Strasbourg: Old Town & Highlights Walking Tour｜France

Meet your guide in front of the cathedral and spend two hours walking across the two halves of Strasbourg: the medieval island at the centre, listed by UNESCO in 1988, and the Neustadt built by the German administration after 1871, added to the same listing in 2017.
The tour uses the architecture of each district to explain the political history of the city.
You start at Notre-Dame Cathedral, built in pink sandstone from the Vosges, whose spire made it the tallest building in the world from 1647 until 1874. Your guide covers the construction, the astronomical clock and the position of the cathedral in a city that was a free imperial city before it became French in 1681. The building is seen from the outside; entry is not included.
The route continues through the Grande Île: the Maison Kammerzell and its carved façade of 1589, Place Gutenberg, where the printer developed his techniques during his years in the city, and Petite France, the former quarter of tanners, millers and fishermen along the channels of the Ill.
Crossing Place Kléber, the main square of the city, your guide explains the transition between the old town and the new city, and stops at Place Broglie, where the Marseillaise was first performed in 1792 and where the Christmas market has been held since the sixteenth century.
The walk ends on Place de la République, the centre of the Neustadt built between 1871 and 1918: the Palais du Rhin, the National and University Library and the National Theatre form a monumental square laid out on a different scale from the medieval town. Your guide uses this contrast to cover the annexations of 1871 and 1940, the return to France in 1918 and 1945, and what this history means for
the city today.