Instead of Paris: Strasbourg, Where France Meets Germany and the Result Is Magnificent

Strasbourg is a city that resembles no other: French by sovereignty, German by architecture, European by vocation. The Grande Île — the elliptical island formed by the Ill at the heart of the old town — is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and offers a concentration of beauty spanning from Romanesque to Gothic, from Renaissance to Art Nouveau.

The Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Strasbourg is perhaps the most beautiful Gothic cathedral in France: its façade in pink Vosges sandstone, with its stone tracery that looks like lacework, changes colour throughout the day. The astronomical clock inside is a Renaissance machine that every day at 12:30 sets a procession of automata in motion. The climb to the viewing platform offers a view of the Black Forest on one side and the Vosges on the other.

La Petite France is the most photographed quarter: sixteenth- and seventeenth-century half-timbered houses reflected in the canals, with geraniums at the windows and steeply pitched roofs. It was the quarter of tanners and millers, and retains the atmosphere of an Alsatian borgo set within the city. Unlike the equivalent quarter in Colmar, the scale here is more generous and the crowds more manageable.

Strasbourg is also the capital of Europe: the European Parliament, the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights are headquartered in the Quartier Européen, a modern, green district crossed by cycle paths where you begin to understand what Europe could be if it lived up to its promises.

The winstub — the Alsatian taverns — are the gastronomic heart of the city: choucroute garnie, tarte flambée (the Alsatian pizza), baeckeoffe (a three-meat stew in white wine), all accompanied by Riesling, Gewürztraminer or Pinot Gris from the surrounding vineyards. A dinner in a winstub costs twenty-five to thirty euros, less than half the price of an equivalent Parisian bistrot.

Strasbourg's Christmas market — the Christkindelsmärik — is the oldest in Europe (dating from 1570) and transforms the city into an enchanted village from late November to late December. But avoid December weekends if you dislike crowds.

Strasbourg is reached from Paris in one hour and forty-six minutes by TGV, from Germany (Baden-Baden, Freiburg) in thirty minutes. Strasbourg-Entzheim airport has flights to the main European cities.