Strasbourg, France (Day 1)

Alright, so 2 days ago I decided to come to France with Alex.  Yesterday we came.  It took about 4 hours to drive from Brussels to Strasbourg.  After 2 hours of driving, we arrived in Luxembourg and after another 2 hours we were here in Strasbourg.  Luxembourg was the smallest country, I couldn't believe it.  I think it took around 10 minutes to drive through the whole thing, and we went the longest way through it!  It's not like we drove through just a corner of the country, we drove through the whole thing... 10 minutes.  It was hilarious!

After we arrived here and got settled in a bit, we went downtown and took some pictures.  The cathedral here is seriously breath taking.  A few things are so shocking about it - it's height is 142 metres and for more than 200 years, it was the tallest building in the world.  It really is sooooo big.  Also the colour of it is worth mentioning.  The colour of the cathedral comes from the sandstone in the surrounding mountains - the Volges, so it's a reddish stone colour.  Here are some pictures I took of the cathedral:

 It's so tall that I had to stitch two photos together to get the whole thing in there!

It is said that a proper picture of the full cathedral can't be taken.  It's too tall, and the streets are too narrow in the historical centre of the city.

After that, Alex had to work so I went around and took lots more pictures.  Here are some of the best ones!

She gave me a map and I saw a graveyard marked on it so I walked there.  There were graves from both the first and second world wars and the fallen soldiers are from the French military.

Then came dinner.  Alex took me to her favourite restaurant in the city.  It FAR surpasses my previous favourite meal.  Before, that crown was worn by a meal I had while I was in China in 2009.  This was soooo good I still can't believe it.  Ok.  We started off with a glass of champagne (the real deal... not the sparkling wine junk from the LCBO!)

Then I had grilled fois gras with all sorts of sweet cooked fruits - bananas, kiwis, oranges, pineapples, apples, pears.  It was outrageously good.  Before the meal I was hesitant to taste the fois gras because it's liver, but really it was delicious.  I was worried about what the texture would be like, but that was actually the best part.  It was like butter, just melted away in my mouth.  The fois gras had some salty seasoning on it (not too much) so that saltiness with the sweetness of the fruit really made it perfect.   

That was just a starter!  Then came the chicken courdon bleu.  Instead of whatever cheese they usually put in that, they put a specialty cheese from this region instead.  It was served with this crème sauce and some delicious mish mash of something like carrots, celery and potatoes. 

With that chicken courdon bleu we had this bottle of wine:

It's from Chateau Batailley in the Pauillac region.  It's a region where they're only allowed to produce a certain amount of wine in a season - there are only a limited amount of grapes that are allowed to grow per square metre, so it lends to a really flavourful but not agressive taste.  It went very well with the meat.

Then came desert!!  Real Crême Brulée!

Once again, much better than any other one I've tried before!  The ones I've tried before had the consistency more like pudding, and this was much creamier.  Plus the sugar on top.  Oh boy it was tasty.

That was my meal.  I am happy and proud to announce that it has replaced my previous title holder of "best meal".

Today I plan to go downtown again, and this time I'm going to do what I do best - go get my hands on a walking tour of the city!  Take more pictures!

Tomorrow Alex gets off of work early so we plan to go to Germany and see a favourite castle of hers.  Exciting!!!!!!!!!!