Strasbourg

The apostles parade at 12.30pm daily. Tickets are €4 and sold on the day only, from the cathedral shops between 10 and 11am and then at the Saint-Michel entrance from 11.30am. No performance during the Christmas market.

332 steps to a viewing platform 66 metres up, past a guard house holding a medieval treadwheel crane.

UNESCO-listed in 1988 and extended in 2017 to take in the German imperial quarter, 183 hectares in all. Walking between the two is the point of the place.

Seventy minutes on the Ill from the Embarcadère Cathédrale at Place du Marché-aux-Poissons, covering Petite France, the Neustadt and the European institutions. €17.20, commentary in twelve languages.

The old tanners' quarter of half-timbered houses and locks at the west end of the island. Free, and worth walking at seven in the morning.

Twenty-one trains a day from Gare de l'Est, the fastest in 1 hour 45 minutes over 440 kilometres, with fares from around €25.

Strasbourg station has direct services east and south, and the Rhine crossing to Kehl is a tram ride rather than an expedition.

The Grande Île is small and largely pedestrian. The tram covers everything beyond it, including the European institutions.

May-June and September: warm, and the wine route is at its best either side of harvest.

January-March is the cheapest window, once the Christmas machinery has been packed away.

Late November to 24 December, when the Christmas market fills every hotel in Alsace.

Cathedral first. Climb the 332 steps to the platform before the queue, then look properly at the west front from the square.

Be at the Saint-Michel entrance from 11.30am for clock tickets, and watch the apostles parade at 12.30pm.

A winstub for tarte flambée, baeckeoffe or choucroute, with a glass of Riesling rather than beer.

Batorama from Place du Marché-aux-Poissons, then walk Petite France and cross the canals into the Neustadt.

Dinner on a Petite France terrace, then bars along the quays. The centre is walkable end to end.

Runs north to south through the vineyard villages below the Vosges. Obernai, Riquewihr and Colmar are the usual stops, and a car or an organised day beats the bus.

Half an hour south by TER, with a canal quarter, the Unterlinden museum and the Isenheim altarpiece inside it.