September 29, 2018 Rest day in Strasbourg

Today was a very relaxing day.  We tried our hardest to sleep in but are so use to getting up early that we were awake and rolling around by 8:30 Am.  

For this rest day our little band is staying in two different apartments.  Agnes and I are with Ken and Sally and Earnie and Betsy are with Juerg.   Our apartment is a very nice spacious place  on the fourth floor of a four story building which has a winding staircase up the four stories.  It has been totally renovated and looks out across to the Strasbourg cathedral.  It is a million dollar view.  There are lots of very cute decorating touches.   The other apartment is not as spacious but is on the ground floor and does not have a view but it has a back yard for the bikes. 

Ken and Sally were off to do a walk.  Agnes and I lingered over coffee for a while before we went out to walk through the downtown of Strasbourg.  Agnes had found a place to park the van for free so we walked over to check on the van and then dropped by the other apartment to make sure all was well over there.  They were in the middle of laundry and had stuff hanging everywhere.   Agnes and I continued on into the downtown and wandered through the different squares and admired different things in the shops.  Not much of the stuff which has the Alsace decorations will fit with our place in Kelowna so we left it for other customers.

We wandered into the huge Strasbourg Cathedral.  It is a magnificent place.  The stone work is beyond belief in the detail and is in unbelievably good condition. There is so much that it is hard to believe that it has been all restored.  The original cathedral was built at this location in the 7^th century with various different cathedrals being built at various times.  The current cathedral was started in 1180 and finished in 1439.  It was the tallest monument to Christianity for over two centuries. The sun was out and was illuminating the huge stained glass windows.  I took a lot of pictures none of which do justice to the magnificent structure.

After the Cathedral we wandered through the downtown squares and found out way back to the apartment.  Along the way we picked up a baguette and some cheese and had a late French lunch.

The afternoon was spent just relaxing and doing a little catching up on e-mails and doing some tour accounting.  A tour director’s work is never done.

Terry