Things to do in Strasbourg

Landmark · Grande Île

A single-spired Gothic cathedral in pink Vosges sandstone, for centuries the tallest building in the world, with a sixteenth-century astronomical clock inside.

Local tip: The clock's full automaton sequence runs once a day at half past twelve and needs a separate ticket bought that morning. The platform climb is 332 steps and the view takes in the Vosges, the Black Forest and, on a clear day, the Alps.

Neighborhood · West of the Grande Île

The old tanners' quarter of half-timbered houses on the canals, with the covered bridges and the Vauban dam at its western end.

Local tip: Walk out onto the roof terrace of the Barrage Vauban — it is free, open daily and gives the view of the covered bridges that everyone else queues to photograph from the ground.

Neighborhood · East and north of the Grande Île

The monumental German imperial quarter built after 1871, added to the UNESCO listing in 2017 — vast avenues, palaces and apartment blocks unlike anything else in France.

Local tip: Most visitors never cross the canal into it. Walk the axis from Place de la République out toward the university and you will understand more about Alsace in an hour than any museum will tell you.

Nature · Beside the European quarter

The city's oldest park, with a lake, a small free zoo, storks nesting in the trees and the European institutions on its edge.

Local tip: The storks are the real attraction and they are genuinely wild — the reintroduction programme worked. Go at the end of the afternoon in spring when they are on the nests, then walk five minutes to look at the Council of Europe and the human rights court.

Nature · Both banks of the Rhine

A cross-border park spanning the river, joined by a pedestrian and cycle bridge, with the German town of Kehl on the far side.

Local tip: Take tram D to Kehl on an ordinary ticket and walk back across the footbridge. Lunch in Germany, a walk home to France, and the whole thing costs a single fare — the most quietly extraordinary hour available in any French city.

Culture · 30–60 km west and south

A chain of walled wine villages along the foot of the Vosges, backed by forested mountains with ruined castles on the ridgelines.

Local tip: The regional trains reach Obernai, Barr, Sélestat and Colmar without a car, which matters when the point of the trip is tasting. Go in the week — the villages on the route are lovely and on an autumn Sunday they are impassable.