Bad Krozingen

Our last morning in Strasbourg (for a while) was pretty laid back. We'd already seen what we came to see, so we took our time at breakfast and caught up on the news via the internet. Then we took a leisurely walk to the cathedral to look at the stained glass once more, since there was a bit more sunshine today.

We continued to the museum area along the River L'Ill. None of the museums open until 10 a.m., but as soon as the cathedral bell sounded, we visited the Alsacian Museum, where we got in free by virtue of being old. The museum consisted of a series of rooms depicting life in Renaissance and Early Modern Alsace. The rooms were filled with antique furnishings. A stub (living room near the stove), kitchen, bedrooms, wood shop, blacksmith shop, etc.

There were also rooms with artifacts from the three main religious faiths: Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism. (There are many Muslims here now, but not in the Renaissance.) And there were rooms depicting various celebrations and life passages, including confirmation, marriage, conscription into the military, and funerals. It was quite well done, but I took no photos.

Because we had plenty of time, we returned to the cathedral area and visited the Palais Rohan. This palace was originally built just across the square from the cathedral as the residence of the Prince Bishop of Strasbourg. When Strasbourg was a free city, no longer under ecclesiastical rule, it housed the Bishop. And King Louis XIV spent some time here. But once the French Revolution drove out Bishops and kings, Napoleon and Josephine moved in for a while.

Napoleon's "morning room"

The palace also exhibited a whole lot of porcelain dinnerware, plus clocks and windup toys, and a bunch of other stuff that seemed to have little to do with the history of the building. We spent a little time in the archaeology museum down in the basement, which had some nice exhibits. But Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Roman relics dug up in Alsace look identical to relics from those periods found elsewhere.

After a bite of lunch, we took our time going back to the rail station, taking some side streets and trying to see parts of the city we hadn't seen before. Then we caught our train to Offenburg where we had a 30 minute layover before the next train that took us on to Freiburg. We then had to buy a ticket on the short commuter train that took us to our hotel location at Bad Krozingen.

Krozingen is a spa town (hence the Bad, which is really "bath" and not "bad"). It's a pretty little town, and quite modern. Our guess is that it was largely destroyed in the War and rebuilt in contemporary style rather than being restored to its previous, Medieval look, like some of the villages we visited earlier.

We had a bit of confusion finding our hotel, but got there in good order. It's a deluxe room for the same price as the tiny budget room we had in Strasbourg. We explored the town a bit on foot, and got ourselves oriented. Then we found a restaurant and had a very German meal.