1. I actually took these photos on a trip to Strasbourg with my sister last year, but I had so many gorgeous ones to share, so I wanted to revisit it, especially because Strasbourg is such a popular place to travel to in the winter (thanks in large part to its Christmas markets and to the heartiness of its cuisine.)
2. One of the things I loved about Strasbourg is how much more color there is as compared to Paris: here, most of our buildings are made of limestone, so everything is a kind of pinky grey. But in Strasbourg, you see all sorts of building designs and even ones that are painted bright colors, like these yellow ones facing one another on an impossibly narrow street.
3. After hesitating over whether to visit the museum of Strasbourg or the museum of Alsace, we settled on the latter, and we weren’t disappointed. Among many interesting exhibits (we both particularly liked the one on traditional dress) was this extremely complex bell shaped like a town crier.
4. Pretty much everywhere you go in central Strasbourg, the cathedral looms in the distance. It’s a lovely beacon for getting you where you’re going, and like the buildings, it adds a splash of color to the city: the cathedral was built during the 13th and 14th centuries out of Vosges sandstone, which gives it a lovely pinkish-orangey hue.
5. If possible, it’s even more gorgeous from the inside. The stained glass features quite a bit more green than you see in most Gothic cathedrals, and this, combined with the pink stone, makes the inside seem bright and colorful. It’s as close as I’ve ever gotten to understanding what these medieval cathedrals would have actually looked like in the Middle Ages, when they were painted in bright colors all over.