Apr 15, 2008
The highlight of my recent cruise of the Rhine River was -- can you guess it? -- Strasbourg
It wasn't Cologne, though Cologne was awesome, and it wasn't Heidelberg, though Heidelberg was another tingling experience. On my recent cruise of the Rhine on a 140-passenger riverboat, the top stop was in Strasbourg, France, where I wished we could have stayed for a much longer time than our eight-or-so hours there. The architecture, the food, the culture, the history, all combine to make this charming, canal-filled, Alsatian city a big surprise of Europe, one that I had not earlier explored.
The city is first a visual delight, with major canals throughout, and a large medieval district known as "Petite France" lined with black-and-white half-timbered buildings preserved from the 1400s and 1500s. It is the historic home of Louis Pasteur, of Albert Schweizer, of Johannes Gutenberg (he printed his Bible here), and Marcel Marceau. It has a glorious Cathedral, almost the equivalent of Cologne's, and sporting an Astronomical Clock that tourists flock to see.
Its history has been a turbulent one, rotating back and forth between French and German control (though in France, it is right on the German border). It was annexed to Germany in 1940 at the outset of World War II, and then recovered to France at the end of the war by General LeClerc's French troops. As the capital of French Alsace, it presents a unique and distinctive French/German culture known as Alsatian, and its restaurants specialize in such dishes as Choucroute Garnie (sauerkraut, boiled potatoes, and pork).
Roberta and I spent the day wandering its quaint districts, enchanted by the medieval quarters and the picturesque canals, looking in on the modern headquarters buildings of numerous agencies of the European Union (which make Strasbourg into a second capital of the E.U., after Brussels), browsing its many bookstores, drinking wine in its cafes. If you've never been there, you might want to include it on your next European visit. It is a stop on almost all cruises of the Rhine, such as the one we made.
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The city is first a visual delight, with major canals throughout, and a large medieval district known as "Petite France" lined with black-and-white half-timbered buildings preserved from the 1400s and 1500s. It is the historic home of Louis Pasteur, of Albert Schweizer, of Johannes Gutenberg (he printed his Bible here), and Marcel Marceau. It has a glorious Cathedral, almost the equivalent of Cologne's, and sporting an Astronomical Clock that tourists flock to see.
Its history has been a turbulent one, rotating back and forth between French and German control (though in France, it is right on the German border). It was annexed to Germany in 1940 at the outset of World War II, and then recovered to France at the end of the war by General LeClerc's French troops. As the capital of French Alsace, it presents a unique and distinctive French/German culture known as Alsatian, and its restaurants specialize in such dishes as Choucroute Garnie (sauerkraut, boiled potatoes, and pork).
Roberta and I spent the day wandering its quaint districts, enchanted by the medieval quarters and the picturesque canals, looking in on the modern headquarters buildings of numerous agencies of the European Union (which make Strasbourg into a second capital of the E.U., after Brussels), browsing its many bookstores, drinking wine in its cafes. If you've never been there, you might want to include it on your next European visit. It is a stop on almost all cruises of the Rhine, such as the one we made.
Write and read comments about this post.
Labels: cruise, strasbourg
Fifty years ago, 
Arthur Frommer is generally acknowledged to be the nation's foremost travel authority. He is the founder of the
