France
Strasbourg
Half-timbered houses over still canals in a Petite France scented with sauerkraut and spice.
The half-timbered houses lean over canals so still they double every window box in the reflection. Strasbourg smells of sauerkraut, warm spice and the yeast from Alsatian bakeries, and Petite France — the old quarter of fishermen, millers and tanners, its streets built level with the water — is a knot of timber, water and covered bridges where French and German have been arguing and blending for centuries.
The cathedral was built between 1015 and 1439 in red sandstone that changes colour with the sky, and its single spire, 142 metres high and improbably light, made it the tallest building in Christendom until the nineteenth century; inside are the astronomical clock and the Pillar of Angels, and the platform up the tower gives the view over the whole old town. Petite France, a UNESCO World Heritage quarter, keeps its sixteenth- and seventeenth-century half-timbered houses along the waterways and the Covered Bridges at its end; across the river the Neustadt is the German imperial quarter of 1870–1918. Strasbourg is also the European city — the Parliament and the Council of Europe sit on its edge — and every December the Christkindelsmärik, first held in 1570 and the oldest Christmas market in France, fills the squares under a thirty-metre tree on Place Kléber. The winstubs, the panelled wine taverns, serve choucroute and tarte flambée all year.
Solo
The cathedral platform first, then the Petite France lanes, the Neustadt for the other Strasbourg, and a winstub counter for lunch. A city that rewards the walker who crosses its bridges alone.
Couple
Petite France at dusk when the canals go still, the cathedral platform for the view, and a winstub dinner of choucroute and Riesling. Strasbourg is romantic in a wood-panelled, spice-scented way.
Friends
A winstub crawl through Petite France — tarte flambée here, choucroute there, Alsace Riesling everywhere — and the Christmas market squares if you time it for December.
- Petite France stacks half-timbered houses from the sixteenth century over canals so still they double the reflection.
- The cathedral's sandstone spire, 142 metres high, was the tallest building in Christendom for centuries — and you can climb to the platform.
- Winstubs — Alsatian wine taverns with wood-panelled walls — serve choucroute and tarte flambée until late.
- The Christmas market, first held in 1570, is the oldest in France — mulled wine, spice and a thirty-metre tree on Place Kléber.
Choucroute garnie — a mountain of sauerkraut layered with smoked meats, sausages and potatoes — in a panelled winstub.
Tarte flambée — paper-thin Alsatian dough topped with crème fraîche, onions and lardons, blistered in a wood oven.
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