Strasbourg - Jewel of Alsace

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	In the area	Strasbourg accommodation

For visitors wanting to see Paris and one other French city - or indeed just one French city other than Paris, Strasbourg is the place.
   Strasbourg is one of the great historic cities of Europe, and its history is very different from that of Paris.
  In the year 840 AD, on the death of the Emperor Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious, the great Frankish "Holy Roman" Empire was split into three parts. West Francia in the west became the heartland of modern France. East Francia in the east became Germany; and between them lay Middle Francia – an area today made up of small states, Luxembourg Belgium, the Nether­lands,and Switzerland. Between Luxembourg and Switzerland middle Francia included the duchies of Alsace, Lorraine and Burgundy, which are today part of France. But this was not always the case.
   Alsace, and with it Strasbourg, only became French in the 17th century. Alsace was French from 1648 to 1871, but during this time it remained German- speaking. From 1871 until 1919, and again from 1940 to 1944, Alsace was annexed by Germany.
    While today the people of Alsace all speak French, the historic Germanic culture of the city of Strasbourg is tangible, and indeed part of the city's identity. Many signs are written up in both French and Alsatian (a dialect of German), or sometimes just in Alsatian; and signs on many historic buildings are written up using the classically German Gothic script.
    As for wining and dining, Strasbourg's gourmet traditions are quite distinctive, and more German than French. Flammekueche is something between a quiche lorraine and a pizza, and choucroute, sauerkraut in English or German, is a major speciality. Another popular dish is baeckoffe, an oven-baked meat and potato dish.  Alsace and Strasbourg are also famous for their pain d'épices, a kind of spicebread or gingerbread, particularly in the runup to Christmas.
    For a classic Strasbourg dining experience, visitors have a large number of Alsacian restaurants and Winstubs; the latter are typical Alsace restaurants, mostly furnished with wooden chairs and tables, decorated in Alsace style, and often housed in old half-timbered buildings. They are Alsace's equivalent of an old fashioned English pub, where people go as much to drink - in this case local Alsace wine - as to eat.
      Strasbourg is the second most popular tourist city in France, after Paris; and there are three main attractions. Firstly the cathedral, the second most visited French cathedral after Notre Dame de Paris; secondly the picture-book historic quarter of Petite France, with its half-timbered medieval houses and its quays overlooking branches of the river Ill (that is the river " ill "); and thirdly the Strasbourg Christmas market. The Christmas market, or Christkindelsmärik, the market of the child Jesus, is the oldest and biggest historic Christmas market in Europe, and fills the squares and old streets round the cathedral for the whole of December.
    Near Petite France is the Barrage Vauban, a 17th century covered bridge and walkway across the river.
   But there is plenty more to see and do in Strasbourg too.
   One of the great things about Strasbourg as a city-break destination, is that you can do so much on foot. The old city is quite small. Just next to the cathedral, in and around the Palais Rohan, is a cluster of museums, the most impressive of which is the Strasbourg art gallery, or Musée des Beaux Arts.  One of the best provincial art galleries in France, the gallery has a small but rich and representative collection of European art from the Renaissance onwards, including works by Giotto, Botticelli, Raphael, Rubens, El Greco, Van Dyck, Corot, Courbet and many more. The Palais Rohan, a fine eighteenth-century palace, also houses the Museum of Decorative Arts, and the Strasbourg Archeological Museum; and just across the street is the Strasbourg historical museum.
    A single day pass for all the Strasbourg museums costs less than separate entrance tickets to two individual museums.
    The pass also includes access to Strasbourg's other great museum, the Strasbourg museum of modern and contemporary art, or MAMCS. Very easily accessible – just a short walk from Petite France across the Barrage Vauban,  this is a small but good modern art gallery, opened in 1998. Its permanent collection contains works from the Impressionists onwards, including Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Signac, Vlaminck, Picasso, Braque, Chagall, Miro, Magritte, Kandinsky and many more.
     The other popular tourist attraction in Strasbourg is to take a boat trip on the river Ill. Boats leave from in front of the Palais Rohan, by the museums, and take visitors round the island in the river Ill on which the historic city of Strasbourg is built.
      

The Haut Rhin department

    The historic city of Strasbourg lies a mile from the Rhine, in the fertile valley that is flanked to the west by the Vosges mountains, and to the east by Germany's Black Forest. Both are easily accessible from Strasbourg.

       For a quick trip into Germany, it is very easy to drive or take the train across the Rhine to the German town of Kehl, but that is not terribly interesting. A more interesting trip is to drive or take the train to the town of Offenburg, 25 km (15 miles) from Strasbourg, a town with an attractive centre...  but not as attractive as Strasbourg.
       A day trip into the Vosges can combine a visit to the impressive Chateau du Haut Koenigsburg 60 km south of Strasbourg, near Séléstat, and near there to the picturesque small Alsace wine-route town of Kaysersberg, birthplace of Albert Schweitzer.
     Click here for more on visiting Alsace