I got a chance to visit Strasbourg (and as a transit point to get there, also Brussels) due to my job affairs this April (I'm a journalist). I visited EU parliament in Strasbourg, but I also had enough free time to see the city and a few hours in Brussels too. There will be also some France/Belgium countryside scenes which I took from train window, in this thread.
I will start with Strasbourg - a place where French and German architectures and cultures meets. I actually wanted to visit this city already before, as I thought it must be quite a beautiful one. It really was! Charming, rather small, and just cosy. I saw there some of the most wonderful sights I have seen anywhere in European cities. We'll get to them in this thread with time, but start with some basic facts about the place:
Strasbourg
Population: 272 000 (urban area: 440 000) (2006)
Area: 78 sq.km (urban area: 222 sq. km)
Foundation year: 1262
1. Strasbourg railway station has a modern forefront built of glass and steel. Looking like a green snake, lying next to the historical city
2. Inside the "snake's belly"
3. The square next to station and surrounding buildings are... just great. I'm not an architect, but it feels like planned very well, with the right proportions and etc.
4. Got charmed by this look of station's interior. Good old historical industrial style of Western Europe's train stations, at it's best!
5. Strasbourg surprised me with it's great weather. Not talking about my homecity Riga where at that time even the snow weren't quite dissolved yet, but just a couple of hundred kilometers south-east from Brussels, and the difference was incredible. Warm, more than 20 degrees, first green leafs and even blossoms.
6. And also my first conclusions about city's "common" architecture was positive. Bright, uplifting colors, nice, harmonic styles.
7. Active shopping & eating street, where cafe vendors tries to get the attention of every a bit slower walking by-passer to offer their meals
8. I was hungry so I followed the appeal
9. Coming closer to very central part of the town, divided by bridge
10.
11. Typical French style of architecture with all it's beauty.
12. And here another one, reminding Paris streets
13.
14. Church of St Thomas which history goes back 1000 years
15.
I will start with Strasbourg - a place where French and German architectures and cultures meets. I actually wanted to visit this city already before, as I thought it must be quite a beautiful one. It really was! Charming, rather small, and just cosy. I saw there some of the most wonderful sights I have seen anywhere in European cities. We'll get to them in this thread with time, but start with some basic facts about the place:
Strasbourg
Population: 272 000 (urban area: 440 000) (2006)
Area: 78 sq.km (urban area: 222 sq. km)
Foundation year: 1262
1. Strasbourg railway station has a modern forefront built of glass and steel. Looking like a green snake, lying next to the historical city
2. Inside the "snake's belly"
3. The square next to station and surrounding buildings are... just great. I'm not an architect, but it feels like planned very well, with the right proportions and etc.
4. Got charmed by this look of station's interior. Good old historical industrial style of Western Europe's train stations, at it's best!
5. Strasbourg surprised me with it's great weather. Not talking about my homecity Riga where at that time even the snow weren't quite dissolved yet, but just a couple of hundred kilometers south-east from Brussels, and the difference was incredible. Warm, more than 20 degrees, first green leafs and even blossoms.
6. And also my first conclusions about city's "common" architecture was positive. Bright, uplifting colors, nice, harmonic styles.
7. Active shopping & eating street, where cafe vendors tries to get the attention of every a bit slower walking by-passer to offer their meals
8. I was hungry so I followed the appeal
9. Coming closer to very central part of the town, divided by bridge
10.
11. Typical French style of architecture with all it's beauty.
12. And here another one, reminding Paris streets
13.
14. Church of St Thomas which history goes back 1000 years
15.