La Petite France

If you read my Brighton blog post, you will know that I opted not to write a blog post about the extent of the London side of my London/Paris birthday trip. Well, I am doing that today again because I have already discussed Paris on this blog, and frankly we didn’t do anything significantly different for this trip compared to my last one; however, I do want to tell y’all about my day trip out of Paris to a different French city: Strasbourg.

Strasbourg gets its name from being on the border of Germany, so it has French and German influences–mainly in the architecture. It was about a two-hour, high-speed train ride out of Gare du Nord in Paris and roundtrip was about $82 per person. Initially, we wanted to go to Brussels for a day to hit three countries in two weeks, but the overall cost and amount of things to do seemed more attractive in Strasbourg.

To be honest, there is not a lot to do in Strasbourg. It is pretty small and the main attraction is the architecture because it looks like it is straight out of Beauty and the Beast (though not the exact location the movie is set in). We spent most of our time taking pictures and walking around because thankfully the weather was amazing that day.

If you are thinking about seeing this beautiful little city, I would recommend getting out there early, grabbing lunch, and heading back to Paris to spend your evening there. Since we didn’t know this going in, we prepared for a full day, so our train to go back wasn’t until 7:00 p.m. when we finished our activities around 3:00 p.m.

Nonetheless, I thought it was absolutely beautiful and it makes me excited to explore more parts of France. I have always had reservations about exploring France because the French have a reputation of not being friendly and I do not speak the language,. But I had to remind myself that people from all over the world come to this country and so many of them also do not speak the language. I can’t let that stop me from seeing the world.

xx, AE

P.S. As is the same for London, there will be a Paris vlog, so stay tuned! 🙂