Hello!
We will be staying in Colmar for a week, but wish to go to Strasbourg for at least one day, traveling by train.
If you had one day to see the highlights, what would you choose? We wish to see the cathedral and the Petite France area, but beyond that we’d welcome some ideas, and restaurant recs, please.
Thanks!
Laurie
I really enjoyed the Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame (Museum of the Work of Notre Dame). This museum contains many original statues from the cathedral. Because of pollution and weather concerns, the decision was made many years ago to replace the original sculptures with replicas and house the original ones in the museum. But it also contains other works of art that are just as interesting.
I also really liked my visit to the Alsatian Museum, which showcases the history of Alsace and its folklore. It’s in a somewhat rickety old Alsatian house and has many reconstructed rooms of the period. It paints a vivid picture of Alsatian life several hundred years ago. I love that kind of folk art, so it was especially appealing to me.
We spent 5 nights in Strasbourg in June. I would take the Petit Train’s Neustadt route (not the Petit France route—you can walk that.) I would also check in the Tourist Info directly across from the cathedral and the adjacent Batorama office for Batorama cruise times if you like to be on the water. If the weather is good check when the open top boats are going. Then if you have time you could consider the history museum or Alsatian Folk museum.
We visited Strasbourg twice from Riquewihr. More or less, first day a general walkabout, including the cathedral, Petite France, the Orangerie, Botanical Gardens, the dam, bridges and the Neustadt area.
Second day, the museums Mardee mentions plus the Tomi Ungerer.
Many thanks for the suggestions! I can recommend the Neustadt petit white train route and the Batorama boat cruise as doable in one day! We decided not to buy the Strasbourg city card because it didn’t provide much of a discount on the activities we chose to do in our limited time. We had time to visit the cathedral and wander around the streets of Strasbourg. We hadn’t been there before and it really reminded us a lot of Paris, although quieter and cleaner. I was surprised by all the bicyclists zipping around!
It was only a half hour train ride from Colmar to Strasbourg and I so appreciated all the wisdom I got in this thread and other topics on the forum. We were not able to use the Alsace group discount on arrival, because we weren’t traveling on a weekend. But it will be a big help to us for our trip from Colmar back to Basel because that travel is happening on the weekend, so I am grateful for that advice as well.
Merci!
Laurie
This also depends on time of year, because Strausbourg becomes Christmasville at that time of year. Market after market after market. So much mulled wine!
