PETIT FRANCE

The name Petit France has nothing patriotic about it. In this quarter was a hospital for patients suffering from syphilis, which was spread at the end of the 15th century by the troops of Franz I.
The hospital has since disappeared but the name remains, designating the whole of this pretty tanners’ quarter, which is interwoven with canals.
On the banks of the river Ill, place Benjamin Zix is an ideal spot for admiring the former tanners’ houses. The most remarkable building is called “Tanners’ House” and was the seat of the tanners’ guild. Following the course of the navigation canal one comes across a metal swing bridge, which opens to let boats through. Waiting offers an opportunity to admire the cut-out sculpures of the Goethe Foundation, found here. The path continues, past houses in pastel colours reflecting in the water until the Ponts Couverts (covered bridges), recognizable by four mediaeval towers. These towers are what remains of a chain of fortifications which consisted of over 80 towers in total. Dating from around 1230-1250, they indicated the independence enjoyed by Strasbourg while it was a free city of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire. The towers were for a long time used as a prison. The bridges, the oldest of the city, lost their roofs in the 18th century and were replaced in the 19th century by new freestone bridges. Opposite is the Barrage Vauban (Vauban dam), whose construction was ordered by Louis XIV as soon as Strasbourg had been reunited to France in 1681, in order to reinforce the former mediaeval fortifications. In fact it was a lock dam: its gates could be lowered in order to flood the south side of the city in the event of invasion. Today, the top of this construction has been converted into a panoramic terrace, from which one gets a clear view over a district formed into a kind of delta by four canals. The names of the canals, ending in “muehle”(mill) remind us that the tanners’ neighbours were millers, although the mills have since disappeared. Between the canals one can see nicely arranged squares as well as the towers of all the principal churches in Strasbourg silhouetted against the sky: one of them is St. Pierre-le Vieux, with its two bell towers, one Catholic, the other Protestant.
The view offered by the other side of the terrace- completely different- consists of the regional administrative centre, designed by the architect Vasconi, and the museum of modern art by Adrian Fainsilber.