Petite France is a historic quarter of the city of Strasbourg in eastern France.
To be honest I do not know the real historic origin of the name, but in my head it sounds like a perfect name to represent the ensemble of bridges, channels and buildings that are so characteristic and make me think of many cities in France, all in one.
Strasbourg feels like a little Paris. Actually, it looks like a little Paris, but it feels completely different. It feels cozy, attribute that Paris struggles to make its own.
By now I have been to Strasburg several times and despite the fact that in the end it is "just" a big village, it never gets boring. There are so many nice shops and restaurants and cafés. If only it was a tiny bit less expensive it would be even more perfect.
The best part of travelling is when you discover something that you did not expect and you particularly enjoyed. Luckily I made two new discoveries this week:
1. The bookshop Dinali on the Grand Rue
You barely find narrative in here, but they have a lot of particular genres and many hardcover books, from cooking to cinematography and history of arts, and the best is: crazy discounts. We spent so much time in there just browsing through beautiful books and then lost ourselves in the travel section. I came out with two books in particular, which inspired me a lot for their clever illustrations:
2. Au fond du jardin
This beautiful Victorian tea salon seduced me unconditionally.
Unfortunately you have to reserve weeks in advance to actually get a place in the salon to have a tea and madeleines on site, so this is definitely on my list for next time. Anyway just crossing the threshold is enough to be amazed and infused with the feel and smell of tradition, passion and unicity.
Really looking forward to come back to the old discoveries soon, and to make new ones of course.