Strasbourg drew fly back again on Sunday. It was quiet, everything closed except the restaurants. All the shops were closed – big and small. Sunday is still the day of rest here. Couples and families wandered around soaking up the sunshine, one mother on a bicycle had brought her daughter – about 4 year old – into the city centre to practise riding around, knowing it would be peaceful and safe. I came across them several times in my meanderings.
There was a small-ish festival going on in one of the Squares. Celebrating new wine again, and cheese-making and bread. The cheese-making stands had cheese at various stages of its processing, and people could – and did – buy containers of it with little spoons. It looked like curds and whey, which I suppose is what it was. Passed on that. But the breads!! While there are plenty of the well-known French baguette-style white breads here, there are also much more interesting types, with lots of grains and nuts and seeds, very chewy. Just mouth-watering. The Alsatian signature ‘tarte flambe’ was also on offer, it looks like a pizza really. Fly chose a cheesy palmier and a glass of pinot gris, and stood by a barrel in a tent to listen to the red-vested brass band members playing cheery Alsatian music. The chap on the other side of the barrel said something to me which was apparently funny – he laughed anyway – so I laughed too. No idea what the joke was!
Wandering around the Cathedral in search of the Palais du Rohan, fly discovered an entrance inviting one, for the price of 5 euros, to see the panoramic view from the top of the spire. So 5 euros were paid for the privilege of toiling up goodness knows how many stairs. But how wonderful to be inside the tower, to see the work of the building from many different angles and to wonder at the men who actually built the structure hundreds of years back. And then to look down on the rooves of old Strasbourg, with the multiple levels of attic windows, buildings which have been lived in for hundreds of years. Why do rooves have such a fascination?
Back down again, and knees feeling slightly stiff, fly eventually located the Palais du Rohan. It was built for the illegitimate son of Louis XVI, who was appointed the Archbishop of Strasbourg. That was the rule, wasn’t it – first son to inherit, second son into the army, third /illegitimate sons into the church. It is now the site of various Museums – notably the Archaeology Museum, which displays the history of the site of Strasbourg from early Roman times up to the last century. Spectacularly presented, but needing a week to do it justice. Striking was the similarity of the accessories worn by women two thousand years ago to what women wear today. Some of the genuine artifacts could be easily interchanged with items on sale in any of the bijouteries in town. Probably not so for the armoury worn by the men.
The Musee des Beaux Arts was not as satisfying. Lots of paintings. Hundreds of years’ worth of religious paintings – from the early Middle Ages right through until the Reformation. Did the ascendancy of Christianity in western culture rob the artistic temperament of any other source of inspiration. It is not until late Renaissance that other themes begin to emerge – like the lives of real people and the settings in which they lived and worked. I find the latter much more interesting than strings of interpretations by different artists of the same religious themes. But of course, art reflects the culture of the times, and that is the way it always is.
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