We went to Strasbourg, France this past weekend just to check it out – it’s only a few hours by train from Tübingen. The view referred to in today’s blog post title is the scene you see while standing on top of the Barrage Vauban (“Vauban weir”) in Strasbourg. It’s one of the standard “postcard” shots in  Strasbourg.

BTW, have you ever heard/used the English word “weir” before? My original inclination was to translate the French term barrage as “dam” in English — I’d never heard of the English term “weir”. However, according to Wikipedia,  the Barrage Vauban is a “weir“, not a “dam”, since the water flows through obstructions placed in its way. A dam, on the other hand, stops the flow of water.

You can see what the Barrage Vauban looks like in this photo taken while standing on the terrace of the modern art museum:

Barrage (“weir”) Vauban, Strasbourg

That’s a weir you’re looking at. Make a note.

Anyway, the “panoramic view” in Strasbourg is the one to be found when you’re standing on top of that weir: (click on the photo below to view at a much bigger size):

Panorama from the top of the Barrage Vauban, Strasbourg

We can see the Strasbourg Cathedral off in the distance on the middle right, with the medieval bridge Ponts Couverts stretched across the foreground. The bridge includes 4 stone towers. Note that the left-most tower is visible next to the tree in my photo. I point this out only because the caption on the photo in the Wikipedia article about Strasbourg calls attention to the fact that in their photo of this scene, the left-most tower is hidden behind that tree.

However, they did have better weather when they took their photo. Those dark clouds you see in my photo were left over from the rainy weather the day before … and also were harbingers of things to come the following day, when the skies opened up, and the rain poured down on us. Luckily, the weather cleared long enough to take this panoramic look at Strasbourg.

More on Strasbourg coming soon…