5 Days in Strasbourg

Start outside, across the square, so you can see why Victor Hugo called the cathedral a gigantic and delicate marvel. Strasbourg Cathedral is built of reddish Vosges sandstone, its west front is covered in so much stone lace that it looks like a drawing, and at 142 m it was the tallest building in the world from 1647 to 1874. It's still the tallest structure in the world built entirely in the Middle Ages. A Romanesque church burned several times in the 12th century, a Gothic one was begun around 1190 and the spire was finished in 1439. The plans called for two towers. Only one was ever built, which is why the profile is lopsided and why you recognize it from a kilometer away.

Go in when it opens at 8:30 and the nave is quiet. Entry is free, through the south portal, and bags are checked at the door. The cathedral is open Monday to Saturday 8:30 to 11:15 and 12:45 to 17:45, and on Sundays only from 14:00 to 17:15. Leave the astronomical clock for 12:30.

On the square, the half-timbered house with the carved upper floors is the Maison Kammerzell, built in 1427 and remodeled in 1589. Today it's a restaurant, and mostly a photo stop.

The platform sits at 66 m, at the foot of the spire, and you reach it by 330 steps up a tight spiral staircase. The entrance is on Place du Château, on the right side of the cathedral, and you can't book in advance. You buy a ticket at the desk and go up when there's room. The ticket is 10 EUR, 6 EUR for students and children aged 6 to 18.

The view covers the roofs of the Grande Île, Saint-Thomas church, the canals of Petite France, the European quarter, and on a clear day the Vosges and the Black Forest on the other side of the Rhine. On the platform there's a keeper's house with a 15th-century wheel that was used to haul sandstone blocks up for the building.

The clock stands in the south transept, and it's the third on the spot. The first was built between 1352 and 1354, the second was finished in 1574 and stopped around 1788, and the current one is the work of Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué, who began it in 1838 and finished in 1843. Schwilgué wanted to work on the clock from boyhood, but he only got the contract 50 years later, by which time he'd become a clockmaker, mathematician and mechanic. The result is a perpetual calendar, a planetary dial, the real position of the Sun and the Moon, and a rooster that crows three times.

The show is the point. A film introduces the clock at 12:00, and the full parade of automata, with Christ and the apostles, runs daily at 12:30 sharp. Tickets are sold only on the day: at the cathedral shops from 10:00 to 11:00, and from 11:30 at the Place Saint-Michel entrance, reached via Place du Château. Cards are accepted. Adults pay 4 EUR, students up to 25 pay 3 EUR, children aged 6 to 17 pay 2 EUR.

Lunch somewhere near the cathedral, then go to the museum at 3 Place du Château, in the buildings of the foundation that has maintained the cathedral since at least 1224. The museum keeps original cathedral sculpture, stained glass, architectural fragments and the plans of the building, including the famous Tempter statue. It's the best place in the city to understand how a cathedral was designed and carved, and it shows seven centuries of Upper Rhine art. It's compact. Show the platform or clock ticket at the desk for a reduction.

Walk five minutes west to Place Kléber, the central square, named after General Jean-Baptiste Kléber, who was born in Strasbourg in 1753. His statue stands in the middle with his remains in a vault below, and the long classical building on the north side is the Aubette, built between 1765 and 1772. This is where trams, shoppers and the Christmas tree meet.

Place Gutenberg, a couple of minutes south, is a better small story. Strasbourg was one of the first centers of printing in Europe, with Johannes Gutenberg, Johannes Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein among the pioneers, and the world's first newspaper was printed here by Johann Carolus in 1605. The city's other claim is the Marseillaise, written here in 1792 by Rouget de Lisle as a war song for the Army of the Rhine. It only got its nickname when volunteers from Marseille sang it on their march to Paris.

Chez Yvonne, officially S'Burjerstuewel, at 10 Rue du Sanglier, is the winstub that first-time visitors get sent to, and it earns it. It's a small wood-panelled room with banquettes, nooks and a communal table, kept much as it was under the new owner. Jacques Chirac was a regular when he came to Strasbourg, and the place is known for tête de veau, veal head.

Unless you're feeling brave, order the choucroute garnie, the Alsatian sauerkraut with sausages and cured pork. Have a Riesling or a Pinot Gris with it.

Next to the cathedral is a French palace, which tells you something about Strasbourg. The Palais Rohan was built from 1732 to 1742 by Robert de Cotte for the Rohan family of prince-bishops, a masterpiece of French Baroque. Its job was to show that Catholicism and the French crown were back in a city that had been Protestant for two centuries, and the bishop's apartments face the cathedral on purpose. Louis XV, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon and Joséphine all stayed here.

Today it holds three museums, each with its own 9 EUR ticket, and you don't need all three. The Museum of Decorative Arts on the ground floor occupies the cardinals' old apartments and has furniture, clocks and goldsmith work. The Museum of Fine Arts upstairs has Giotto's Crucifixion, a Canaletto and Largillierre's La Belle Strasbourgeoise. The Archaeological Museum in the basement is the city's oldest. A one-day Palais Rohan pass for all three costs 20 EUR.

Walk ten minutes west along the river to Saint-Thomas, the city's main Lutheran church since the cathedral became Catholic again after France took Strasbourg in 1681. It's nicknamed the Protestant cathedral and it's a rare hall church, which means the nave and aisles rise to the same height and the interior feels wide and bright.

The reason to go in is the organ. The main instrument was built by Johann Andreas Silbermann in 1741 and Mozart played it in 1778. It's still played, so catch a concert if you can.

This is where the river Ill splits into several channels, and where the city's tanners, millers and fishermen used to live. Half-timbered houses lean over the water, and it's part of the UNESCO site and, honestly, the postcard.

Walk the Rue du Bain-aux-Plantes and the quays for a few minutes in each direction, then stop. It's the most visited corner of the city, and the restaurants right on the water are aimed at tourists, so have your tarte flambée elsewhere. The streets look best early in the morning or in the late afternoon light.

The Ponts Couverts, the covered bridges, are three bridges overshadowed by four towers from the 12th to the 14th century. The bridges lost their wooden roofs in the 18th century, but the name stuck. The towers are the remains of the city's old ramparts.

Just downstream is the Barrage Vauban, built from 1686 to 1690 in pink Vosges sandstone to plans by Vauban. It's 120 m long with 13 arches, and its job was to let the city flood the land to the south if an enemy attacked. That worked in 1870, when the Prussian siege flooded part of the Neudorf suburb. Today you can walk inside, see copies of cathedral statues in a lapidarium, and climb to a free roof terrace with the best view of the covered bridges.

The MAMCS stands right at the end of the Barrage Vauban, so it's a natural pause between the bridges and the boats. The collection covers modern and contemporary art from 1870 to today, with Gustave Doré, Monet, Rodin, Gauguin, Kandinsky and Picasso among the names. If you only want one museum today, choose between this and the Palais Rohan: the palace and the old masters, or the 20th century.

Batorama runs the boats, with its ticket office on the Place du Marché aux Poissons next to the Palais Rohan. Its two main circuits, red and green, last 1 hour 10 minutes and run 8 and 6 km, and there are shorter 45-minute loops too. An audio guide gives the commentary, and it's an easy hour for tired feet and the best way to see how the canals fit together. Check which dock your boat leaves from, because the cathedral dock and the Quai au Sable docks are 100 m apart.

Le Clou, at 3 Rue du Chaudron, a few steps from the cathedral, is one of the best-known winstubs in the old center. The menu lists the classics: tarte au munster, presskopf (jellied pork), choucroute garnie, grilled cervelas sausage with sauerkraut and baeckeoffe.

Baeckeoffe means baker's oven. It's a casserole of sliced potatoes, onions and three meats, pork, beef and lamb, marinated overnight in Alsatian white wine and slow-cooked in a sealed ceramic dish. It's traditionally a dish for special occasions, such as Christmas. Some kitchens want 24 hours' notice for it, so ask when you book.

The European Parliament is legally obliged to meet in Strasbourg twelve times a year, under a decision of the Edinburgh European Council in December 1992, and all its votes must take place here. Most of the work happens in Brussels, which is why the arrangement is criticized as wasteful, even by MEPs. The Louise Weiss building, opened in 1999, is the main one.

Individual visits are free and need no booking. Take tram E to the Parlement Européen stop. A multimedia guide in any of the 24 official languages takes about an hour, and you can use the EP Visit Strasbourg app or the devices on site. The Parlamentarium Simone Veil exhibition is on the same site.

Nearby are the buildings of a different organization. The Council of Europe, founded in 1949 and with 46 member states, is not part of the European Union, and it can't make binding laws. Its Palais de l'Europe was built in 1977 by Henry Bernard. The European Court of Human Rights, whose judgments bind the states concerned, sits in a 1995 building designed by Richard Rogers. You can walk around the outside in ten minutes, and it explains the quarter.

Within walking distance of the institutions is one of the city's main parks, 26 hectares laid out in the classical style in the 18th century. It has a lake with a cascade, dug for an industrial exhibition in 1895, and an enclosure where white storks, the emblem of Alsace, were reintroduced. At the far end is the Pavillon Joséphine, named after the empress who stayed in Strasbourg and rebuilt to the same design after a fire in 1968.

After the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of 1870, Strasbourg became part of the German Empire, and the Germans built a whole new town next to the old one. The Neustadt is a district of wide, straight boulevards, the kind that planners at the time considered modern, healthy and easy to police. To make space they tore down several belts of old fortifications. It's one of the most complete and best-preserved German imperial districts anywhere, and UNESCO added it to the Grande Île listing in 2017.

Start at Place de la République, ringed with neoclassical public buildings, and look for the Palais du Rhin, the former Kaiser's palace, under its dome, the National and University Library, the National Theatre, which was the parliament of Alsace-Lorraine, and the University Palace. The grand mix of Renaissance Revival, Gothic Revival and Art Nouveau feels nothing like the old town.

A short walk from the square is a museum devoted to Tomi Ungerer, the Strasbourg-born illustrator, which opened in November 2007 in half of an 1884 villa. It holds thousands of drawings by Ungerer and colleagues such as Saul Steinberg, plus his collection of antique toys.

The ground floor is for his children's books, the first floor for his political satire, and the basement for his erotic work, which is not for children.

Au Brasseur at 22 Rue des Veaux is a restaurant and microbrewery, and it's the place to try tarte flambée with a beer instead of a wine. It brews blonde, brown, amber and white beers and a few limited editions, and the flammekueche is what the reviewers praise. Order the classic, with crème fraîche, onions and bacon, or the one with Munster cheese. It's not fine dining.

Take tram D from Langstross Grand'Rue or Homme de Fer, with no change, and you're in Germany. Kehl sits directly opposite Strasbourg, and the line was extended to its station in 2017. The Rhine is the border, and you can see it from the Passerelle des Deux Rives, the footbridge for walkers and cyclists, which links two sides of the Jardin des Deux Rives.

It's a simple, slightly strange pleasure: crossing a river and a country on a city tram ticket. Walk over the bridge, look back at the cathedral spire and take the tram home.

The regional train from Strasbourg (TER) takes about 30 minutes, often with two departures an hour, and a full-fare ticket is about 15 EUR each way (the TER site lists 7.60 EUR with a Carte Fluo, which halves the fare), and advance fares can be cheaper. From Colmar station it's about a 15-minute walk to the museum.

The Unterlinden is why many people come. It holds the Isenheim Altarpiece, painted by Matthias Grünewald and sculpted by Nikolaus Hagenauer between 1512 and 1516 for the monastery of Saint Anthony at Issenheim. The monks were known for treating plague victims and skin diseases, and Grünewald painted the crucified Christ covered in sores so patients would feel understood. It's a harrowing and beautiful painting, and it earns the 14 EUR ticket by itself.

Colmar was mostly spared the destruction of the French Revolution and the wars of 1870, 1914 and 1939, so its center is homogeneous and shows it. Walk the pedestrian lanes to the Maison Pfister, built in 1537 for a hatter from Besançon, with painted decoration added in 1577. A few minutes away are the Maison des Têtes of 1609 and the Koïfhus, the old customs house of 1480. The town passed between France and Germany several times and returned to France for good in 1945, which is why the street names are French and the food has a German accent.

The Marché couvert, built in 1865 in a French neo-Baroque style of stone, brick and cast iron, still works as a market. It's right beside the canals, so buy cheese, charcuterie and bread for a picnic, with a slice of Munster, the strong washed-rind cheese of the Vosges, and a wedge of kougelhopf for dessert.

The part of town crossed by the canals of the river Lauch, once the quarter of butchers, tanners and fishmongers, is called Little Venice, La Petite Venise. Half-timbered houses lean over the water. It's lovely and it's crowded, so walk the side streets rather than the main bridges.

Nearby, the Bartholdi Museum is in the house where Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was born, the sculptor behind the Statue of Liberty. Colmar has a replica of the statue, and the town is full of his fountains and monuments.

Eguisheim is 7 km from Colmar and was voted France's favorite village in 2013. It's a circular fortified village, and the streets curve as you follow them around. The Dukes of Alsace built a castle here in the 11th century, Pope Leo IX was born in the village in 1002, and there's a free park for the storks. Two vineyards, the Eichberg and the Pfersigberg, are known for the quality of their wines.

Buses run from Colmar on Fluo line 68R030, which continues to Rouffach, but only a few departures a day are reported, so check the timetable first or take a taxi from the station, about 11 minutes by road.

Finish with a tasting at one of the family domaines in the village. Alsace is the only French region that makes mostly single-grape wines, so you'll taste a Riesling, a Gewürztraminer, a Pinot Gris and perhaps a Crémant d'Alsace, the sparkling wine. Start dry and end aromatic.

The castle stands at 757 m on a spur above the plain, 55 km south of Strasbourg and 26 km north of Colmar, and you can see it from both. A fortress stood here in the 12th century. In 1462 a coalition of Colmar, Strasbourg and Basel burned it as a nest of robber knights, and the Swedes took it after 52 days in 1633. After that it was a ruin.

What you walk through today is the work of a German kaiser. In 1899 the town of Sélestat gave the ruin to Wilhelm II, and the architect Bodo Ebhardt rebuilt it from 1900 to 1908 as it might have looked around 1500. Wilhelm wanted a monument to the Germanic character of Alsace, and his coat of arms is still on the walls, even though France took the castle over in 1919. The restoration is plausible but romantic, and historians still argue about it. Go anyway, for the courtyards and the view over the Rhine plain.

Riquewihr, 19 km from the castle, is a walled wine town that looks more or less as it did in the 16th century. A rectangular wall with three gates was built around it in 1291 by the lords of Horbourg, and the town later belonged to the Dukes of Württemberg, who turned it Protestant. It was one of the few towns in the area not badly damaged in the Second World War, and it still has its fortifications and a castle that is now a museum. The main street is mostly shops, so walk it end to end, then duck into the side lanes. About 20 cellars here offer tastings.

Riesling is the dry, mineral one, Gewürztraminer is spicy and floral, and Pinot Gris is rounder. Some vineyards are classed as Grand Cru, and sweet late harvest wines are labeled Vendange Tardive or Sélection de Grains Nobles. Pick a family domaine rather than the first shop on the high street, and spit if you're driving. The day isn't over.

Between Riquewihr and Kaysersberg the road runs through vines, with villages at every turn. Stop at Kientzheim, a short drive on, and if you have the energy walk a stretch of path between two villages. The Wine Route is also cyclable, and Alsace has over 2,000 km of cycle routes.

Kaysersberg, 10 km on from Riquewihr, was voted France's favorite village in 2017. Its name means Emperor's Mountain, after the castle the Emperor Frederick II bought in 1227 and ordered to be fortified. It was a member of the Décapole, a league of ten Alsatian free towns, and it became French in 1648, even though most inhabitants still spoke German.

The ruined castle watches over the town, the Sainte-Croix church has parts from the 13th century and the Renaissance town hall dates from the 16th century. Albert Schweitzer, the theologian, organist and doctor, was born here in 1875, and the museum about him is worth a stop.