Musée Alsacien

The Musée Alsacien occupies three old houses on the quay along the river Ill, a short walk from the cathedral in Strasbourg, and it is the best place in the city to learn how ordinary people lived in Alsace. The museum was founded in 1902 by a group of local enthusiasts who wanted to preserve the traditions of the region, which was then part of the German Empire, and it opened to the public in 1907. The three timber-framed buildings, which date from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are linked by wooden staircases, galleries and courtyards, and the visit leads you through a maze of small rooms on several floors.

The collection shows daily life in the countryside and towns of Alsace, mostly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and it has many thousands of objects. The rooms are arranged as period interiors and thematic displays, with the old furniture, the painted chests, the tiled stoves that heated the rooms in winter and the box beds that were the rule in country houses. There are textiles and costumes, including the headdresses and coloured dresses of different villages, tools and utensils from the farm and the workshop, ceramics, toys, and objects of popular religion. The Alsatian tradition of folk art, with its bright colours and floral patterns, can be seen on furniture, ceramics and printed images. Other rooms cover themes such as the life cycle, from birth to death, the Alsatian Christmas, with its early decorated trees, and traditional crafts. Because Strasbourg lies on the border between French and German worlds, the collection also shows how cultures mixed.

The museum is closed for renovation work, which is expected to last until 2028, so the museum cannot currently be visited and anyone planning a trip should check the status of the reopening on the official site. Before it closed, a modest entry fee applied, with reduced rates and free entry for under-eighteens. The museum has a good reputation among visitors for its atmosphere, which is more domestic than that of a large institution, and for the way the rooms and passages recreate the feeling of old houses.

The building stands in the old town, close to the covered bridges and the Petite France quarter, and it is an easy walk from the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg and the Palais Rohan, which holds several other museums. Place Kléber and the Marché de Noël, the Christmas market that fills the old centre in December, are also close. Even while the museum is closed, the surrounding streets are worth exploring, with their half-timbered houses and canals.

The museum suits anyone interested in folk traditions, social history and the culture of Alsace, and it will be a good addition to a trip once it reopens.