Strasbourg [Fortified city at the crossroads]
We cycled into Strasbourg and managed to find the TIC and got a map: looked at the cathedral first - found it quite dark, partly because it is built of the local red sandstone, and only has natural light through very dark stained glass windows. We cut our visit short as they would be closing the doors shortly for people who wished to watch the film and astro clock performance. This would mean being shut in for over an hour!
There was a tourist train [mini train] giving a forty minute tour with headphone commentary in 7 languages. The train went down some quite narrow streets and within a hairs breadth of countless stalls in the flea market, which seemed to stretch for miles. Everywhere you looked there were higgledy piggledy half timbered houses, stepped gables, and bottle windows, signs in two languages, and hardly a 20th century building to spoil the view. We saw the covered bridge, that formed a defence of the old city. It has a sluice mechanism inside, which enables the river to be quickly dammed, flooding the southern approaches to the city, thereby swamping the enemy.
After the mini train, we wandered around the flea market. We made the mistake of showing interest in a Dinky toy of a Citroen 2CV, and got a barrage of enthusiastic French explanation and sales pitch from both the stallholder and his wife, but we managed to escape unscathed, [without the 2CV].
A little later it became apparent that Strasbourg was under the influence of Zombie Madness. We started to see and hear increasing numbers of zombies, moving pack-like through the narrow streets. It turned out to be some kind of protest, but we didn`t find out what. However, the pack later dispersed, ans loner Zombies were spotted refreshing themselves with drinks [nothing more sinister than Coca-Cola] and buying their vegetables at Leclerc! Strasbourg has to be one of the prettiest cities we have been to: lots of historical buildings to be seen, including Maison Kammerzell [15th Century; highly decorated beams, on several storeys], the area called Petit France is very touristy with boats going through the lock, riverside walks, and lots of other picturesque areas.