Three old provinces in one region — Champagne, Lorraine and Alsace — and the seam where France meets Germany. Reims and Épernay sit on the chalk that makes champagne, with kilometres of Roman quarries turned into cellars beneath them. Alsace is half-timbered, geranium-hung and bilingual, its wine road running 170 km from Marlenheim to Thann past Riquewihr, Ribeauvillé and Colmar. Strasbourg holds the European Parliament, a pink sandstone cathedral that was the tallest building on earth for two centuries, and the oldest Christmas market in France. Lorraine adds Nancy's Art Nouveau and Place Stanislas, one of the finest squares in Europe.
- Strasbourg — the cathedral, La Petite France and the Christmas market
- The Alsace Wine Road: Riquewihr, Ribeauvillé, Eguisheim
- Colmar and Little Venice
- Reims Cathedral and the champagne houses
- Épernay's Avenue de Champagne
- Place Stanislas, Nancy
- Best time to go
- September–October for the grape harvest in both Champagne and Alsace; late November–December for the Christmas markets, which are the region's biggest draw. The Vosges ski in winter and walk in summer.
- Getting there
- TGV Est: Paris–Reims 45 min, Paris–Strasbourg 1h46. Strasbourg, Basel-Mulhouse and Luxembourg airports. The wine road needs a car; Colmar–Strasbourg is a 30-minute train.
© OpenFreeMap · OSM · terrain Mapterhorn · boundaries © EuroGeographics (Eurostat GISCO)
Headline places
What france.fr leads with in Grand Est.
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Strasbourg Cathedral The tallest building on earth from 1647 to 1874, in pink sandstone -
La Petite France Tanners' houses over the canals, on a UNESCO-listed island -
Reims Cathedral Thirty-three kings crowned here, and Chagall's windows behind the altar -
Avenue de Champagne The most valuable street in the world — because of what is under it -
Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg A red sandstone fortress at 750 m with the whole Rhine plain below -
Riquewihr Inside its medieval walls, essentially unchanged since the 1500s -
Eguisheim Concentric rings of half-timbered houses round a castle -
Ribeauvillé Three ruined castles above a wine village on the Route des Vins -
Place Stanislas Gilded ironwork round one of the great squares of Europe -
Metz Cathedral The largest expanse of stained glass in the world — Chagall included -
Douaumont Ossuary The remains of 130,000 unidentified men from both armies at Verdun -
Route des Crêtes 77 km of ridge road, built by the army in 1915 to supply the front -
Hartmannswillerkopf A Vosges summit fought over all of 1915, and a national monument
Tourism areas
The names people actually use for this part of France — some of them cross into the next region.
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Champagne The chalk, the cellars and the cathedral where French kings were crowned -
Alsace 170 km of wine road, half-timbered villages and the oldest Christmas market in France -
The Vosges Rounded granite summits, high lakes and the ridge road along the old front line -
Lorraine Nancy's Art Nouveau, Metz's golden cathedral and the battlefield of Verdun
Cities & bases
Where to sleep, and what each place is good for.
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Strasbourg A pink sandstone cathedral, La Petite France and the European Parliament -
Colmar Little Venice, the Isenheim Altarpiece and the wine road's capital -
Reims The coronation cathedral, Chagall's windows and champagne cellars beneath -
Épernay The Avenue de Champagne, and 110 km of cellars under it - Nancy Place Stanislas, gilded railings and the École de Nancy's Art Nouveau
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Metz 6,500 m² of stained glass, and a Centre Pompidou under a Chinese hat -
Troyes Half-timbered Champagne capital, and the original factory outlets - Gérardmer The Vosges' lake resort — sailing in summer, skiing in winter
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Verdun The longest battle of the First World War, and its ossuary
Our guides
Full destination guides we already publish in this region.
Grand Est by experience
The themes this region delivers on.
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Culture & heritage 53 UNESCO World Heritage sites, and the cathedrals that invented Gothic -
Food & wine Seventeen wine regions, 1,600 cheeses, and the gastronomic meal on the UNESCO list -
Nature & outdoors Glaciers, gorges, volcanoes and 180,000 km of waymarked footpath -
Mountains Six massifs — the Alps, Pyrenees, Jura, Vosges, Massif Central and Corsica -
Cities Paris, and eleven more cities that would headline any other country -
Villages & countryside The 180-odd villages on the official 'most beautiful in France' list -
National & regional parks Eleven national parks and 58 regional ones — about a fifth of the country -
Cycling Over 25,000 km of signed cycle route, most of it flat and away from traffic -
Remembrance The Somme, Verdun and the Normandy beaches — two wars written into the landscape -
Pilgrimage & spirituality Four Camino routes, Lourdes, Mont-Saint-Michel and the Romanesque abbeys -
Spa & wellness Around 90 working thermal spa towns, and the coastline that invented thalassotherapy -
Romance The Riviera corniche, a Loire château, a Provençal village, a Paris weekend -
Shopping & savoir-faire Perfume in Grasse, porcelain in Limoges, crystal in Lorraine, couture in Paris
