Petite France and the Covered Bridges

Place Benjamin Zix

The waterside square that frames the Maison des Tanneurs, the 1572 tanners' house with open drying galleries.

You're in Place Benjamin Zix, the little waterside square in the middle of Petite France. The big half-timbered house leaning over the water is the Maison des Tanneurs, the tanners' house at number 42 rue du Bain-aux-Plantes. It went up in 1572, when this lane was the working heart of the tanners' quarter. Look at the top: those open galleries under the roof are where hides were hung to dry, and the openings in the roofline let the river air blow through.

Down at the water, tanners soaked their skins in the Ill before dressing them. The house now smells of sauerkraut more than soaking hides, because in 1949 a group of eight Alsatian winegrowers turned it into a winstub, and the same family has run it since 1956. The façades and roofs have been listed as a historic monument since 1927. The square is named for Benjamin Zix, a painter and sculptor born in Strasbourg in the 18th century.

When you're ready, leave the square along the lane beside the house, and the old tanners' street stretches ahead.

Rue du Bain-aux-Plantes

The tanners' lane, a row of white half-timbered houses whose open drying attics still mark the old trade.

From this end, the whole lane lines up in front of you: a row of white half-timbered houses running back toward the square, each capped with an open attic for drying hides. The street takes its name from the tanning pits, the bains, where skins soaked in water and crushed bark to loosen the hair and soften the leather. German-speaking Strasbourg knew it as the Pflanzbad, the plant bath, and the trade was dirty and sharp smelling, which is why it sat on this wet western edge of the island. Look up at the rooflines: the oldest houses have dormered attics pierced for air, a mark of the drying rooms, and several still keep their timber galleries over the canal. The Ill ran along one side for rinsing the skins, and a ditch called the Fossé des Tanneurs separated this lane from the next quarter until it was filled in 1840. When you're ready, walk south toward the water, where the three towers come into view.