Rhineland, Saarland, Strasbourgland...?

After a very hectic day in Trier we decided to slow things down again on our way down to Switzerland by stopping in Saarbrucken and Strasbourg.

Saarbrucken wasn't the busiest town in the world but it was a nice little city to break up an otherwise long drive yesterday, plus it had the added bonus of this awesome display in the Warhammer shop!

On arrival in Strasbourg we managed to find a stellar park up (that would have given Nigel Farage a heart attack) in the centre of European politics between the European Parliament (pictured), the European Court of Human Rights, and the Council of Europe. Although denying entrance to the Parliament to two British tourists in the morning for not having brought our passports probably felt a bit cathartic for the French security guards.

On the way into the city we stopped by a remnant of German rule of Alsace-Lorraine from 1870-1919, the Neustadt: a quarter of buildings with German architecture, statues, and friezes.

Going through Strasbourg we got some whiplash away from the Neustadt by visiting petite-france, a medieval suburb of the city on the Ill as the river enters the city. This was a suburb as French as they come, something the temporary German rulers probably didn't love too much...

Slightly further down the Ill we came across the river fortifications to the city which were far more elaborate than I thought even the medieval French state was capable of: cannon in the buildings. There was also a whole bridge that would damn up the river to flood the approaches and had gun holes for added protection. 13 year-old Rob and his Age of Empires II defences would have been proud!

Not the most exciting picture in the world but at the, surprisingly large and impressive, Archaeological museum of Strasbourg there were some incredible exhibits on the stone age including this 600,000 year old rock used as a tool. God knows how they were able to date how old it was, perhaps it still had the receipt?

Once we were too shattered to continue working our way around Strasbourg we made our way down to Basel on the Franco-Swiss-German border to start our adventures in Switzerland and hopefully by early next week we'll be down in Italy finally!

Danni's fact of the day: The romans not only had under floor heating but heated the walls with tubes called flues

Rob's fact of the day: A man from Strasbourg is called a Strasbourgeois, I wonder if that hurt the communist movement there...?