Grand Est is a vast northeastern French region created in 2016 from the historic provinces of Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne, and Lorraine. Bordered by Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Belgium, it is a crossroads of European culture, language, and cuisine. Strasbourg, the regional capital, hosts the European Parliament and flaunts one of Europe's finest Gothic cathedrals. Reims preserves the coronation church of French kings and the prestige champagne cellars of the world-famous Champagne region. In between, Colmar's half-timbered lanes, the vine-draped Alsace Wine Route, the Vosges mountain forests, and the solemn WWI battlefields of Verdun create an unrivalled diversity of experiences within a single region.
Top day trips
Handpicked excursions within easy reach.
Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
Freiburg is a university town at the edge of the Black Forest, built around a red sandstone Gothic minster whose spire has stood since the 13th century. The old town is threaded with Bächle, shallow open water channels that once served as fire protection and now double as a place for kids to cool their feet in summer. It rewards a day of walking rather than a checklist of sights: narrow lanes, a produce market at the minster's base, and a hillside funicular for a view back over the rooftops.
Highlights: Freiburger Münster cathedral tower: 116-metre climb with Black Forest and Rhine plain panoramas · Bächle: narrow medieval water channels threading every street of the old town · Daily farmers' market at Münsterplatz with local produce, Brezel, and hot sausage · Schlossberg hillside viewpoint reachable by funicular or a 20-minute walk · Augustinermuseum: medieval altarpieces and early German Renaissance painting
Black Forest (Schwarzwald), Germany
The Black Forest is a low, densely wooded mountain range, not a single town, so a day trip here means picking one base rather than trying to see "the forest." Titisee, a glacial lake ringed by souvenir shops selling cuckoo clocks and cherry schnapps, is the easiest car-free anchor from Freiburg. It's a day of pine-forest air, a lake, and the region's two best-known exports — the cuckoo clock and the Black Forest cake — rather than dramatic scenery.
Highlights: Titisee glacial lake: boat hire, lakeshore promenade, and 5 km Seerundweg forest circuit · Feldberg summit (1,493 m) — Germany's highest peak outside the Alps with Alpine panoramas · Scenic Col du Bonhomme mountain pass approach from Alsace into the Black Forest · Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte and traditional Black Forest cakes at lakeside restaurants · Winter skiing and snowshoeing at Feldberg with day lift pass from approximately €35
Basel, Switzerland
Basel sits on the Rhine at the point where Switzerland, France and Germany meet, and its old town on the river's east bank is compact enough to cover on foot in a day. The Basel Münster, a red sandstone cathedral with a patterned tile roof, looks out over the river from a terrace that's one of the better free views in the region. In summer, locals swim the Rhine current in waterproof bags called Wickelfisch, floating downstream past the old town — worth watching even if you don't join in.
Highlights: Kunstmuseum Basel: one of Europe's greatest public art collections spanning five centuries · Münster cathedral Pfalz terrace with simultaneous views into France and Germany across the Rhine · Fondation Beyeler in Riehen — Monet, Rothko, and Giacometti in a Renzo Piano building · Dreiländereck: the exact confluence point where Switzerland, France, and Germany meet · Marktplatz and the vivid red-sandstone Rathaus (Town Hall) at the heart of the pedestrian old town
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
Luxembourg City is built across a dramatic gorge cut by the Alzette and Pétrusse rivers, and its old fortifications, once among the most heavily defended in Europe, are a UNESCO World Heritage site. The result is a compact capital where the sightseeing is largely about walking along cliff-edge promenades and descending into the casemates, the tunnels carved into the rock beneath the old town. It's an easy day trip by train from Metz, with no need for a car.
Highlights: Chemin de la Corniche: UNESCO-listed promenade with panoramas over the fortifications and Grund valley · Bock Casemates: 17 km of 17th-century underground tunnels carved from the cliff face (entry €10) · Grand Ducal Palace and Place Guillaume II in the pedestrianised upper town · Grund lower town: riverside restaurants and medieval lanes in the Alzette valley · MUDAM — Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in a landmark I.M. Pei building on the Kirchberg plateau
Épernay — Avenue de Champagne
Épernay's Avenue de Champagne is a single street lined with the grand houses of the champagne trade — Moët & Chandon, Mercier, and others — sitting above roughly a hundred kilometres of chalk cellars cut into the hillside below the town. A day here is built around one or two house tours and tastings rather than sightseeing in the usual sense; the avenue itself, with its 19th-century mansions, is short enough to walk end to end in twenty minutes.
Highlights: Avenue de Champagne: a UNESCO-listed kilometre of grand champagne-house mansions and chalk cellars · Moët & Chandon cellar tour: 28 km of underground tunnels with 100 million ageing bottles · September harvest season: vine-picking activity and open-house events across the maisons · Perrier-Jouët and Pol Roger: smaller-scale guided cellar tours with comparative tastings · Hautvillers abbey (8 km by taxi): burial place of Dom Pérignon in a hilltop champagne village
Verdun Battlefields
The Verdun battlefields are spread across a stretch of hills and forest north of Verdun town, the site of one of the longest and costliest battles of the First World War. Unlike a single monument, the area is a landscape still visibly cratered by shellfire, dotted with the ruins of villages that were never rebuilt because too few residents survived. The Mémorial de Verdun museum at Fleury gives context before or after walking the ground itself.
Highlights: Mémorial de Verdun: comprehensive museum covering the 1916 battle's human and military dimensions (entry €12) · Ossuaire de Douaumont: ossuary holding the remains of 130,000 unidentified soldiers (entry €5) · Fort Douaumont: the battle's largest fortification, open to self-guided underground exploration (entry €5) · Tranchée des Baïonnettes: outdoor memorial marking the fate of an entire infantry unit — always free · November 11 Armistice Day ceremony at the Ossuary — one of France's most solemn national commemorations
Alsace Wine Route — Colmar to Riquewihr Circuit
This stretch of the Route des Vins d'Alsace links a string of half-timbered villages set among the vineyards below the Vosges, with Riquewihr, a walled town largely unchanged since the 16th century, as the best-preserved stop. The circuit is short enough to drive in an hour, but the reason to go is to stop in two or three villages, walk the vine-lined lanes, and taste Riesling and Gewürztraminer at a grower's cellar door rather than to cover ground quickly.
Highlights: Riquewihr: a perfectly preserved 16th-century walled wine village with colourful timber-framed houses · Kaysersberg: fortified medieval bridge, ruined castle, and Albert Schweitzer birthplace museum · Kientzheim Alsace Wine Museum: the history of Alsace viticulture in a 13th-century fortified château · Cellar-door Gewurztraminer and Riesling tastings from estate producers along the entire circuit · Ribeauvillé optional detour: three medieval towers above vine-covered hillsides south of Riquewihr
Nancy and the École de Nancy
Nancy pairs one of the most complete 18th-century squares in France, Place Stanislas, with a distinct Art Nouveau movement that grew here at the turn of the 20th century — the École de Nancy, led by glassmaker Émile Gallé and the Daum crystal house. A day trip covers both: the gilded, symmetrical square built for the exiled Polish king Stanislas Leszczynski, and a different side of the city devoted to decorative glass and ironwork.
Highlights: Place Stanislas: a UNESCO World Heritage royal square with gilded wrought-iron gates by Jean Lamour · Musée de l'École de Nancy: original Art Nouveau interiors, Gallé glassware, and Majorelle furniture · Three-square Baroque ensemble: Place Stanislas, Place de la Carrière, and Place d'Alliance · Self-guided Art Nouveau façade walk covering 30+ decorated buildings across the city · Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy: European painting and a world-class Daum crystal collection
Heidelberg, Germany
Heidelberg is a university town on the Neckar River, built around a ruined Renaissance-era castle that overlooks the old town from a wooded hillside. The centre survived World War II largely intact, so the Baroque townscape along Hauptstrasse is original rather than reconstructed. It is a full day out from Strasbourg by train, with the castle grounds, the old town streets, and a river walk enough to fill the hours without rushing.
Highlights: Heidelberg Castle: Renaissance ruins 80 m above the Neckar with panoramic Odenwald and river views · Alte Brücke (Old Bridge) and the Philosophenweg: 2 km hillside promenade with castle panoramas · Hauptstrasse: Germany's longest historic pedestrian street, 1 km of medieval façades and bookshops · Großes Fass: the world's largest wine barrel (220,000 litres) in the castle cellar complex · Deutsches Apotheken-Museum: historical pharmacy collection included with castle entry
Montagne de Reims and Champagne Villages
The Montagne de Reims is the wooded plateau south of Reims where several of Champagne's grand cru villages sit among the vines - Verzenay, Verzy, Mailly-Champagne and Villers-Marmery among them. There's no train line through the vineyards, so this is a car day: driving between villages, stopping at a producer or two for a cellar visit and tasting, and taking in the vineyard views from the plateau. It suits travellers who want to see Champagne production up close rather than just drink it in a Reims wine bar.
Highlights: Phare de Verzenay: a 1909 champagne-house lighthouse with Grand Cru vineyard panoramas (entry €8) · Faux de Verzy: a grove of uniquely gnarled umbrella beech trees — a free, botanically unexplained natural curiosity · D26 champagne circuit: a signposted driving route through Premier and Grand Cru villages · Small-producer cellar tastings in Verzenay, Verzy, Ay, and Ambonnay with advance booking · Parc Naturel Régional de la Montagne de Reims: 22,000 hectares of forest and vineyard landscape
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Multi-day tours from Grand Est
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