So it has been an age since I did a 500 Word post, 14 months to be precise. But I was struggling for something to write about so I thought I would do a good old 500 Word post.. surely I could come up with 500 words about this photo!?

Where: Strasbourg, France

When: November 2018

What Was I Doing In Strasbourg: So I had decided to go to Strasbourg after changing my itinerary for my latest trip, about 20 times and the reason was Instagram.. well not really because of Instagram but because I had seen loads of photos of Strasbourg from people I follow and it always appealed to me. I was working my way down from Copenhagen to Munich and I wanted to do a day trip to Strasbourg, so I based myself in Stuttgart for a few days and caught the train to Strasbourg for a day.

Perfect Weather: Now, it might look like it was gorgeous weather in this photo and yes it was pretty beautiful but being the middle of November, dang it was cold! What was perfect, was the fact that there was still plenty of autumn colours around the city, teamed with the lovely colours of the buildings and that blue sky – this was easily one of my favourite days of that whole trip.

Not All Perfect: What you can’t tell by this photo is that up until this day, I had been having a pretty rough trip. I was extremely homesick, missing my baby niece really badly; I was struggling with the language, even though most people spoke English; I had stuffed up one of my trains which ended up costing me AUD200 so I was pretty down by this point. But this day in Strasbourg really helped put me on the right path again and helped me get through the remaining weeks of the trip.

The Unexpected: Because of the depression I had found myself in, I really did not expect to like or enjoy my day trip to Strasbourg. I expected to pretty much hate it actually – the fact that I had to get on a train to another country and find my way around another strange place. But my day in Strasbourg was one of my easier travel days in the end. I ended up just taking my time with walking around the city – even though I really didn’t do that much. I stopped when I wanted to stop, even just sitting and enjoying the scenery in some places. It is also where I took some of my favourite photos of the whole trip (I actually struggled with which photo to use for this post).

Final Thoughts: I went to Strasbourg not really knowing what to expect but I came away with such a profound love for the city that when, just after I arrived back in Brisbane,a gunman went on a shooting spree and that I found myself completely affected by it – I hadn’t even had that with any of the London attacks. It was also a very different experience of France that I had on my first trip in 2010.

Strasbourg is definitely a place I would love to revisit.

Have you been?
What did you think?