Krutenau and the Quays

Place du Corbeau

The small quayside square where the south bridge touches the boatmen's bank. Its name remembers the ravens.

You're standing in Place du Corbeau, a small square that opens straight onto the river. For centuries this spot was known by a blunter name, near the scaffold, and the ravens that gathered at the water's edge are the ones the square now remembers. In 1944 four houses along the water were destroyed in a bombing, and losing them opened the square to the quay you see now. The bridge at your back crosses to the cathedral bank, but we're staying on this side. Look toward the water and you'll understand what the Krutenau was before it was a student quarter. This was the boatmen's riverside, a working bank of moorings and barges, built on marsh that had to be drained before anyone could live here.

Quai des Bateliers

The boatmen's quay, now a pedestrian riverside walk with wooden pontoons floating over the Ill.

The Quai des Bateliers takes its name from the boatmen who worked this bank. For a long time it was a road for traffic. Now it has been made pedestrian, and wooden pontoons carry you out over the water itself. Stop at one and look across.

Straight ahead rises the cathedral, and a little downstream sits the Palais Rohan, the riverside palace of the prince-bishops of Strasbourg, its pink sandstone face running along the far bank. This is the view that explains why locals come here just to sit. On a warm evening the pontoons and the terraces behind them fill with students, and the water keeps reflecting the cathedral long after dark. You are on the south bank of the Ill, and every stop ahead stays on this side of the river.