Strasbourg

At one of the temples of Alsatian-French haute cuisine, you get a real taste of old Alsace with a nouvelle spin. Founded in the early 1800s, its grand salon is still aglow with skylights, and a spectacular 19th-century mural showing the Strasbourgeoisie at a country fair continues to set the tasteful tone. Chef Philippe Bohrer, who worked privately for French presidents Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and François Mitterrand, presents some of the most dazzling dishes around. Delights include Bresse chicken stuffed with truffles, monkfish with lobster sauce served with a root chervil mousse, and praline soufflé. Not surprisingly, the wine list is extensive.

This modern restaurant on a touristy street offers up creative dishes with regional flourishes that are a hit with both locals and visitors. The small dining room is a discreet space decked out in black and white, with the owner's artwork adding dashes of color. Menu choices include seared skin-on fillet of Heimbach-sourced trout served with beetroot puree, and steak with Munster sauce. Hazelnut-and-pear tiramisu and white-chocolate mousse are some of the standout desserts. The basement dining room doubles as a venue for weekly concerts.

Just around the corner from the cathedral is an eatery that is almost as exalted. Behind red-checked curtains you can find artists, tourists, lovers, and heads of state sitting elbow-to-elbow in this classic winstub, founded in 1873. All come to savor steaming platters of local specialties: Munster cheese in puff pastry, pike perch on choucroute, and braised ham hocks are all heartily recommended. Warm Alsatian fabrics dress tables, the china is regional, the photos historic—all making for chic, not kitsch.

This lovely farmhouse, reconstructed in the Orangerie park, warrants a pilgrimage if you're willing to pay for the finest cooking in Alsace. Chef Eric Westermann focuses on the freshest of local-terroir specialties, supplemented by the best seafood from Brittany. Look for dishes like roast sea bass with grated truffle or the chef’s signature panfried frogs’ legs served with schniederspaetle (onion- and potato-filled ravioli). The seasonal desserts are also a standout. Two small salons are cozy, but most tables are set in a modern annex made largely of glass and steel.

This 16th-century half-timber landmark (one of oldest riverside buildings in Petite France) is draped with geranium-filled flower pots and perennially popular. Come for generous and delicious proportions of choucroute garnie, as well as other regional favorites such as goose foie gras, trout with almonds, and coq au Riesling.

This restaurant occupies what must be the most familiar house in Strasbourg—a richly carved, 15th-century half-timber building adorned with sumptuous allegorical frescoes. Fight your way through the crowds on the terrace and ground floor to one of the atmospheric rooms above, with their gleaming wooden furniture, stained-glass windows, and unrivaled views of the cathedral. Foie gras and choucroute are best bets, though you may want to try the chef's pet discovery: choucroute with freshwater fish.

This rustic winstub near the cathedral has been in business since the 16th century. The charming decor provides a perfect backdrop for traditional Alsatian fare such as baeckeoffe and choucroute served with pike perch. To wash it down, you can choose from an extensive list of Alsace wines. Try for a table in the room upstairs to admire the stained-glass windows with their tales depicting life in the vines, or opt for the outdoor terrace, which spills out over the square.

Just beyond the Ponts Couverts is the grass-roofed Vauban Dam, built by its namesake in 1682. Climb to the top for wide-angle views of the Ponts Couverts and, on the other side, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Then meander through its echoing galleries, where magnificent cathedral statuary lies scattered among pigeon droppings.

Strasbourg is a big town, but its center is easily explored on foot, or, more romantically, by boat.The company Batorama organizes 70-minute boat tours along the Ill. Tours depart four times a day in January and February, up to every hour in March, and every half hour from April through December; there are also nocturnal tours until 10:15 pm in July and August. Boats leave from behind the Palais Rohan.

Dark pink, ornately carved Vosges sandstone masonry covers the facade of this most novel and Germanic of French cathedrals, a triumph of Gothic art begun in 1176. Not content with the outlines of the walls themselves, medieval builders lacily encased them with slender stone shafts. The off-center spire, finished in 1439, looks absurdly fragile as it tapers skyward some 466 feet; you can climb 330 steps to the base of the spire to take in sweeping views of the city, the Vosges Mountains, and the Black Forest.

The interior presents a stark contrast to the facade: it's older (mostly finished by 1275), and the nave's broad windows emphasize the horizontal rather than the vertical. Note Hans Hammer's ornately sculpted pulpit (1485) and the richly painted 14th- to 15th-century organ loft that rises from pillar to ceiling. The left side of the nave is flanked with richly colored Gothic windows honoring the early leaders of the Holy Roman Empire—Otto I and II, and Heinrich I and II. The choir is not ablaze with stained glass but framed by chunky Romanesque masonry. The elaborate 16th-century Chapelle St-Laurent, to the left of the choir, merits a visit; turn to the right to admire the Pilier des Anges (Angels' Pillar), an intricate column dating to 1230.

Just beyond the pillar, the Renaissance machinery of the 16th-century Horloge Astronomique whirs into action daily at 12:30 pm (but the line starts at the south door at 11:45 am) with macabre clockwork figures enacting the story of Christ's Passion. One of the highlights: when the apostles walk past, a likeness of Christ as a rooster crows three times.

This sleek building testifies to the growing importance of the governing body of the European Union, which used to make do with rental offices in the Palais de l'Europe. Eurocrats continue to commute between Brussels, Luxembourg, and Strasbourg, hauling their staff and files with them. One week per month (August excepted), visitors can slip into the hemicycle and witness the tribune in debate, complete with simultaneous translation. Note: you must obtain a written appointment beforehand and provide a pièce d'identité (ID) before entering.

The annual Festival Musica is held in September and October.

Strasbourg hosts its international jazz festival each November at venues both in and around the city.

Like a private backyard for the Eurocrats in the Palais de l'Europe, this delightful park is laden with flowers and punctuated by noble copper beeches. It contains a lake and, close by, a small reserve of rare birds, including flamingos and noisy local storks.

The Vieille Ville neighborhood east of the cathedral, along Rue des Frères, is the nightlife hangout for university students and twentysomethings; among a clutch of heavily frequented bars is La Laiterie, a multiplex concert hall showcasing art, workshops, and music ranging from electronic to post-rock and reggae.

In this labyrinthine half-timber home, with layers of carved balconies sagging over a cobbled inner courtyard, local interiors have been faithfully reconstituted. The diverse activities of blacksmiths, clog makers, saddlers, and makers of artificial flowers are explained with the help of old-time craftsmen's tools and equipment.

At the city’s modern and contemporary art museum, Adrien Fainsilber’s stunning 1998 building sometimes outshines the displays inside. The latter includes a fine collection of 20th-century fine art, graphic art, and photography. Downstairs there is a permanent collection of Impressionists and Modernists up to 1950 with some notable furniture by Spindler and Carabin; the mix of 20th-century artistic movements featured helps you compare and contrast modern pioneers like Monet and Gauguin with the New Realists. Drawings, watercolors, and paintings by Gustave Doré, a native of Alsace, are enshrined in a separate room. Upstairs there is a space dedicated to modern art exhibitions and installations.

There's more to this museum than the usual assembly of dilapidated statues rescued from the cathedral before they fell off (you'll find those rotting in the Barrage Vauban). Sacred sculptures stand in churchlike settings, and secular exhibits are enhanced by the building's fine old architecture. Subjects include a wealth of Flemish and Upper Rhine paintings, stained glass, gold objects, and massive, heavily carved furniture.

This museum, in a step-gabled slaughterhouse dating from 1588, contains a collection of maps, armor, arms, bells, uniforms, traditional outfits, printing paraphernalia, and two huge relief models of Strasbourg. The newer collection on the first floor covers civic history from the Napoleonic era to the present day.

A sizable repertoire makes the Opéra National du Rhin a popular—and accessible—choice.

Classical concerts are presented by the Orchestre Philharmonique. Performances are staged mainly at the Palais de la Musique et des Congrès.

Designed by Paris architect Henri Bernard in 1977, this continental landmark is headquarters to the Council of Europe, founded in 1949 and independent of the European Union. A guided tour introduces you to the intricacies of its workings and may allow you to eavesdrop on a session. Arrange your tour by telephone in advance (a minimum of 15 people must sign up before one will be conducted); appointments are fixed according to language demands and usually take place in the afternoon. Note that you must provide ID before entering.

The exterior of this massive neoclassical palace (1732–42) by architect Robert de Cotte may be austere, but there's plenty of glamour inside. Decorator Robert le Lorrain's magnificent ground-floor rooms include the great Salon d'Assemblée (Assembly Room) and the book- and tapestry-lined Bibliothèque des Cardinaux (Cardinals' Library). The library leads to a series of less august rooms that house the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Decorative Arts Museum) and its elaborate display of ceramics. This is a comprehensive presentation of works by Hannong, a porcelain manufacturer active in Strasbourg from 1721 to 1782; dinner services by other local kilns reveal the influence of Chinese porcelain. The Musée des Beaux-Arts (Fine Arts Museum), also in the château, includes masterworks of European painting from Giotto and Memling to El Greco, Rubens, and Goya. Downstairs, the Musée Archéologique (Archaeology Museum) displays regional finds, including gorgeous Merovingian treasures.

With gingerbread half-timber houses that seem to lean precariously over the canals of the Ill, plus old-fashioned shops and inviting little restaurants, "Little France" is the most magical neighborhood in Strasbourg. The district, just southwest of the center, is historically Alsatian in style and filled with Renaissance buildings that have survived plenty of wars. Wander up and down the tiny streets that connect Rue du Bain-aux-Plantes and Rue des Dentelles to Grande-Rue, and stroll the waterfront promenade.

The spacious layout and ponderous architecture of this monumental cirque (circle) have nothing in common with the Vieille Ville except for the local red sandstone. A different hand was at work here—that of occupying Germans, who erected the former Ministry (1902), the Academy of Music (1882–92), and the Palais du Rhin (1883–88). The handsome neo-Gothic church of St-Paul and the pseudo-Renaissance Palais de l'Université (University Palace), constructed between 1875 and 1885, also bear the German stamp. Heavy turn-of-the-20th-century houses, some reflecting the whimsical curves of the Art Nouveau style, frame Allée de la Robertsau, a tree-lined boulevard that would not look out of place in Berlin.

These three bridges, distinguished by their four stone towers, were once covered with wooden shelters. Part of the 14th-century ramparts that framed Old Strasbourg, they span the Ill as it branches into a quartet of fingerlike canals.