It must be 12 going on 13 years since I was last in Strasbourg. I booked a ticket on the TGV before I left Melbourne on the bright idea that it might be worth photographing the Strasbourg Christmas Markets, said to be the largest in France, if not the universe. I’m not sure why, I don’t like markets. Nevertheless, off to Strasbourg I go. The TGV service means that it’s an easy 2 hours 20 minutes from Paris to Strasbourg, plenty of time to realise that the Parrot Zik headphones were a good investment. The train is full in all classes, with plenty of families with screaming kids heading to Strasbourg and Colmar.
I don’t remember much about Strasbourg, and it isn’t until I see this laneway that I recognise the Strasbourg of memory.
This crowded laneway was just as crowded 12 years ago, but not as nicely decorated, with the now de rigeur polar bear theme, with the occasional penguin and seal thrown in for good measure.
It’s also raining, and at 3.30pm in the afternoon, starting to get quite dark judging by the ISO 1000 I’ve had to resort to on the camera. I hadn’t done any research on the Christmas Market before I’d left, and had a mental picture that it is one big market. It’s actually at least 8 small markets, in various locations. The most popular seem to be the market at the base of the Notre Dame de Strasbourg cathedral, and that of the Christkindelsmarik nearby.
I keep shooting handheld for as long as I can given the crowds, then it’s a quick trip back to the hotel to collect the tripod to get this shot of the colourfully lit buildings.
The trouble with shooting from a tripod is that you’re mistaken for a local. A man speaking virtually no English but I think speaking Polish or Czech has me take his photo several times, and we have quite a difficult conversation given the language barrier on the differences between the cards used for storage in his camera and mine, and that fact that my camera doesn’t have a flash so that any photo I take of him in the dark will be, well, dark. I give him my card and he promises to email me, I think. A group of German-speaking tourists approach me whilst I’m taking the photo above and want to know where the Zara store is. With the benefit of 3 hours in Strasbourg, I can tell them it is around the corner and in the Les Boutiques building on the right :-).
By now, my North Face coat, which has a hood, is succumbing to the rain. My hair is soaking wet, I can feel water dripping down the back of my neck, and the camera is looking decidedly sogging. The leg has fallen out of my tripod again, and I give up trying to fix it in the dark and rain. I’ve been poked in the head with an umbrella in the market as well (I really don’t like markets any better as a result), so it’s time to retire to the comfort of the Sofitel Grand Ile and hope the rain clears by tomorrow morning.
