Visit of the Alsatian Museum of Strasbourg – A return to the past

Updated on 2024-04-23

With the Tomi Ungerer museum, the Alsatian museum in Strasbourg is one of my favorite cultural visits. It retraces the daily life in the Alsatian countryside in the 18th and 19th centuries, through numerous objects. The museum, created in 1907, was installed on the Quai Saint-Nicolas, in a typical 17th century building. With its creaky floor and low ceilings, it has a special charm.

Léa

As a journalist in real life, and a blogger for pleasure, Léa has always enjoyed tracking down little-known gourmet addresses, unusual activities, off-the-beaten-track hikes and places with history and soul... And Alsace is full of them!

You will pass from room to room through the staircases and corridors of a magnificent interior courtyard. You will be able to admire the traditional roofs covered with tiles, windows in “cul-de-bouteille” and, in summer, a splendid wisteria. What to get lost in time and space.

The visit of the Alsatian Museum starts with the exhibition of the beautiful wall of a painted and half-timbered Alsatian house, coming from Issenhausen and dating from 1789. Then we discover the structure of a traditional house thanks to a model, several earthenware stoves and very well preserved painted wooden furniture.

Entire rooms reconstructed

Several “stubs”, the living room of the families, were reconstituted. Modest or rich interior, 17th or 19th century, country house or vineyard… They allow us to put ourselves in the place of the Alsatians of the time, to imagine their daily life. The most successful immersion, for my taste, is the stub of an old farm in Wintzenheim dated 1810.

You will also be immersed in a kitchen, a pharmacy-herbalist workshop and craft workshops. Rooms also dedicated to Alsatian clothing, costumes, festivals and traditions. The opportunity to get rid of preconceived ideas: and no, the Alsatian headdress of black color was not worn daily by all Alsatian women! They come in different shapes and colors depending on the region or even the village.

The rich collection of the Alsatian museum

All these old objects, gathered by themes (toys, ceramics, kitchen utensils, religious objects, jewels…) plunge us in another time. The visit ends with two rooms dedicated to the Alsatian wine world, with old barrels (very nice even if they are less impressive than those of the cellar of the civil hospices of Strasbourg ) and a huge wine press.

You can take the tour with a small booklet or an audio guide. And don’t forget to admire the view of the cathedral through some of the museum’s windows! If this visit has made you want to know more about the history of Strasbourg, the Strasbourg Historical Museum is just a few steps away.

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