Strasbourg, one or two steps to the side

Par Bérénice Debras, le 15 Jul 2026

From the banks of the Ill to the shores of the Rhine, from the port to former industrial wastelands, a different side of Strasbourg emerges far from the usual tourist trail. Curious explorers, take note! By bike, you’ll put your calves to work as you pedal through lesser-known neighbourhoods, all the way across the border into Germany. Beyond the clichés.

Let’s forget Strasbourg’s postcard image: La Petite France, with its half-timbered houses and windows overflowing with geraniums. Let’s escape the charming cobbled lanes and Venice-worthy covered bridges crowded with tourists. To the east of the city, the Port du Rhin district reveals a rougher, grittier aesthetic, all water and steel. Containers from distant seas line up in tight rows along the Bassin du Commerce, calling to somewhere else. Because Strasbourg, one tends to forget, is still France’s second-largest inland port after Paris. There’s a kind of in-between atmosphere hanging over this district, almost like a no man’s land — perhaps because Germany lies just across the bridge, on the other side of the Rhine. A place between two waters, then, and between two countries too. While the modern port has shifted further away, the former dockworkers’ canteen, Le Bateau du Rhin, remains firmly anchored here.

But this industrial district is in the midst of transformation thanks to the COOP project (80,000 sq m), rising from the ashes of Strasbourg’s former consumer cooperative. Who still remembers it? In 1902, 125 workers came together to buy and resell food at the best possible prices. COOP Alsace moved to Port du Rhin in 1911 and, at its peak in the 1960s, counted 100,000 members and 500 cooperative supermarkets across the Bas-Rhin. In 2015, it shut its doors, leaving behind a host of empty buildings. Slowly, the COOP district has taken shape, preserving this industrial heritage. The former “Union Sociale” warehouse now houses nearly 400,000 objects from the collections of Strasbourg’s ten city museums. As for the Cave à Vins (1964), with its unmistakable Back to the Future vibe, it remains frustratingly closed to the public while awaiting a possible foodie market hall. Faster off the mark, Océane and Brandon recently opened Block, a street-food restaurant serving everything homemade.

Just a few steps away, Basse-Cour des Miracles and La Virgule bring together artists’ and artisans’ studios along with exhibition spaces. Then there’s Kaleidoscoop, a lively hybrid space with offices, coworking areas and the friendly café-restaurant Dékalé, all built around eco-responsibility, ethics and cross-border collaboration. Germany is never far from mind. A few pedal strokes (or a tram ride) later, and you’re in Kehl, on the other side of the Rhine. The town shares that same in-between feeling. Stop for an ice cream at Eiscafé Pierod, in a charmingly outdated 1990s décor. The owner — an Italian who speaks both German and French — only accepts cash. Then continue to the Jardin des Deux Rives, the symbolic link between the two countries, where a UFO (yes, really) has landed on the banks of the Rhine. The Kehler UFO, a flying saucer-shaped miniature natural history museum, almost makes the Germans seem extraterrestrial.

But let’s be honest: this offbeat route is best enjoyed under blue skies. In gloomy weather (and not only then), the vibrant Krutenau district is a better bet, especially its former Tobacco Factory, an absolute must. Its 19th-century industrial architecture sits alongside the Art Nouveau façade of the Strasbourg School of Arts (HEAR), a masterpiece of polychrome friezes and ceramics. La Petite France isn’t Strasbourg’s only gem.

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39, Grand'Rue