72 hours in the Capital of Christmas - Strasbourg France Vlog | Things to Do in Strasbourg France

Welcome to the capital of Christmas, a city in northeast France with an interesting blend of French and Germanic culture. Picture half-timbered houses, buildings decorated with ornaments and Christmas markets everywhere. We'll be spending 72 hours immersing ourselves in this festive atmosphere, discovering what makes Strasbourg a beloved holiday destination, and sharing all the historical sights, sounds and flavours with you. One of the things we love to do when visiting a new place is getting up really early to get popular tourist sites all to ourselves, and here in Strasbourg it's no different. The first stop of the day, Strasbourg Cathedral. This is one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Europe and the details on the facade is absolutely incredible. Did you know it also used to be one of the tallest buildings in the world? Getting here early means we can really take it in without the crowds and you can also climb to the top, but we're gonna save that later for sunset. The streets around the cathedral are so picturesque. This is the oldest house in Strasbourg, around 600 years old. These houses leading up to the and the cathedral towers in the distance framing this into a perfect shot. The buildings with the teddy bears are also just a one-minute walk away. Notice how empty the streets are in the morning because the vibe is totally different once the crowds start bombing in later. For lunch, we're trying Alsatian's specialty called tarte flambe. Right, when you're in Strasbourg, you definitely have to order this tarte flambe. It's basically this thin crust with some bacon, onion and some lardons inside. Something that's very typical in Strasbourg and in the Alsace region. You've not been to Strasbourg or the Alsace region, you have not tried a tarte flambe. It's very simple, like the sour cream does really come through. You can taste the onion sort of giving that sweetness to it. Now that we're done with lunch, it's time to continue exploring. We also picked up our city card online so that we could get some discounts for the attractions in Strasbourg. So with our city card, we're headed to the Rohan Palace. The palace was home to the French nobility in the past and now houses three different museums within its walls. We choose to see the decorative art museum due to the limited time we have and it's crazy how so much of the palace rooms are covered in gold, beautiful rugs and tapestry. Also, make sure to like this video if you've enjoyed our vlog so far. It helps our channel more than you know and lets the algorithm recommend our videos to more people. Now back to the video. Jumping upon this tourist train, we decide to hop on and experience the city this way. It also has headphones which you can choose your language on and they tell you the history of the places you stop by. It's such a fun way to get a quick glimpse of the city and we really love this experience. Now we're making our way back to the cathedral and climbing the 330 steps to catch the gorgeous sunset over the city. This is one of the best panoramic views of the city and they also have signs that label the historical sites that you're looking at. For our first Christmas market, we visit one of the oldest and largest Christmas markets in Europe dating back to 1570 at Plas Klip. Look at this tree, I mean it's massive standing at around 30 meters tall and every year they bring in a new tree to be the heart of the market and it is covered in decorations. The atmosphere here is just so festive and although it is also like super crowded, there is no way to escape it. We got a sausage roll with melted raclette cheese and they put the cheese roll under a heat sauce and once it melts enough, they use a knife to slice the cheese off the bread. There is honestly nothing not to love about this. It's sausage and it just tastes amazing. Today we woke up at 7am to visit the most picturesque neighborhoods. We've just arrived here to Petite France which is perhaps the most picturesque neighborhood of Strasbourg. Wherever you look, you see these half-timbered houses that look really nice. I think it's a great place to take some beautiful photos and make sure you come really early when you're here because the streets do get really crowded later on during the day. Also, just a fun fact that fishermen and tanners used to live in this thriving neighborhood. This charming picture-perfect neighborhood is one of Strasbourg's most iconic areas. The cool thing about Petite France is that you can see the bridge behind me actually opens up to let a boat pass through, so that one thing you can check out is to come to this bridge just to see how it works. From Petite France, it's just a short walk to Barrage Vauban, an impressive 17th century bridge that served as a defensive structure for the city. Now we're standing on the Vauban Dam and it offers a panoramic view of Petite France right behind me. Before it used to be a military installation so they can better defend the city but nowadays it's used as a bridge to cross across the river and of course this beautiful view at the terrace and it's absolutely free. So one thing to note about this military installation is it was built so that they could open it up and flood the south to prevent any invaders from coming from that side, so it's a pretty interesting fact. Alright guys, we are at Chez Long Freddy. We're going to try some typical all-station specialties and I'm excited. We're really, really hungry. We've ordered quite a spread so let's see how it goes. Okay so I'm gonna try the onion soup. It smells delicious. Oh my god, let's try some of this. Wow, it's different from the one we've had in Paris. It's a bit more like light heading. It's not as rich but it's very like warm and comfortable. Safe to say we finished every last drop of it. So we have ordered choucroute which is sauerkraut, pork sausage and a big fat pork belly, some potatoes and another sausage. A very like nice umami flavour to it. After lunch, we're headed to Grand Rue, one of the liveliest streets in Strasbourg. It's a great place to walk off your meal and explore some of the local shops. You can find everything from handmade crafts to traditional all-station goods and there's always something new to discover. Along the Grand Rue, you can find this bakery behind me. It's called Atelier 116 and we've just come and we've just ordered this pretzel with flan as well as a what looks like a gingerbread man with some chocolate chips on the top. So I'm just going to give this a try. So this pretzel is very, very crispy. It has a lot of these sugar crystals all the way inside and then this flan inside it gives this vanilla custard sort of taste to it. Wow, it's really good. Okay, let me just try this gingerbread man. It's quite plain. It's good that we got the chocolate chips one so it gives it a bit of flavour. To end off our second day, we're visiting yet another Christmas market and perhaps our favourite of the trip. This Christmas market is at Place Beaubli and it's less crowded than the one we visited yesterday. It's just a short walk from the main market. There's a wider variety of hot food here, just what we need for this cold winter day. We got ourselves a plate of piping hot curry sausages and it was delicious and comforting. Of course, we also tried hot malt wine, so good. Day three begins with a visit to the Palais de Rouen, a grand imperial palace that was once built during the German occupation in the late 19th century. Today, it's a government building but you can still admire its incredible architecture. It's a mix of French and German influences, like so much of Strasbourg. Just a short walk from Palais de Rouen is the Monument Aux Morts, a war memorial dedicated to the victims of World War I. Because Strasbourg has changed hands between France and Germany six times over the years, this monument is the testament to that. Next, we're heading to Saint Thomas Church, a stunning example of Alsatian Gothic architecture. It's quieter than the Strasbourg Cathedral but just as impressive in its own way. The church's organ is especially famous because Mozart himself once played it. To wrap up our trip, we're taking a relaxing stroll through Parc de l'Orangerie, Strasbourg's oldest park, about 30 minutes from the city centre. It's a beautiful place to unwind after all that exploring, although we wouldn't recommend coming during winter as the colours aren't as vibrant. That's it for this video guys, we hope you enjoyed our video. Don't forget to leave us a like and subscribe to us if you want to see more travel content from us. We'll see you guys in the