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] |