France · Self-guided walk
Strasbourg in one walk 8 sights, 45 minutes
A self-guided walking tour of the Strasbourg Old Town: 8 sights on one 3.2 km loop, about 45 minutes on foot, back where you started.
No two days to spare? Here is the short version: the big sights in one loop. I would take longer. I always take longer.
At a glance
The walk in numbers.
- Distance
- 3.2 km, a loop
- Time
- about 45 minutes of walking at 4 km/h, plus however long you stop
- Sights
- 8
- Start and finish
- Cathédrale Notre-Dame
- Steps
- no streets with steps on the route
- Cost
- free: no guide, no booking, no tip
The route
Map of the Strasbourg walk: 8 stops, one loop.
The gold line is the walk. The numbers are the stops, in the order you reach them. The pale lines are every other street in the Old Town.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
The stops
8 sights in Strasbourg, in walking order.
Each stop says how far the next one is and which streets take you there.
1. Cathédrale Notre-Dame
the start · inside open Mon–Sat 08:30–11:15, 12:45–17:45, Sun 13:30–17:30
Pink sandstone, and you will pick it out from streets away well before you stand under it. Three hundred and thirty steps get you onto the platform. Then back at ground level, once a day at a fixed hour, something in the south transept begins to move. I am not telling you what. Main course.
Next: Palais Rohan, 260 m, about 4 min.
2. Palais Rohan
about 4 minutes of walking from the start
It backs onto the water, and the river side is the one it was built to be seen from. Hardly anybody walks round to look. Three museums live in there, and the oldest things in the city are down in the cellars, which is the correct place for old things.
Next: Ancienne douane, 290 m, about 4 min, along Rue des Cordiers, Chemin de Halage.
3. Ancienne douane
about 8 minutes of walking from the start
Stand on the crossing opposite and take in the length of it. It is a shed, it has never pretended otherwise, and after a morning of decorated fronts that comes as a relief. The waterside is the good side. Everything here used to face the water.
Next: Église protestante Saint-Thomas, 420 m, about 6 min, along Chemin de Halage, Rue Martin Luther.
4. Église protestante Saint-Thomas
about 14 minutes of walking from the start · inside open Mon–Sat 10:00–17:00, Sun 13:30–17:00
Five aisles, all of them the same height, and the only one in Alsace built like that. The organ is a Silbermann and Mozart played on it. Step out again and the water is right against the masonry: this is the corner where the noise stops. I would lie here.
Next: Ponts Couverts, 550 m, about 8 min, along Rue de la Monnaie, Rue du Pont Saint-Martin, Rue des Moulins, Quai du Woerthel.
5. Ponts Couverts
about 23 minutes of walking from the start
The far west end, where the water splits into four arms and one crossing follows straight on from the next. Twenty paces past them is the Vauban dam, and the terrace on its top is where the picture you have already seen was taken from. Go up, turn round, come down, then eat the crossings properly.
Next: Tour du Bourreau, 250 m, about 4 min, along Ponts Couverts, Rue Adolphe Seyboth.
6. Tour du Bourreau
about 27 minutes of walking from the start
Off on its own at the west end, squat and heavy, with the river on two sides. Everything around it has been rebuilt at least once and this has not. Put a hand on the stone as you pass. Six centuries of weather is a texture, and texture is most of what I have.
Next: Église Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux, 230 m, about 4 min, along Rue Adolphe Seyboth, Rue du Bain aux Plantes, Rue des Lentilles.
7. Église Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux
about 30 minutes of walking from the start
One roof, two churches, a wall down the middle. Catholics on one side, Lutherans on the other, sharing the place for three hundred years and more. In 2012 somebody put a door through the wall. Count the ways in as you go round.
Next: Aubette 1928, 600 m, about 9 min, along Grand'Rue, Rue du Fossé des Tanneurs, Cour de l'Aubette.
8. Aubette 1928
about 39 minutes of walking from the start · inside open Wed–Sat 14:00–18:00, Mon–Tue, Sun closed
The long pale face on the biggest square of this level, and the least interesting part of the whole thing. What is worth the detour is up the stairs and invisible from the pavement. Two street names a minute away belong to the people who did it.
Back to the start: Cathédrale Notre-Dame, 540 m, about 8 min, along Rue des Grandes Arcades, Rue des Hallebardes, Place de la Cathédrale.
Every stop counts from the street; the hours are for going inside. Opening hours from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors. Check before you go.
After the walk
The rest of Strasbourg.
This loop is 8 sights. The Old Town is 157 streets, and I have opinions about all of them. Every street of the Strasbourg Old Town, with what to eat and where.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone: every street is a line of dots you collect by walking it, and the phone stays in your pocket. Your first city is free.