France Guide
Alsace and Lorraine
The cathedral
From the north side of place de la République, rue des Clercs cuts through the attractive, bustling and largely pedestrianized heart of the old city. Past the place St-Jacques, with its numerous outdoor cafés, you come to the eighteenth-century place d'Armes, where the lofty Gothic Cathedral of St-Étienne towers above the colonnaded classical facade of the Hôtel de Ville. Its nave is the tallest in France – after Beauvais and Amiens cathedrals – but its best feature is without doubt the stained glass (vitraux), both medieval and modern, including windows dating from the thirteenth century. Pride of place, however, goes to Chagall's 1963 masterpiece in the western wall of the north transept, representing the Garden of Eden, while his slightly earlier works in the ambulatory vividly depict Old Testament scenes – Moses and David, Abraham's Sacrifice and Jacob's Dream.