As I mentioned in my last post about Strasbourg (did you read it yet?! Make sure you're all caught up on our trip so far!), our ship, the Viking Alruna, was actually docked in a modern, but sweet little town called Kehl, on the German side of the Rhine River.
We were forewarned that Kehl was a modern town, but it was absolutely fantastic! When you disembarked from the ship you stepped into the loveliest park that ran in a narrow strip along the river's edge. The park actually straddled the river with the bulk of it being on the French bank. The two sides are connected by an eye-catching pedestrian suspension bridge, so you can quite literally walk from Germany to France! And that's exactly what dad and I did after returning from Strasbourg!
But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Earlier that morning, before breakfast, dad and I had taken our morning coffee walk. The park was quiet aside from the occasional runner and people practicing yoga with the sunrise (a perfect place for sun salutations if you ask me!). Oh, and the geese - there were so many geese!
We eventually moved out of the park to walk down some residential streets. Oh. My. Gosh. I am ready to move to Kehl, Germany. The houses were big, modern, and just really nice (at least from the outside) and all the ones we saw were situated on tree lined roads with nice sidewalks. And it was so quiet!! Anytime I visit quaint little historic villages I immediately want to live there, but honestly, I think the ideal way to go is to live in a cute little modern town like Kehl, and make little side trips to visit all the cute villages. That way you get the best of both worlds!
Anyways, yes, I liked Kehl. Now back to our walk to France!
I was anxious to walk across the bridge just to say I did it. Dad wanted to walk across because he had spotted a fort left from the Maginot Line that he wanted to have a closer look at.
The Maginot Line was a defensive line created by the French in the 1930s (between the first and second world wars) to try and keep the Germans out. It basically ran the length of France's border, but not quite to the English channel. The line was dotted with these forts, so we were sort of excited to see one up close! (this was not the first we had seen, just the first we could get to - there were Maginot Line forts that we passed on the way to Colmar, as well.) While I'm sure the line did what it was proposed to do for a while, apparently the Germans just up and walked across it during World War Two...ah, the best laid plans...
When we got closer, we realized the fort was fenced off, but there was a gate. Next to the gate was this sign:
They turned the historic fort into a dog park! I guess it's from a piece of history that none of Europe really cares to remember too much, but still!
Sometimes it's refreshing to be in a place that doesn't have a zillion picture postcard views to find and photograph, hoards of tourists, and tacky souvenir shops on every corner. Kehl was just that - a perfectly pleasant little town and a nice little breath of fresh air in-between tours.
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