We chatted for a bit then wandered across (one of the many) bridges and squeezed in a cheeky little vin rosé in the sunshine 😎 before making our way to the boat trip…
I’d pre-Googled & selected that particular trip as most of them are only in French 😔 whereas this one promised 14 different languages so we boarded and took a seat. As you will hear on the next post (“Ear Wax” video that Dave posted) – although we picked up two pairs of headphones in plastic bags, there was ear wax on both of them 🤮
Anyway I was alright as I had my own but Dave sadly had to use one of the ear-wax versions 😂
It lasted just less that one and quarter hours and was really informative ✅
And I now know what a lock actually IS as I’ve now experienced two – a very old one (which took ages) and a much newer (efficient) one. As Mr Google says, a lock is:-
an enclosure or basin located in the course of a canal or a river (or in the vicinity of a dock) with gates at each end, within which the water level may be varied to raise or lower boats
But basically for any confused.com peeps out there, if the river has two levels, just before it goes up or down, you come to a (front) gate and stop, then some back gates close behind you and the water level rises or drops to the same as on the other side of the front gates – and the front gates open and you sail through… !!!
So we saw a lot of buildings – and heard about when how the Germans took over, they wanted Strasbourg to be THE most impressive base for them and thus built loads of prestigious buildings – which I am now happy to say – that the French are now enjoying…
As I said there are bridges every few hundred yards or so and one of the stories we heard was about “Pont Pierre” where in medieval times, they would execute peeps by popping them in a cage and lowering the cage off that bridge into the water – and the whole city would come to view it – nice 😐
