Nancy girl

~backblip~

With three days to get back to Calais the route for the end of our holiday was dictated to us slightly, so we had to search the guide book for things that might be of interest. In a way it was good, because it forced us to look for places we might not otherwise have visited, this part of France has never been high on my travel list.

This morning we headed for Colmar, a very Germanic little town in Alsace complete with perfectly preserved wonky wooden framed houses. My boyfriend insisted we should visit at least one museum on our trip, so we went to the Unterlinden Museum, which has mainly religious paintings from the region. Its main attraction is the Isenheim Altarpiece, and although I wound Ian up about how boring it all was, it wasn't bad as these things go. The audio commentary provided some amusement.

After that we drove through the vineyards to visit the Haut Koenigsbourg castle, which was much more impressive from a distance than close up, sitting proud on top of a prominent wooded hill. Then it was off to our stopping spot for the night, the city of Nancy.

I wasn't expecting much from Nancy but I really loved it. This picture is of the Hotel de Ville which sits on the hugely impressive Place Stanislas in the centre of town, all gold-encrusted lampposts and pristine stonework. We had a lovely meal and there was a real atmosphere about the place, lots of bars and restaurants and young people making the most of the public spaces. It's probably the trendiest place we've visited so far and somewhere I can actually imagine living. A nice surprise :)