The Wackes Tour: a Sightseeing Overview of Strasburg
(Dates of our Free Tours here)
This guided city tour takes you to Strasburg’s most important squares and landmarks. At the appropriate places, you will come to know how our history shapes people up until today. Alsace with all its contradictions, and Strasburg, – always good for a surprise.
Strasburg, Capital of Alsace
The saying goes that one sees further from the top of the Strasburg Minster Tower than from the Paris Eiffel Tower or the Berlin TV Tower. For Strasburg, the “Burg” upon the Streets, is a very special city: it is not only the crossroads of the Occident, but also the capital of Alsace: the manifold capital of a whole world of its own, – small – but great.
A History that rocks
From the Ship of Fools, over the Alsatian Theater, to Strasburg’s role as the vanguard of Enlightenment. What Strasburg’s (satirist) illustrators are world famous for? Why the Strasburgers have chased away their bishop but nevertheless have been a factor front and center in religion?
Why Alsace actually doesn’t exist any more since 2016?!! But the Alsatians and the Strasburgers certainly still do. – Although… Do they really still exist? – There’s just one thing for sure about that: wether Alsatians or Strasburgers: they’re all “Wackes”! 😉
More about this nickname on our sightseeing tour. Here only so much: the word “Wackes” comes from Wacker Stein which is a kind of stone (just as the wacke stone in English). “Wackeln” meaning “to wag(gle)”. So “Wackes” originally stands for a wagging / rolling stone. A waggish “Rolling Stone”, so to speak.
Discover the City
So we “roll” through the Old Town, passing by half-timbered houses and some hidden pearls of the Renaissance, Rococo, and Jugend Stil.
After leaving the “City Island” which is surrounded by arms of the Ill river, we come to the Neu Stadt, a district with magnificent buildings from the Gründer Zeit (founding years) of the Bismarck Reich (1871-1918).
And with, last but not least, a whole government district including the old State Parliament, because Strasburg then was the capital of the imperial Reichs Land of Alsace-Lorraine.
The Wackes Way of life
Homely, gemütlich, but also with a liking for (straight) frowardness, and sometimes even rebellious. Contradictions are part of life on the frontier.
At the Memorial to the Dead of the 2 World Wars we talk about what the Alsatians had to live through from 1914 to 1945. Answers give way to new questions: can the Alsatians (still) trust themselves after this time? Can they trust the Germans? Can they trust the French?
A true Wackes finds a way. He bravely looks into the face of history and finds friendship and reconciliation on this very ground. We move on towards the student quarter.
There’s loads of Win Stubs. It’s getting gemütlich. We hear something about the MessDi, about brown-eyed Maidles, about the Bredelers (not the Bredles on the Christmas Märikt). And why in the Sürkrütei you have a good laugh while eating (Sauerkraut). And why in Elsass geraniums are real good singers! Jà, all of this also belongs to the history of Strasburg. Perk up your ears and listen!
The Wackes Tour (Sightseeing Overview of Strasburg) exists as a Free Tour as well.