Photos and Stories from Strasbourg, France

After visiting Freiburg, Germany, we spent three days in Strasbourg, France.

Strasbourg is located in the northeast corner of France, in the Alsace region. It sits on the Rhine River, across from Germany. It’s home to the European Parliament, making it one of several de facto capitals of the European Union. It’s complicated. It is also the seat of several other European institutions. Strasbourg’s Wikipedia page attempts to explain the EU’s structure and gives a lot of interesting background on the city.

While it’s rich with history, today Strasbourg is an attractive, vibrant city. We thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Once again, we lucked out with our accommodations. Our apartment was located downtown, only a few blocks from the train station. Several tram lines ran along our street, but we never needed to use them; every place we wanted to see was within walking distance. It was clean, attractive, and nicely furnished. 

The hosts were especially generous with the food, snacks, and beverages they provided.

La Petite France (Little France) was especially charming and picturesque. We took over 200 photos and videos in Strasbourg. Choosing about 20 for this post was difficult. Many of the finalists are from La Petite France.

Predictably, Little France was a focal point for tourists (like us), with dozens of restaurants and souvenir shops.

There was even a disco!

The Cathedral of Strasbourg is in the background.

Here’s the cathedral up close. It was quite large; too much to fit into one photo.

The Palais Rohan (Rohan Palace), next to the cathedral, was also too large to fit into one photo. Here’s the entrance.

The palace was originally the residence of the prince-bishops and cardinals of the House of Rohan, an ancient French noble family originally from Brittany. Since the end of the 19th century, the palace has been home to three of Strasbourg’s most important museums: the Archaeological Museum (Musée archéologique, basement), the Museum of Decorative Arts (Musée des arts décoratifs, ground floor), and the Museum of Fine Arts (Musée des beaux-arts, first and second floor). Admission to these museums and several others is free on the first Sunday of each month, and we happened to be there on the free day! 

We visited the latter two. They were okay. We visited several other museums of fine arts (i.e., classic old paintings) on this trip, so we were already rather maxed out on this genre of art. The collection at this museum wasn’t especially noteworthy. And while “Museum of Decorative Arts” sounds fancy, it was really a walk through the rooms of the palace with their original furnishings, art, dishes, etc. It was similar to the tour of the Palace of Versailles.

We enjoyed the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art much more. As we’ve said in previous posts, modern/contemporary art museums can be hit or miss, and this one was a hit. We weren’t sure what to expect as we approached the museum with its “street art” exterior, but it was not at all indicative of the works on display inside. The museum was much larger than the exterior suggests. We happily spent at least two hours there.

One of the exhibits featured the works of local artist Francois-Rupert Carabin from the turn of the 20th century. He created in several media. Here are some of his sculptures.

This was fun to watch, especially the kids’ reactions.

The French have a well-deserved reputation for their fine food. We enjoyed three delicious meals during our time in Strasbourg. The local Riesling and Gewurztraminer wines were delicious too!

At La Fignette, we both ordered Chicken Cordon Bleu. Jeff chose Emmenthal cheese and Dave chose Munster. They must have sourced their chicken breasts from the local equivalent of Costco – they were huge! And delicious!

Here’s the place in La Petite France where we ate our best meal. We arrived shortly after 5:00, only to be told the restaurant didn’t open until 6:00. So we strolled around Little France for a while and returned shortly before 6:00. Then we were told it would be 6:30. The Maitre D’ rewarded our persistence by letting us in at 6:20 and seating us at what he described (accurately) as the best table in the house. It was on the second floor, overlooking the canal.

The food was delicious! Dave’s steak came with a green peppercorn sauce that was phenomenal.

Strasbourg was one of our favorite stops on this trip. Next: Luxembourg!