Sensational Strasbourg

A most outstanding and special day today. Your two blog protagonists slept in until the last minute whilst J&S were up and about the town organizing and thinking ahead. We all met in the foyer in enough time to walk through the very picturesque and quiet Friday morning streets of central Strasbourg to reach our destination of the most salubrious hotel that their old colleague is now the manager of. Well done non-blogger. She reconnected with Nellie quite a few years ago after working with her in the UK many years before that. J&S actually hooked a up at the same time and place so it was a quatrodecade reunion of sorts. Nellie had decided that she'd like to show us all she had achieved in the intervening years and as such gave the four of us the ultimate hospitality experience in one of the most luxurious establishments in town. It was extraordinary to say the least.

We started with lounging around enjoying a sip of her special champagne (that she'd bought in from her cellar - as if the the stuff in the restaurant wasn't good enough - whew!) along with a selection of locally specialised appetizers. Then she also introduced the head chefs to join us as the main players reconnected. We four out of towners would've been happy with that but then she took us into the speciality dinning area which focuses on delivering top quality local fare for the many guests in the associated hotel as well as local patrons who like to drop in. A good example is all the Judges, lawyers & staff & clientele as they"re around the corner from the local courts. So the aristocracy use Nellies place to decide whom they should repress next. To make up for this social and moral imbalance she also provides food for the prisoners whilst they're attending the courts. Baguettes and sparkling bottled water. How good is that just before you get sent down.

The amount of artistic endeavor all driven by Nellie is amazing. She obviously is committed to providing the best experience for her patrons whilst capturing the essence of and supporting the local culture. She gave us a tour of what she had created (after a most magnificent lunch) highlighting the extremely modern conference facilities (adorned with whole wall murals depicting an old time Alcase scence), the ultra modern hotel rooms being uplifted and down to the lower levels where a heap of time, effort and thus money had been spent creating exclusive spaces showcasing a prominent female liberation political figure, an exclusive artists gallery and an eccelectic reading room. It was fascinating and amazing.

Then the outside garden area followed by a round of sweats and locally produced schnapps (the chefs had rejoined us at this stage) which effectively blew the brains out of all that consumed. It's actually a bit difficult to express the generosity shown by Nellie and her staff along with describing all she has achieved considering the challenges that life has thrown at her. She was open enough to share those with us as well (and there was often the use af device translation tools helping getting the message accross). 

It was also a bit funny that the hotel was hosting 140 Aussies who should've been on a boat cruise down the Rhrine but that was not possible due to climate warming water levels reductions. We tried to ignore them as much as possible.

After 4 hours of total indulgence we stumbled out of the place and wandered along one of the rivers in town up to the olde' worlde' top of the town where all the olde' worlde' buildings etc. sit around where some genius engineers in years gone by decided to seriously manage the amount of water flowing past and create a commercial hub based on river trade. Lochs abound, canals and sluice gates providing a backdrop of noise and movement makes the whole area seemingly reak in ambiance.

So the four wandered around a bit,  found another old church to gawk at. An amazing pipe organ that apparently Mozart had a tinkle with the keys. Unfortunately missed that one by a couple of years as it would've been very impressive.

More sort of aimless wandering with the hotel bed in mind as lunch was still dragging us down and the schnapps hit was wearing off in the warmth of the crowded concrete canyons afternoon. Eventually hitting the bed for a one hour wipe out admist the cool breeze of the rotating fan before springing up again for some previous dinner refreshments at the polar bear in front of the residence.

No-one could possibly face a fondue after that lunch so we reluctantly gave up the generously arranged booking that Nellie's staff had done for us and instead stocked up at a local supermarket and went back to Room J&S for a debrief and solve the worlds problems.

Was still not enough to fully recover, so went to sleep without a proper post as the next morning was bound to be the start of another big one.