Hi, my husband has a sudden-ish trip coming up to Strasbourg. I am going to tag along beforehand for 4 days or so of vacation together. Any suggestions for a good base? All of the towns nearby look wonderful - Lyon, Strasbourg , even Grenoble. We are active and enjoy lots of walking (hiking if possible), exploring the local culture, love any type of historical tours (especially intrigued by Lyon's WWII resistance activities), castle tours, etc .It looks like plenty of that around all of those areas! We have both been to Paris and other parts of France before (Normandy, Giverny, etc).

When we went to Alsace we stayed in remote villages. can't rememeber the names, we basically chose on booking.com a place that looked great within x kms from Strasbourg and stayed there.
We were last time in october too - you might want to be sure you have winter tyres if you rent a car, sometimes, even in october (esp end of oct) roads can get slippery and wet and adherence of 'normal' tyres is not great if temp go below 7C (deemed the limit to switch to winter tyres).

I certainly would not put Grenoble in the same category as Lyon & Strasbourg. We were in Lyon for 5 nights last year, and here is something I wrote about it.



These are the places we visited - with some comments

-Les Halles indoor food market. This was very disappointing. We've visited about 15 other Les Halles type markets in France, and this one was very poor

- From the Michelin Green Guide, walk #2 Les Cordeliers & walk #3 From Bellecour to Carnot

- Old Lyon from the Michelin Green Guide. Walk # 1 & 2. We especially enjoyed the Traboules. Get a map at the tourist office
https://www.francetoday.com/learn/hi...n_s_traboules/

- Musee des Tissus - my wife spent 2 hrs there while I sat at a cafe outside. She loved it
- Musee des Arts Decoratifs - very interesting

- La Croix Rousse
Walk # 1 in the Michelin Green guide. We enjoyed this area of Croix Rousse - especially the southernmost section.
Walk # 2. We did not enjoy this area of Croix Rousse. A little too grungy for us.

- Maison des Canuts. My wife was very interested in the silk history of Lyon. So we visited this museum & took a tour - in French (my wife speaks French - I don't). The visit consumes a lot of time, and many people were bored. My wife enjoyed it.

- Ateliers de Soierie Vivant. There are 2 places that you can visit that still have the silk making machinery set up. People actually lived in the same room/building as their machinery, and the entire family lived there also. It was an "eye opener" for us. We enjoy visiting places where people lived & worked a century or so ago. The second house on Rue Richan was the most interesting - but both were perhaps more enjoyable than the Maison des Canuts if you want to see the machines in action.
https://soierie-vivante.asso.fr/

We dined at Leon de Lyon & enjoyed it. We also dined at Les Loges for my birthday. Fabulous & expensive. We dined at l'Alexandrin & it was excellent.


Stu Dudley

Thanks so much Stu! I find it very interesting, also, to see how people lived and worked in times past> Wondering if you have had a chance to visit the Tenement Museum in NYC.

Thank you for the tips Thibaut - I have heard the weather can vary greatly during late Oct!

Yes - we have visited the Tenement museum. We spent quite a bit of time there.


Stu Dudley

My favorite place to stay in Alsace is Obernai. Besides slippery and wet roads, there can be terrible morning fog in Alsace (just as there is here, though the climate is warmer here). I'm talking about pea-soup fog such that you can't see your hand in front of you, or the car you're driving behind even if it has lights on. It can happen in the evenings, too. Makes driving a bit of a challenge at that time of year.

Yeah weather can be funky at that time of year in northern France - or may be nice - but Lyon is farther south and dependably warmer - not sure about 4 days there but could do a drive from Lyon after a few days thru Burgundy's wine road - Beaune a nice base there - and then up to Strasbourg. By train maybe from Lyon do day trips to places like Annecy or south to Avignon.

You should look the road between Strasbourg and Colmar. Wonderful!

Strasbourg and Colmar? Well OK but the road north of Colmar is great studded with vineyards and cute wine towns - the Route of Alsace Wines - officially designated so.

<<Strasbourg and Colmar? Well OK but the road north of Colmar is great studded with vineyards and cute wine towns ...>>

Pal, the road north of Colmar IS the road to Strasbourg.

well may have directions mixed up but the road from Colmar towards your favorite town Obernai is the one and it does not go to Strasbourg.

It most certainly does. It's the E25 through Riquewihr and Sélestat.

There are, of course, other roads one can take throughout the area to get from A to B, but that's true anywhere in France.

Oops you're right and so was thierry.

Thanks all, I didn't notice there were more replies. I did some research and have ruled out Lyon and leaning more towards Strasbourg / Colmar. I read a bit about riding bikes - I know weather may be a factor, so we would play this by ear, but any experience biking around the region? Read that we can rent bikes and ride from village to village along the "wine service roads?" Obviously will look into this more but wanted to see if anyone had any experience with this. I'm undecided on renting a car - seems like we can get around pretty easily with trains / taxis. Thoughts?

Also - we are debating whether to fly in and out of Frankfurt or Paris as both are direct flights from DFW and each is about 2-3 hours by train to Strasbourg. We have been to Paris a few times, never to Frankfurt, so I am leaning toward flying into Frankfurt, spending a couple of nights there with Frankfurt as a base and exploring Frankfurt and nearby towns (Heidelberg appeals most from what I've read... suggestions on others?). I have to admit the Black Forest is intriguing... from all the fairy tale memories Then head to Strasbourg for 3-4 nights. I'd then head back to Frankfurt to go home and husband will stay for work .

Does this sound doable? Or should we split it more 3 Frankfurt / 3 Strasbourg?

I have nothing against Frankfurt, but you might be a bit disappointed. After all, it was pretty much flattened during the war. Even though a lot of the reconstruction is very nice (beautiful opera), there is no way that it can be compared to Paris. So you can fly in or out of there, but in my own opinion, it is not a place where you want to spend much time. Of course, if you are renting a car, that changes everything because you can easily get to a lot of nice places.

If it were me (but I'm prejudiced), I would say to go to Strasbourg immediately and branch out from there. I am another great fan of Obernai, which is only about 20-25km from Strasbourg. With a car, you can also go to the magnificent Mont Sainte Odile convent with a panorama that allows you to admire the Black Forest in France's closest ally. And if you want to be a bit depressed, you can also easily go to Le Struthof, the only Nazi death camp on French soil, in a magnificent setting in the Vosges mountains. That makes it even more horrible. The museum there is excellent.

I agree completely with kerouac. Frankfurt itself holds little appeal, unless of course you have a car and can leave it after a good look around.

Where's our resident German who always disparages anyone who mentions Frankfurt (or Cologne, etc) is not much! Those are nice modern cities but lacking old-world charm many American tourists are seeking. but after all-night flight Frankfurt could be a nice place to recover - the city does have world-class art museums and vest pockets of patched together old town like RomerPlatz - if flying out of Frankfurt you may want to take S-Bahn out to airport and rent car there and then be able to drive back to airport to return it - saving steep drop-off charges for picking up in one country and returning in another. Easy enough probably to drive out of Frankfurt Airport to Strasbourg though that's a big city where cars are a hassle so may want to like others say above take train Frankfurt-Strasbourg and back.

A little update - husband would like to use hotel points if possible, and the nearest Marriott is Baden-Baden. What do you think about a base in B-B with day trips to Strasbourg / Heidelburg / Black Forest romantic road? We would rent a car in this case.

Basically - is it worth it to completely change the trip in order to save hotel costs? At this point we don't have our hearts set on any particular activity, just want to explore a new place and the whole region looks pretty amazing.

If we do this should we go ahead and add an overnight in Strasbourg in the middle? We will be there a total of 4 nights; I leave back to DFW and husband stays in Strasbourg for work.

I will also post this on the Germany board...

As on other thread yes Baden-Baden well poised for Heidelberg and Black Forest. But not Romantic Road way too far east.