I paid a quick visit to Strasbourg, France, and I have to admit, I was more pleased with France than I was expecting to be. The Petite France area was quaint, the Notre Dame impressive, the Rhine calm, and the trams comfortable, but it was the food and atmosphere that impressed me the most. We all hear about French cuisine being so great, but I figured it was just European snobbery; after all, food in Italy was good, but not all of it was fabulous, and same goes for most other places in Europe I've eaten. But every meal I had in Strasbourg was really good and well-prepared.
On top of that, there's a feeling of light anarchy, layered on top of shallowly-hidden hot tempers attitudes. I feel this disregard for organized rules is best exhibited at crosswalks. Pedestrians pretty much walk when they feel like it, though they generally do it when there's only a little traffic coming; with this attitude, I almost got myself run over back in Switzerland. I suspect the anarchy would be dialed up a notch in other parts of France that aren't tempered by Germans as the Alsace region is.
The Strasbourgeois seem to stay up very late, with streets not emptying until well past midnight, and in the dark of night, there were large numbers of people hanging out in the Orangerie park, chatting, making guitar and bongo music, and generally loving life. (Despite the reputations of France and Italy, however, I still think Switzerland seems to sport the most PDA of anywhere I've been in Europe.)
Lord help me, but I kind of want to move to France now.
