Walking tour of Strasbourg and chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg

5.15.2011(Happy birthday dear Sarah)

I got up in the morning for a 9: 30 am walking tour of Strasbourg. This city is the most beautiful I have seen (although before this trip Charleston South Carolina held that honor, so there's some context).  Our tour guide gave us tons of history, which was great and I wish I could remember it all to share. The gist of it is that Strasbourg was built as a Roman fortress because of its position on the Rhine and it started to boom in the early 13th century with the fall of the Roman empire (or so I was told). It bounced back between being German and French over the next several hundred years and is now (obviously) part of France.

Building of the cathedral started around 1015 AD and it was the tallest structure in Europe til 1800ish. It is amazing.

I don't think it is possible to get the whole cathedral in a picture with my camera, so I just made the picture I did take as big as possible.

After our walking tour, we took a bus up a mountain to chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg which is a 12th century castle. It was super cool and I took my first video there that might not make you sick to your stomach with the shaking. This castle was German until the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 so while it is France it is a real piece of German history.

Mollie in 2 dayyyyyyyyysss!!!!!