France in a box, a shopping trip to Strasbourg

A week or so ago, a friend (who lives in the USA) happened to mention that her soon to be ten years old daughter really wants to go to France. This led to the idea that for her birthday "Mademoiselle" (not her real name, shhhh) should receive a box full of French goodies, bought right in France for her birthday.  What could be more fun than that, right?

Well, maybe doing Mom's shopping for her could be.  Marika and I (and a friend) headed up on Friday to enjoy a day of looking for the best ways to represent France, for a young lady, that will fit in a small box and mail easily, trying to create a blend between the real thing and that mythical beret wearing version us Americans tend to think of, and we had a blast doing it.

The thought of driving in the heavy traffic, and on the narrow streets, and worse cramming into a parking space or garage near old town Strasbourg always makes my stomach churn, and with Dave's new car being less than 2 weeks old, I was even more loath than normal to try it.

So, I got busy online and found out that Strasbourg has a series of Park and Ride lots on its outskirts where you can park for only 4.10€ (up to 4.70€ for one more in demand lot) per day and that price includes free public transit for all passengers (up to 7) all day!  HOW did I miss knowing this all these years?  I am never, and I do mean NEVER parking downtown again.  I parked at the Rives de L'aar garage.  While it is a garage, it is the roomiest one I have seen in Europe, so simple to drive in.  Look at all that space!  Wow, wow, wow:

The trams stop was just around the corner and easy to find.  It was about a ten minute ride into the heart of the tourist areas of the city.  The trams in Strasbourg are nice and clean and really, really bright with huge floor to ceiling windows.

The trams are very long and have several accordion style joints.  We were about one third of the way back and this is looking out towards the front as the driver was already curving ahead of where we sat.

Once downtown, the first thing we found, that seemed both French and of interest to Mademoiselle was a soap shop:

We came away from the soap shop with two very cute little "soap kabobs," each of which has two different scented soaps on it (plus pretty ribbons and wire balls).  You can see them below, along with a tween girl magazine (hopefully there are enough photos to make up for Mademoiselle's lack of French reading skills) and a birthday card that we picked up along the way.

One of the BEST things to buy in France is food.  We love their cheeses, and their bakeries. Oh the bakeries.  Those items won't ship well or taste good once they get there, but we thought we needed to at least take some photos for everyone to drool over, because to a very large extent, this IS what a visit to France is all about:

Oh how I wish those tastes and smells could travel easily and well.  Le sigh.

We couldn't drool over the food all morning though, so we continued towards the center of town.  Our next stop was the very colorful and whimsical collection at Pylones, a shop based out of Paris, where we found a cute little travel hair brush/mirror and a fancy schmancy box to put all the treasures in.  

Pylones is RIGHT downtown, here is the view from their front door:  

This put us in the prime location to pick up those tourist specific items, like a mini flag, beret, and an Eiffel Tower keychain:

On the street right in front of the cathedral is a great biscuit and candy shop, where we got a fun little pail filled with hard candies:

At that point we took a lunch break and had sandwiches and eclairs in Mademoiselle's honor.  Hey M, don't the French bakery sandwiches look so much better than fast food lunch in the US?  

French eclairs are little bits of heaven.  Mmmmmmmm.

We finished out the trip with a stop at a kiosk for the magazine, and we found a lovely butterfly coloring book as well, and then headed to the grocery store for some mints, fancy mustard, candies, fig compote and good salt (I also picked up some crackers and cookies, but there was not room in the box).  

Here's the whole stash:

and here it is all boxed up:

It was like creating our own subscirption box.  Instead of an unboxing post, this is a boxing one!  I am always so backwards, aren't I?  It really was fun to get to go out and shop for all those little items--and a nice time to be in Strasbourg; a random Thursday in February is nice and quiet there in the plaza that is so often jam packed in warmer months.

I guess I will close by wishing a very happy 10th birthday to a very special Mademoiselle.  

--Hadley