Strasbourg, worth knowing.

Fun facts about Strasbourg

1. 1Strasbourg has held its Christmas market, the Christkindelsmärik, since 1570. That is more than 450 years of festive tradition.Source: City of Strasbourg; Wikipedia
2. 2Strasbourg's old centre, the Grande-Île, is a real island, ringed by the Ill river and a canal. UNESCO listed it in 1988 and added the Neustadt district in 2017.Source: City of Strasbourg; Wikipedia
3. 3Johannes Gutenberg lived in Strasbourg from 1434 to 1444 and carried out his first printing experiments here. His bronze statue still stands on Place Gutenberg.Source: City of Mainz; The Victorian Web
4. 4The cathedral's astronomical clock has a mechanical rooster that crows three times. Its mechanism was built by a Strasbourg engineer, Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué, who began work in 1838.Source: Cathédrale de Strasbourg; Wikipedia
5. 5Beneath Strasbourg's hospital lies a wine cellar founded in 1395. One barrel still holds wine from 1472, served only three times in more than five centuries.Source: Cave Historique des Hospices de Strasbourg; My Weekend in Alsace
6. 6Bredele are small Alsatian Christmas cookies, and tradition calls for baking several different shapes and flavours every Advent.Source: City of Strasbourg; The Connexion

Things to do in Strasbourg

• ◦Petite France was once home to Strasbourg's fishermen, millers and tanners. Its half-timbered houses from the 1500s and 1600s still have open roof lofts where hides were once dried.Source: Visit Alsace; Wikipedia
• ◦The Ponts Couverts, or 'covered bridges', lost their wooden roofs in the 1700s, but the name stuck. Four medieval towers still stand guard over the Ill.Source: My Weekend in Alsace; Wikipedia
• ◦The Barrage Vauban was built in the late 1600s so the Ill could be raised to flood the land south of the city in an attack. Today its roof is a terrace overlooking the Ponts Couverts and Petite France.Source: City of Strasbourg; Wikipedia
• ◦Maison Kammerzell, beside the cathedral, dates back to 1427. Admire its carved timber facade, then step inside for a plate of Alsatian choucroute.Source: Maison Kammerzell; Tripadvisor
• ◦Climb about 330 spiral steps to the cathedral's platform, 66 metres up, for a view over Strasbourg's rooftops towards the Vosges and the Black Forest.Source: City of Strasbourg; Photo-Alsace
• ◦Take a Batorama boat tour on the Ill. Glide past Petite France's half-timbered houses, ride through a lock and float in front of the Ponts Couverts.Source: Explore Grand Est; My Weekend in Alsace

Questions to bring to Strasbourg

From Sojourn's journeys. Ask one over a long dinner or on a slow walk, and let the place do some of the work.

Going together

• When do you feel most like yourself?
• What does rest actually look like for you?
• What is one thing you wish we did more of?

Going solo

• What is the first thing this place is showing you that you didn't expect?
• What does this version of you know that the home version tends to forget?

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