Strasbourg

Red sandstone deepens in colour at dusk. Only one tower was ever built, so the front looks lopsided. Inside, apostles file past on the astronomical clock at 12:30, and that hour alone is ticketed. A narrow spiral stair reaches the platform; there is no lift.

Tanners and fishmongers worked this quarter. That is why many houses stand open under the roof. The lofts were left hollow to hang hides out to dry. A lock sits in the channel, and each boat waits a few minutes while the level is matched.

The full chamber meets twelve times a year for four days, and the public gallery opens then. One side is cut as if unfinished on purpose, to say Europe is still being built. It is twenty minutes by tram from the centre, and an identity card gets you in.

A defensive weir built to dam the river and flood the fields below if an enemy came. The roof is open as a terrace, which puts the four towers and the channels in one frame.

Wide avenues drawn with a ruler and the ministries that go with them survive from the German decades. It abuts the tight medieval lanes, so one bridge changes the face of the city.

One bishop's palace holds three museums at once: fine arts, decorative arts and archaeology. A single ticket covers all three, which makes it the place to save for a wet day.

The market has run since 1570 and counts as the oldest in France. It opens on the fourth Friday of November and runs into late December, with wooden chalets spread over several squares. Evening crowds push you one way only, so scout it by day.

The boat that circles the Ill passes through a lock, and you watch the water rise and fall from inside it.

Alsatian storks had almost gone until people bred them back up. Nest platforms were raised at one end of this park, so in spring birds sit on the roofs. Entry costs nothing, and thirty minutes covers a walk round the lake.

Three old houses were joined together and each room set out as a household of its day. You cross between floors on wooden galleries, which makes the order easy to lose.

Bridges laid in the 13th century where the Ill splits into channels, with four square towers standing between them. Their timber roofs came off in the 18th century, yet the name, covered bridges, stuck. The towers once served as a prison.

A timbered house at the edge of Place de la Cathedrale, its stone base 15th-century and the wooden storeys added in 1589. Bullseye glass fills its windows; every post bears carved people and beasts. It is a restaurant now, so a meal is the way in.

The city's leading Protestant church, where Mozart played the Silbermann organ in 1778. Behind the choir stands Pigalle's marble tomb for the Marshal of Saxony. Organ recitals are common on summer evenings.

Home of the original statues taken down from the cathedral front; most of what is on the building today are copies. Its best-known pair are the women standing for Church and Synagogue. Masons' facade plans drawn on parchment survive here, several metres long.

A park laid across both banks of the Rhine; the central footbridge lands you in Kehl, Germany. With no border post, it is a stroll between countries. Tram D from the centre runs on into Kehl as well.