Strasbourg in February

We spent another weekend in the Alsace region, and as usual, we spent Friday night at a hotel in the center of town.

From the Hotel Cour du Corbeau, it is only a two-minute walk over the canal bridge to get to the flea market on Saturday morning. This time I found only one little treasure (a wooden display case of preserved butterflies). My favorite little coffee shop nearby had also closed its doors for good. We ended up at Starbucks instead. This has been only my second visit ever to Starbucks – once at the Tokyo Airport, and now in Strasbourg.

With a rather light load in my  flea market shopping bag, we took a stroll around and explored some streets we had never walked before. We were also on the lookout for a nice pub to stop by after dinner.

The Strasbourg Cathedral

On one of the many bridges crossing the canal.

… and here we are entering the courtyard to our favorite Hotel – the Hotel Cour du Corbeau.

Flowers and Insect Hotels in Josselin

This Hôtel à Insectes is down by the canal in Josselin. This is a very inspiring construction in regards to  sustainability. I wish we had one like this in Oberursel, so I plan on spreading the word in the right places.

Insect Hotel in Josselin

Along the canal, my husband and I stopped for a cold beer at a restaurant’s garden terrace. We got to meet the owner’s cat coming around our table and she let us pet her. Halfway into our beer, the cat came back with a rat in her mouth! We tried to keep up our conversation, but got sidetracked by the ‘cat and mouse game’ going on in the hedge…

Hydrangea is dotting the landscape around Josselin.

We took a nice long walk around the remaining parts of the city wall.

One Week in Josselin, France

After having spent our first holiday week in the coastal town of Cancale, we drove on to our next rental home in Josselin (about a two-hour drive from the coast).

Josselin is closer to the Atlantic coast, so during that week, we also took a day trip to Carnac (about 1:20 hr).

The highlight of Josselin is the castle, but there are also many other attractions: restaurants, the canal, bike rental, pubs where we watched a couple of the World cup games, you hear a lot of English (due to the many British tourists), etc.

Unfortunately, some of the town center stores are no longer occupied. There are quite a few ‘For Sale’ signs in the windows of both shops and real estate agencies.

Josselin Castle and the Aust River

We took a tour of the castle (available only in French), and also got extra tickets for its puppet museum. That was quite interesting.

Josselin Castle – the garden front

Almost every day, we walked along the canal. We saw plenty of fish in the water, dragon flies hovering, birds trying to catch fish, boats passing by, and … not so many tourists (we were there from 7 – 14 July).

Canal promenade

We also watched a canal worker work the dam manually. She had to use quite a bit of muscle strength to work this machinery, and also had to take quite a few trips back and forth –  to let two boats up the canal.

Wherever we walked, the streets and walk ways were clean and decorated with flowers.

When we booked the place for a week, the rental owner suggested to stay an extra day to enjoy their annual Medieval Festival on 14 July. No thanks. When the crowds move in, I move out.

We saw some of the early activities on Friday evening, and we enjoyed the preparations they had taken, such stringing flag lines across, etc. We pulled out Saturday morning just in time before the masses of tourists would arrive.

I like Josselin, when it is a quiet little town.

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