The stork nests
Alsace's emblem nesting overhead, cage-free — the region's proudest rescue story.
Jonathan M — CC BY-SA 3.0 · IanCoates94 — CC0 · G.Garitan — CC BY-SA 3.0 · G.Garitan — CC BY-SA 3.0
Tram E to the Parliament-side stop then minutes on foot, or a fine half-hour walk through the German quarter and along the Ill. By bicycle — France's first cycling city — a pleasant fifteen minutes.
March to August, nearly — dozens of occupied nests, the bill-clattering leading you to them. Off season you get empty nests and a few resident birds around the breeding centre.
With one Strasbourg day: no, the Grande Île comes first. From day two: emphatically, especially with children or an interest in the European institutions next door — this is lived Strasbourg after monumental Strasbourg.
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The Orangerie is Strasbourg's oldest and best-loved park: 26 hectares arranged in the days of Napoleon and Josephine — the elegant pavilion at its centre was built to receive her — and today the city's first family destination by an unchallenged margin. Its stars are the storks: the park's breeding centre brought Alsace's emblem bird back from the edge of extinction, and their huge nests crown trees and buildings in every direction — from March to August you watch chicks in the nests and parents shuttling food, free and cage-less. There is a lake with waterfall and summer rowing boats, a small free zoo, playgrounds and picnic lawns — steps from the European Parliament, so the curious pair the two in one afternoon.
Alsace's emblem nesting overhead, cage-free — the region's proudest rescue story.
Summer rowing around the waterfall island.
An elegant Napoleonic pavilion on the lawns — two centuries of family photos.
Avenue de l'Orangerie, 67000 Strasbourg