Other sights in Alsace & Lorraine
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Écomusée d'Alsace
Écomusée d’Alsace is great for keeping little minds active. France’s so-called biggest ‘living museum’ is a fascinating excursion into Alsatian country life and time-honoured crafts. Smiths, cartwrights, potters and coopers do their thing in and among 70 historic Alsatian farmhouses – a veritable village – brought here and meticulously reconstructed for preservation (and so storks can build nests on them). The Écomusée is in Ungersheim, 17km northwest of Mulhouse (off the A35 to Colmar).
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Mémorial de l’Alsace-Moselle
The Mémorial de l’Alsace-Moselle, 50km southwest of Strasbourg in Schirmeck, takes an unblinking but reconciliatory look at the region’s traumatic modern history, which saw residents change nationality four times in 75 years.
reviewed
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Astronomical Clock
At the Cathédrale Notre-Dame, the 30m-high Gothic-meets-Renaissance astronomical clock strikes solar noon at 12.30pm with a parade of carved wooden figures portraying the different stages of life and Jesus with his apostles.
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Maison Kammerzell
The gingerbready 15th century Maison Kammerzell has ornate carvings and leaded windows.
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Temple Neuf
The neo-Romanesque Temple Neuf was constructed under the Germans in 1904.
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Fort du Hackenberg
The largest single Maginot Line bastion in the Metz area was the 1000-man Fort du Hackenberg, 30km northeast of Metz, whose 10km of galleries were designed to be self-sufficient for three months and, in battle, to fire four tonnes of shells a minute. An electric trolley takes visitors along 4km of tunnels – always at 12°C – past subterranean installations. Tours last two hours.
Readers have been enthusiastic about the tours (www.maginot-line.com) of Fort du Hackenberg, other Maginot Line sites and Verdun led by Jean-Pascal Speck, an avid amateur historian and owner of the romantic Hôtel L'Horizon in Thionville. If he's unavailable, he can put you in touch with other …
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Villa Majorelle
Close to the Musée de l’École de Nancy lies the whimsical Villa Majorelle, built by Henri Sauvage in 1901 and bearing the hallmark of Majorelle (furniture) and Gruber (stained glass). The centrepiece is Les Blés dining room with its vinelike stone fireplace.
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Neuf-Brisach
Shaped like an eight-pointed star, Vauban’s fortified town of Neuf-Brisach was commissioned by Louis XIV in 1697 to strengthen French defences and prevent the area from falling to the Habsburgs.
A Unesco World Heritage Site since 2008, the citadel has remarkably well-preserved fortifications. The Musée Vauban, below the porte de Belfort gate, tells the history of the citadel through models, documents and building plans. Neuf-Brisach is just 4km from its German twin Breisach am Rhein on the banks of the River Rhine.
To reach Neuf-Brisach, 16km southeast of Colmar, follow the signs on the D415.
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Natzweiler-Struthof
About 25km west of Obernai stands Natzweiler-Struthof, the only Nazi concentration camp on French territory. In all, some 22,000 (40% of the total) of the prisoners interned here and at nearby annexe camps died; many were shot or hanged. In early September 1944, as US Army forces approached, the 5517 surviving inmates were sent to Dachau.
Today, the sombre remains of the camp are still surrounded by guard towers and concentric, once-electrified, barbed-wire fences. The fourcrématoire (crematorium ovens), the salle d’autopsie (autopsy room) and the chambre à gaz (gas chamber), 1.7km from the camp gate, bear grim witness to the atrocities committed here.
To get there fr…
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Musée Vauban
The Musée Vauban, below the porte de Belfort gate, tells the history of Neuf-Brisach through models, documents and building plans. Neuf-Brisach is just 4km from its German twin Breisach am Rhein on the banks of the River Rhine.
reviewed
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Musée Judéo-Alsacien
The Musée Judéo-Alsacien with exhibits related to Alsatian Judaism is housed in a converted synagogue in Bouxwiller, 40km northwest of Strasbourg.
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Centre Européen du Résistant Déporté
The Centre Européen du Résistant Déporté near Natzweiler-Struthof pays homage to Europe’s Resistance fighters.
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