into several channels.

I ended up back by the ticket office for the boat tours that run around the city centre so I enquired about tickets. Even at three in the afternoon the only tickets left were for the 7pm boat, so I booked onto that and then had a bit more of a wander around the city centre.

I then caught the tram out to the former Citadelle which had been turned into a large park to have a look around there, before heading back into the city centre and a spot more shopping at the Christmas Markets.

I spent quite a bit of time wandering around the various Christmas Markets, picking up gifts for Christmas, so by 6pm I was pretty loaded down. Rather than cart them around with me for the evening on the boat tour I headed back to the hotel and dropped everything off, before heading back through town to the quay for the boat tour.

The tour should do a loop around the Island that the bulk of the city centre is on, before heading off up to the European institutions area. However, due to the volume of rain that had fallen over the previous few days the river was running very high, with large amounts of the water being channelled along the north branch of the river making it impassable under the bridges for the boat, so instead they went up as far as the Barrage Vauban along the southern channel before turning round and coming back, and then heading up to the point where the river empties into the Rhine canal, behind the European Parliament, Council or Europe building and the European Court of Human Rights.

By the time the boat arrived back at the quay there was just enough time to grab a quick late evening Crêpe from the Christmas Market by the Cathedral before heading back to the hotel and bed.