Place Gutenberg and the cathedral
France > Alsace > Strasbourg > Cathedral
Right at the heart of medieval Strasbourgplace Gutenberg, with its steep-pitched roofs and brightly painted facades, was named after the printer and pioneer of moveable type, whose statue occupies the middle of the square; he lived in the city in the early fifteenth century. On the west side stands the sixteenth-century Hôtel de Commerce, where the writer Arthur Young watched the destruction of the magistrates' records during the Revolution; excellent art exhibitions are often held on the ground floor. And on the corner of rue du Vieux-Marché-aux-Poissons, the sculptor Hans-Jean Arp was born.From wherever you are in the city centre, the one landmark you can see is the Cathédrale de Notre-Dame (daily 7–11.30am & 12.40–7pm; closed during services), soaring out of the close huddle of medieval houses at its feet, with a single spire of such delicate, flaky lightness that it seems the work of confectioners rather than masons. It's worth slogging up the 332 steps to the spire's viewing platform (daily: March & Oct 9am–5.30pm; April–June & Sept 9am–6.30pm; July & Aug 8.30am–7pm; Nov–Feb 9am–4.30pm; €3) for the superb view of the old town, and, in the distance, the Vosges to the west and the Black Forest to the east. The interior, too, is magnificent, the high nave a model of proportion and enhanced by a glorious sequence of stained-glass windows. The finest are those in the south aisle next to the door, depicting the life of Christ and the Creation, but all are beautiful, including, in the apse, the modern glass designed in 1956 by Max Ingrand to commemorate the first European institutions in the city. On the left of the nave, the cathedral's organ perches precariously above one of the arches, like a giant gilded eagle, while further down on the same side is the late fifteenth-century pulpit, a masterpiece of intricacy in stone by the aptly named Hans Hammer. In the south transept are the cathedral's two most popular sights. One is the slender triple-tiered central column known as the Pilier des Anges, decorated with some of the most graceful and expressive statuary of the thirteenth century. The other is the huge and enormously complicated astrological clock built by Schwilgué of Strasbourg in 1842: a favourite with the tour-group operators, whose customers roll up in droves to witness the clock's crowning performance of the day, striking the hour of noon, which it does with unerring accuracy, at 12.30pm – that being 12 o'clock "Strasbourg time" as the city lies well east of the Greenwich meridian (tickets can be bought from the postcard stand 9am–11.30am, then at the cash desk at the south door 11.50am–12.20pm; €0.80, children free). Death strikes the chimes; the apostles parade in front of Christ, who occupies the highest storey of the clock and gives each one his blessing.
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