Photo: Guilhem Vellut from Annecy, France (CC BY 2.0)
A self-guided audio walk through Strasbourg's Grande Île, following the city's Christmas market from where it was born to where it stands now. It starts on Place Broglie, home of the Christkindelsmärik since 1870, then Place Kléber, where it stood from 1830 to 1870 and where the Great Tree is raised each Advent, Place Gutenberg and the lit Rue des Orfèvres. At the cathedral it tells how in 1570 the preacher Johannes Flinner denounced the Saint Nicholas gifts and the market was renamed for the Christ Child; then the Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame, the Palais Rohan, the Musée Historique in the old Great Butchery, the old customs house of the medieval port, and the Musée Alsacien, with the Strasbourg manuscript of 1605 that is one of the early records of the Christmas tree. It ends at the churches of Saint-Nicolas and Saint-Thomas, Petite France, and the view from the Vauban Dam over the Ponts Couverts. The markets run in Advent; the squares, churches and their stories are there all year.
15 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 301 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 214 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Place Broglie, Place Kléber, Place Gutenberg.
Rue des Orfèvres, Place de la Cathédrale, Strasbourg Cathedral, Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame, Palais Rohan, Musée Historique, The Old Customs House, Musée Alsacien, Saint-Nicolas Church.
Saint-Thomas Church, Petite France and Place Benjamin-Zix, The Ponts Couverts and the Vauban Dam.
The square that has held the Christkindelsmärik each Advent since 1870, on the city's old horse market.
The square where the market stood from 1830 to 1870, and where a fir of about thirty metres, the Great Tree, stands each Advent.
The Gothic cathedral where a sermon of 1570 turned the Saint Nicholas market into the Market of the Christ Child; inside, the astronomical clock and the little dog beneath the pulpit.
Three old houses on the Ill showing Alsatian life, and the Strasbourg manuscript of 1605 describing fir trees hung with paper roses and apples.
A five-aisled church where Albert Schweitzer gave concerts, with Pigalle's mausoleum of Marshal Maurice de Saxe in the choir.
Medieval towers and a seventeenth-century fortified dam, whose roof terrace looks over Petite France to the cathedral spire.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 15 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 15 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Strasbourg — the Christkindelsmärik, the Cathedral and Advent in Alsace, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
15 narration points, including Place Broglie, Place Kléber, Place Gutenberg, Rue des Orfèvres and Place de la Cathédrale. That is about 29 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~2½ hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 15 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.