Strasbourg cathedral

Friday
We left late afternoon for a three-day weekend in Strasbourg to celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary tomorrow. We had a very smooth journey, with no road works or heavy traffic, so we arrived at our hotel about 8.50, having just stopped once en route. Having checked in, we walked into the centre for a late dinner. Then we had a short stroll around the cathedral area, before walking back to the hotel beside the river. The cathedral is slightly odd-looking, since it is assymetrical, having only one spire. The north tower, completed in 1439, made it the world's tallest building from 1647 (when the spire of St. Mary's church, Stralsund burnt down) until 1874 (when it was surpassed by the tower of St. Nikolai's Church in Hamburg). The planned south tower was never built.
Described by Victor Hugo as a "gigantic and delicate marvel", and by Goethe as a "sublimely towering, wide-spreading tree of God", the cathedral is visible far across the plains of Alsace and can be seen from as far off as the Vosges Mountains or the Black Forest on the other side of the Rhine.