Discover Strasbourg like a Swan With the Boat Tour

Alright, not quite, but you really should see Strasbourg from one of the glass-covered, panoramic tour-boats.

In case you think that it may be like a greenhouse in summer, air-conditioned ventilation blows up the side of the windows and shades are pulled across the roof. There is a toilette at the rear.

After you've done the walking tour, make your way to the Palais Rohan for embarkation. From March 31 - October 29 tours leave every half-hour between 9:30 and 21:00.

Out of season the tours depart at 10:30, 13:00, 14:30 and 16:00 (with additional departures if needed).

Cast Off:

The boat cruises around Strasbourg in a clockwise direction. As you leave the mooring you have the Cour du Corbeau on the left and the old butcher's hall on the right (now the Musée historique).

Going under the Pont du Corbeau (Raven's Bridge), you might like to know that adulterers were put into cages here and lowered into the river Ill for their misdeeds.

As you leave these thoughts behind you the 14th century customs house is on your right (you've probably already seen it on the walking tour) and the Alsace Museum is directly opposite (you'll go there after the boat tour). Next door is the Maison de Pasteur.

After the next bridge, the church on your left (St. Nicolas) is the oldest French-speaking Protestant church in Strasbourg; where Albert Schweitzer (born in Kaysersberg, Alsace and winner of the Noble Peace Prize) preached between 1899 and 1913. Louis XIV once stayed in a hotel near here, in 1681.

The next bridge is Pont St-Thomas, and the Protestant church of the same name is on a street to the right - the nicest gothic building in Strasbourg. St-Louis square is to the left of the bridge, where a small theatre is housed in the former Sauerkraut factory.

Pont St-Martin is also known as washing bridge. The poor used to wash their clothes here while the rich used the cleaner water upstream.

Entering a lock on the approach to Petit France, the boat rises to bring you level with onlooking pedestrians. Ever wondered how a goldfish feels?

The classical music starts up as the boat moves on, leaving the Hotel Regent Petite France behind you.

The next major landmark is the Ponts Couverts. The four bridges crossing the river Ill were meant to protect it, and thoughtfully covered to keep the gunpowder dry; not the soldiers.

Further on is the Vauban dam, which was built to flood the southern city in case of attack. It now makes a very good vantage point for walkers.

The boat swings round as you continue along the northern part of the city. On your left is Ste-Marguerite; once an hospital, then a barracks and until 1988, a prison.

You enter another lock to get back down to the lower level. The executioner's tower is on your right, where your tongue would be cut off for blasphemy before it was off with your head.

Small rapids run alongside your left as the boat travels toward the Pont National and the oldest Roman Road in the city.

Église St-Pierre-le-Vieux, on the right, is in fact two working churches - Protestant and Catholic.

Under another bridge and yet another church on your left. Église St-Jean-Baptiste was built by Dominicans in 1477, bombed in 1944, and a copy of the original built in 1965.

This must be one of the newest, old-looking copies of a church outside of the United States - or Yamassoukrou (Ivory Coast).

A Novotel on the left sits above a C & A and other modern buildings house banks and insurance companies. This was once the old station of Strasbourg.

The Quai Kellermann is on the right as you approach Pont de Pierre, a stone bridge that used to connect Roman military camps.

On your left, the grey Court House is nothing on the pink sandstone of St. Peter's (St-Pierre-le-Jeune).

Further along comes the Palais du Rhin, an Imperial Palace built by William I and the Place de la Republic. On the opposite side, the Opera House.

Like San Francisco, Strasbourg has a Fisherman's Wharf (although it's called Quai des Pêcheurs). As your own boat turns 90 degrees to the left you see that the moored barges on your right have been converted into bars and restaurants.

The twin towers of St Paul's face you as the tour-boat picks up speed, passes under a metal bridge, Kennedy Bridge, past a modern residential district, and then slows down again as you approach the European Parliament.

Faces drop as fellow passengers view the buildings financed from taxpayers money; with enough glass on the two structures to keep a team of window cleaners in full-time employment.

The futuristic European Court of Human Rights, designed by Richard Rogers, is also here. The boat swings round again and canoeists enjoy a paddle in your wake.

In the distance you can see the Cathedral pointing its finger skywards. The central symbol of Strasbourg a more elegant sight than the modern model of European affairs behind you.

A baby starts to cry. He is warm and seems to encourage another to wail. Like dogs in the night they howl to one another.

Mother stands up and walks to the rear. Baby seems satisfied as a dummy is encouraged into his mouth.

An hour has passed and the tri-language commentary (French, English and German) goes over people's heads and they start to chatter to one another.

Strasbourg is one of the oldest universities of the Renaissance.... Guttenberg invented the printing press in Strasbourg... The Marseillaise was written for the Rhine Army by Rouget de Lisle in 1792....

Another chorus of baby screams, as you pass Fisherman's Wharf again and return to Palais Rohan.

Total tour time: 1hr 10 minutes. Probably ten minutes too long for the younger siblings.