If you plan a trip to Strasbourg, read The Perfect Day-Trip in Strasbourg first!
A few years ago, I traveled to Strasbourg for the first time and absolutely loved the city. Now a few years later, as I am currently doing an internship in Germany, I decided to hop on a train one weekend to revisit this enchanting city. I discovered a few gems that I didn’t get the chance to see on my first visit, so I thought about sharing with you these finds in a Part II of my first article.
Let’s start!
How to get to Strasbourg from Germany
In my first post, I explain how to get to Strasbourg from Paris, which is very simple with the transport system. Depending on where you are in Germany, there are also a lot of trains that can get you to Strasbourg for a cheap price.
If you are traveling to Germany for a while, I suggest also you consider the Deutschland ticket. For only 58 euros per month, this pass allows you to travel on all the trains and buses (I also saw a boat..?) in Germany. The only transport systems that are not included are the ICE and IC/EC trains, which are high-speed trains.
To get to Strasbourg from Heidelberg in Germany, I had to take two trains in Germany, which were covered in my Deutschland ticket. However, what is very important and that many people may not know is that you must pay for the train that goes to France even if you board in Germany.
For example, my third train journey was from Appenweier (Germany) to Strasbourg (France). Although I boarded the train in Germany, it was now part of the French transport system, so I had to purchase a ticket for that segment.
But once again, train tickets in Europe are very cheap (in comparison to Canada), so it cost me 18 euros for the round trip on this train. They don’t always check the tickets, but you should buy them either way because fines can be quite salty.
I use Trainline to book my tickets. What is great about Trainline is that it gives you all the trains you need to take to get from point A to B with a package price rather than having to book each train individually. Moreover, you can show your tickets directly on the app!
What to eat in Strasbourg
One thing I absolutely wanted to try in Strasbourg was Tartes flambées also known as Flammkuchen. It is also very popular in Germany, but I had heard that it was a specialty in Strasbourg too. Tartes flambées are like thin-crust pizza, typically topped with crème fraîche, and lardons (small pieces of salty pork), and onions. There are of course many different recipes for this dish.
Le Galopin
We went to Le Galopin, which is a restaurant in the old town where they make tartes flambées on wood fired oven. I ordered the smoked salmon one, and it was absolutely delicious.
The restaurant also had a lot of typical Alsace (the name of the region) beers, so I had to try one;)
Librairie du Monde Entier
One of the reasons why I wanted to go back to Strasbourg was to go to a special bookstore a friend of mine had told me about: the Librairie du Monde Entier. This bookstore* specializes in language books, meaning you can find books in (almost) every language! You can find books for language learning, as well as literature from all around the world. As a language teacher, this was an absolute dream, and I found some great bilingual books for my students.
*In French, une librairie is a bookstore and une bibliothèque is a librairy;)
Right in front of the Librairie du Monde Entier, there is also the Librairie International Kleber, another stunning and gigantic library worth visiting if you love reading.
Place Kléber
The place Kléber is situated right in the heart of the shopping area of Strasbourg. The Librairie du Monde Entier is also situated in this area. We visited on a Saturday, and there happened to be a flea market at the square, which was great to just wander around, admire the architecture, and do some shopping.
Right next to Place Kléber, there is also a Galeries Lafayette, which is a very popular shopping mall in Paris. I used to think this chain was only located in Paris, but while searching on the web, I discovered there are actually 57 Galeries Lafayette stores across France!
I have created an interactive map that you can save on your phone, highlighting all the must-see places while visiting Strasbourg. This map includes the addresses of all the places mentioned in my two blog posts about Strasbourg, along with a fantastic bakery where you can try French delicaties.
This is it for this post! I hope you enjoyed it and made you want to discover this beautiful city. This second visit actually made me realize that Strasbourg is bigger than I initially thought, so a day trip might not even be enough to explore everything it has to offer!
À bientôt,
Juliette
Simplement Juliette 