Because I lived in a German dormitory for 2 years while attending the University of Heidelberg back in the wild 70's, I still have a lot of friends in Europe. One of my friends is now an editor for Germany's scientific astronomy magazine for the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy in Heidelberg. When he offered to drive me to Strasbourg to see the Astronomical Clock inside the cathedral of Strasbourg, I jumped at the chance.
Take a look at this thing on Wikipedia. It is quite complicated and represents a highpoint of technology from 400 years ago. (sorry, don't know how to insert the hyperlink)
Anyway, we parked at the Austerlitz parking, which was cheap for 6-7 hours, only 4 EU or so. We immediately found the Riverboat cruises and booked one for the afternoon (only 13 EU, you can use your credit card).
Then we strolled to Cathedral Square, and looked inside there for 90 minutes. He explained a lot of things about the clock, and other people listened to him talk about it. The cathedral is so majestic, and with a quiet recording of monk-chant, it's also mysterious and spiritual.
We then took the boat trip; wonderfully outlined in English with headphones. Doesn't matter which seat you have if you have one of the sky-dome boats; every seat was good. Spectacular half-timbered homes, lovely buildings, giant trees, swans gliding - trailing ivy skimming the waters, gorgeous. Strasbourg also has 40,000 uni students, so it is filled with traversing young people with places to go.
We docked back at the start, which is 50 steps from Cathedral Square. We then looked for a ploace for coffee, and arrived at THE MOST LOVELY TEA/COFFEE ROOM I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. I'm using Capitals because I can't show you the emotion on my face, shoulders and hand expressions. It is called "Patisserie Christian Meyer," 10 Rue de Merciere, 67000 Strasbourg. Look it up. You can't tell there are tables upstairs from the outside; I had to ask. Oh the truffles and cheese cakes, mousses and croissants, and it was filled with grandes dames de Strasbourg. We had a chocolate truffle cake and coffee. O. M. G. Such a precious little place, so lovely and so french. Perfect. NOT EXPENSIVE, you know, 3.5 EU per cup of coffee, 4.5 for the cake.
After that, we found the open air market, looked around that, strolled down some ofthe other side streets of Strasbourg, found a pizza place in PLACE de DOUANE and ordered pizza. It actually was not very good, don't recommend it. But it was right next to a "Bank Populaire" and I went in and used my ATM card. I discovered I forgot to raise my limit, so I was limited to 340 EU which is probably 500 dollars. No prob - it was inside the bank, PLACE DE DOUANE.
Finished our pizza, went back to the car, drove back to Germany. Short and wonderful.