Tuesday 14 October 2025

A full day of train travel through three countries and three trains from Florence to Milan in Italy to Basel in Switzerland and to Strasbourg in France where we have an apartment on rue du Vieux-Marche-aux-vins, not far from the Cathedral and various squares. Monoprix provides us with a couple of TV dinners and a bottle of Saumur red. Early night and a late rise is pretty good.

Wednesday 15 October 2025

Indeed, a late rise at 9.30 am. Our walking tour is booked for 3.00 pm, so there is no hurry to get out and about but we are on the street at 11.45 am. A bit peckish, we have a coffee and then, poking our nose down a little alley, we find a lone bar/bistro and as it is close to 2.00 pm and the likely French shut down of the kitchen until 5.00 pm, we panic just a little bit and dive into Binchstub Brogli. We hear later that this is a special, locals place that serves authentic Alsace tartes flambe. And it did. Two large pizza like tartes, a half-litre of Riesling and that’s lunch (and probably dinner).

Our walking tour is an excellent and historically informative walk with a funny (Italian) guide. He was a hoot and quite a character. That, of course makes a tour memorable. We did walk past both the Hotel Maison Rouge and Restaurant Lohkas, places that Flashy and the Major frequented on the Battlefields and Burgundy Tour of 2012. Then the hotel was three stars. Lohkas was 4.5 on the guides.

Walking back home, we dropped in to the Maison Rouge for a gin and tonic. It is now a five star, flash hotel. Flashy thinks he can remember the bar on the ground floor. Unfortunately, on the other hand, Lohkas was deserted when we walked past and the Google ratings are 1 star, with comments of ‘disgusting’, ‘don’t go there.’ So sad really. We had great Alsace tucker in 2012.

Home to a scratch dinner and an early night.

Forgot just how good Riesling is.
Not so popular now.
Hotel Maison Rough.
Improvised egg cup for brekky.

Comments

  1. Graeme16 October 2025 at 19:01

    When we stayed at Maison Rouge I think that we couldn't understand why it didn't have a higher star rating than it did. By the way when mentioning the 2012 Battlefields and Burgundy Tour it needs to be prefaced by the words "infamous".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Roger18 October 2025 at 08:09

      I reckon you're probably right. If only I could remember important details.

      Delete

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