STRASBOURG, France

Strasbourg is a lively French city with a distinct German flavor. Cosmopolitan Strasbourg fuses the Old and the New Europe. Medieval houses still stand beside it placid waterways, and covered bridges with watchtowers at each end stand guard over its canals. Twenty-five nations engage in spirited debates in the futuristic European Parliament Building. Dominating the Old City is the graceful sandstone Cathedral of Notre Dame, a Romanesque-Gothic masterpiece rising, in the words of the German poet Goethe, “like a most sublime, wide-arching tree of God.” The Church of St. Pierre le Vieux testifies to Strasbourg’s history of religious tolerance, for it contains two houses of worship: one Catholic and one Protestant. In the Petite-France district, the historic miller, tanner and fishermen quarters along the Ill River, the leisurely pace of a past era lives on. [see Photos]