Author: Nikolaus Kreuzer & Lukas Heckl

we have mixed emotions about our cycling experience in france. strasbourg for example has a great infrastructure, you always have a lane for you or at least one with the cars. the traffic in the UNESCO-zone is very calme, it’s mostly car free.

from strasbourg to nancy we took a cycling path along the marne au rhin canal, which was very well developed. a big part of it led through the vallée des écluses, very very beautiful.

the rest of the french cities we visited were ok to cycle, like in germany. we would say: at least they tried.

the rest of the journey through france we cycled along the moselle. quite easy to do and nice but not very interesting. there is a lot of abandoned industry, because they used to use the river for transportation.

strasbourg:

it is in a way similar to regensburg with the ‚grand ill‘ which is free of traffic. that is the island in between the canals. everything seems to be new (or newly renovated) and polished. it’s a small city in between some canals, so yes somehow very similar to regensburg.
we liked the flair in krutenau, a part of the city near the university.
what we noticed is that nobody is going for a swim in rivers or canals, we yet don’t know why.

we met an old lady who didn’t want to tell us her name. but we talked a lot about the war and how it affected her and her family as well as the streets she grew up in.

we think strasbourg is making the same mistake as regensburg with trying to keep the heritage as a touristic experience. we would like to see the daily life more integrated into the UNESCO-zones.

we also visited the european parliament. we were very impressed by the louise weiss – building and the big wooden egg.