My visit to Strasbourg, the capital of Alsatia

Over the summer, my magazine had a very quiet time, due to the lack of fashion-related announcements (things will pick up, now that autumn is arriving).  As a result, I decided to take an additional holiday for a few days.  My destination of choice was Strasbourg.  I have a few friends living in Strasbourg who I wanted to catch up with.

I decided to go there by train, as I wanted to see the new LGV Rhine-Rhône high-speed railway line: - most of my rail travel is spent travelling between Marseille and Paris and occasionally London (unfortunately).  I hadn't yet experienced the relatively new LGV Rhine-Rhône high-speed line.

Like the LGV Est that runs between Paris and Baudrecourt (going approximately 2/3 of the way to Strasbourg), the operating speed is 320km/h: - as impossibly perfect as we French are, we haven't yet found an engineering solution to the problem of the track ballast disintegrating at speeds and the generally enormous maintenance outlay if one runs trains in service at speeds above 320km/h.  It is possible to run trains at 320km/h on conventional rails, but so far, Japan (an almost perfect country, but still not up there with France) is the only other nation where this is done at the time of writing.

The journey there took quite a while (6h08m to be precise), given that not all of the Marseille-Strasbourg route is high speed and there were a large number of intermediate stops (Avignon TGV, Valence TGV, Lyon Part Dieu, Bourg-en-Bresse, Lons-Le-Saunier, Besançon-Viotte, Belfort-Montbéliard TGV, Mulhouse Ville and Colmar).  I wasn't in a hurry though, as a Frenchwoman likes to slowly unwind and savour her holidays: - American acquaintances tell me that people often don't take all their annual leave because they fear people usurping their jobs if they spend more than a week away.  Such an idea is alien to a Frenchwoman, being effortlessly fabulous at her job.

I recall seeing a few noteworthy new sights along the route, such as the Savoureuse viaduct that the train travelled across, which I believe is near Belfort-Montbéliard station.

After the long and relaxing journey, I also enjoyed the sight of Strasbourg's central station, with its glass exterior combining with the older structure to make a very nice hybrid of old and new.

As mentioned in a previous posting, I enjoy the taste of Kouglof, a local delicacy.  As I keep saying, bumpkins like desserts to be as sweet as possible, whereas stylish people like desserts to be only as sweet as they need to be to cleanse the palate of the previous course.  Kouglof is one such dessert that accomplishes this.  I have seen American and British business colleagues bite into it and their faces screw up, as they were expecting something disgustingly sweet and they find the taste almost savoury.  Well, I could have told them that it was a brioche rather than a cake in advance, but I enjoy such opportunities to gloat about how sophisticated I am for not liking the taste of overly sweet desserts!  MDR.

The city has history in buckets.  Some people au fait with this subject may be aware that John Calvin (who was born in Noyon in Picardie) preached at four different churches in the city.

It is also the home of the European Parliament building.

I don't follow politics much (except when they are talking about raising or lowering taxes), but I gather the European parliament has some MEPs who are some very funny jokers, including Nigel Farage, who comes from the unsophisticated nation that is my mother's homeland.  Below is a video of his famous "BBBBBBBBBBAFFLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" speech after he was informed that the EU was the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Strasbourg is also home to the European Court of Human Rights.  I wonder if I might be able to take any cases there that concern the enormously high rates of tax we have to pay in France?  I heard an American tried going to some constitutional court to challenge the government's right to impose income tax.  Maybe we French should take a similar case to the European Court of Human Rights?

A Frenchwoman likes to walk everywhere and I found out that the German city of Kehl was on the other side of the Rhine and a short walk away.

Germany is a far less sophisticated nation than France and there are loads of fatties that appear to drink a gallon of lager every evening.  However, it is sometimes necessary to go abroad to appreciate one's own country.  In any case, Kehl is a fairly pretty city, with its tower (the Weißtannenturm) that one can walk up (a Frenchwoman likes walking up stairs and hates taking the lift) and get a good view of the scenery for miles around from.

All in all, I had a very lovely holiday.  The weather wasn't as warm as Marseille, there weren't swathes of lavender fields nearby, there weren't people sipping pastis everywhere and it generally wasn't as fabulous as Marseille generally, but it is lovely to go to different places and see different things sometimes.  I wouldn't appreciate Marseille so much if there weren't this diversity of other French cities to see.

If any Brits are reading this, it is easy to reach Strasbourg by train (Eurostar, changing at Lille or Paris) and it will be even easier once the second phase of the LGV Est is complete (it will then be 1h50m from Paris).  It will gradually feel closer and closer to Marseille as the other parts of the LGV Rhine-Rhône are completed (it is anyone's guess when this will happen, given that François Hollande has delayed several lines on account of having messed up the economy).

All in all, I had a lovely time, but it was such a great feeling getting back to Marseille.  The train enters the Tunnel de Marseille shortly after Aix-en-Provence and it is lovely to come out of that tunnel and be greeted with the sight of Marseille again.  As the old saying goes, there's no place like home.