France, but make it German

We did some outings this week and we also stayed close to “home”. Our outings took us to Strasbourg, France and into Mainz proper to the St. Stephan church for a concert and some art.
We started the week by boarding a train headed south to Kehl, Germany. Then, rather than take the tram, we chose to soak in the perfect weather by walking across the border into France and the city of Strasbourg. We have been thinking about visiting the Alsace region of France for a few months, so it was finally time to make it happen. There is a fabulous cathedral there and rich history. Alsace changed back and forth between Germany (Holy Roman Empire) and France (including Louis XIV) several times. As a result, there is a delightful melding of French and German culture, language, and cuisine there.
We visited the famous cathedral, where we saw the medieval stained glass and the astronomical clock. The design was for two towers, but they only built one, fearing the weight of another would compromise the structure. It was the tallest church tower in the world for 227 years.
We ate regional food, including pork knuckle, chicken cordon bleu, a french taco, and delicious munster cheese. The old city center is built on an island, so we walked all the way around it and just enjoyed the ambiance. The great weather didn’t last, unfortunately, and we woke up to rain. We spent the morning at the excellent Strasbourg Historical museum. We learned so much about the city, including a former inhabitants Gutenberg, Goethe, Schweitzer, and Pasteur. Strasbourg also serves as one of the seats of the European Union. It was fun to spend a couple of days there.
We spent the rest of the week close to Mainz. We have been enjoying our walks through the nice parks here and along the Rhine. We went into the city yesterday to experience the market on Marktplatz. It was so busy with people doing their produce shopping and meeting up for food and drinks. Then we walked to the church of St. Stephan for a lunchtime organ concert. There has been a church in that spot for a thousand years. The current one is medieval, but it has been partially destroyed twice: in 1857 and again during WWII. In the early 1970s, the monsignor Klaus Meyer asked the artist Marc Chagall if he would create the replacement stained glass for the reconstructed church. Chagall declined. He was Jewish, born in a town that is now part of Belarus, but was then Russian. After the war, he was really quite devastated and didn’t want to revisit the war or have anything to do with Germany. His birthplace and its inhabitants had been all but wiped off the face of the earth, with 240,000 people reduced to just over 100 survivors. He escaped from Nazi-occupied Paris and went to New York. Anyway, Father Meyer was persistent and Chagall finally consented to create the windows as a symbol of harmony and reconciliation. He was 91 years old when he started the project in 1978.
The windows are really lovely…very typically Chagall. They are predominantly blue, giving the interior of the church a heavenly blue light. The nine windows that Chagall created depict biblical scenes, but with his characteristic “flying” figures and somewhat whimsical feel. We enjoyed listening to the organ concert of works by Bach, Schumann, Rachmaninoff, and Vierne while we gazed at the beautiful windows.
We are trying to make the most of our last few weeks here in Germany. We have planned a few more things in the Mainz/Frankfurt area for this week. Then next week we are taking a little trip to another country to meet up with friends. Any guesses where and who? We are also dealing with some family issue from afar, which is somewhat difficult. We are making plans for the summer so that we can visit with our family across the U.S.
Hope you all have a great week.