Strasbourg: The Cathedral Clock, Petite France and the Parliament by Boat

Required Activities

• Buy your clock ticket the same morning at the cathedral échoppes, be in your seat for the film at noon, and at 12h30 watch the bell strike and the twelve apostles pass before Christ on Schwilgué's astronomical clock

• Climb the 332 steps to the platform, 66 m up on top of the two original towers, and stand on the flat space where the second spire was meant to go — Hans Hammer drew the plans for it around 1490 and it was never built, which is why the cathedral has one tower instead of two. Above you, the 1439 spire rises another 76 m to 142 m

• Take the boat round the Grande Île, a service running since 1948, and work out from the water how the town defended itself: the Ill splits below the Barrage Vauban and closes again at the quai des Pêcheurs, so the old city is an island, and the barrage could flood the ground south of it on command. Then carry on out of the old town to the European Parliament

• Walk the half-timbered tanners' houses of Petite France and look back over them from the terrace of the Barrage Vauban

• Eat a tarte flambée in a winstub and settle the argument about what belongs on one — bacon, onion and cream, and nothing else, is the local line; the city's own market commission banned churros and paninis in 2010 and put Alsace choucroute and tarte flambée in their place