Grand Est

Grand Est was created in 2016 from three regions with very different personalities: Alsace, Lorraine and Champagne-Ardenne. What they share is the frontier. Alsace and part of Lorraine were annexed by Germany in 1871, returned in 1918, annexed again in 1940 and freed in 1944–45, and that back-and-forth shows in the place names, the dialect still spoken in Alsatian villages, the food and the war memorials in every square. Strasbourg, the regional capital, is also a seat of European institutions, a fitting role for a city that changed nationality four times in seventy-five years.

The landscapes are generous. The Alsace wine route runs along the foot of the Vosges past villages of painted, half-timbered houses and storks’ nests; above it, the rounded summits called ballons are crossed by the Route des Crêtes. Lorraine is a land of forests, lakes and fortified towns, with the great battlefield of Verdun to the north. In Champagne, low chalk hills are lined with vines, and the cellars underneath are a World Heritage site.

Tired of Paris? Strasbourg and Reims are both fast trains away, but the real pleasure is smaller: a winemaker’s courtyard in a village of a few hundred people, a walk across a high meadow in the Vosges, or a quiet lake in the Argonne. December brings Christmas markets, autumn the grape harvest, and early summer long evenings in the vineyards.

• Vineyards and half-timbered villages of the Alsace wine route
• Rounded summits and high meadows of the Vosges
• Chalk hillsides of the Champagne vineyards
• Forests and lakes of Lorraine and the Argonne
• Wooded valleys of the Ardennes

Facts

• Created on 1 January 2016 from Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine; the name Grand Est took effect on 30 September 2016.
• The Grand Ballon (1,424 m) in the Vosges is the region’s highest point.
• Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars were inscribed by UNESCO in 2015.
• Strasbourg’s Grande-Île has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1988, extended to the Neustadt in 2017.