The Happy Blog


Hello and welcome to the Happy Blog!
We are the Happy guides from Happy Strasbourg and we’re Happy to show our Happy articles to our Happy readers on our Happy blog… Is that too much “Happy”? Nope, because we think there is no such thing as too good a mood 😉
More seriously, the Happy Strasbourg team has decided to create a blog. That way we can share some knowledge outside of our guided tours and you can learn something about Strasbourg, even as you remain comfortably settled in your armchair. It will not necessarily replace the mood we give to our tours, but we shall try anyway and let you peek into our way of seeing things, through writing.
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To write down our stories was something that tickled us for a while. Usually, we like to tell you about them live and direct. Yet, we find new ones everyday! And rightly so, because learning about our city, our region and everything else is the basis of our passion. We spend time looking into tiny details about that fact or that building, we spend time reading an encyclopedia. Well, OK, encyclopedias are no common bedside books, but such atypical stuff makes us so charming, doesn’t it?
On this blog, you will find some history and traditions (mostly Alsatian ones) of course, but also some more entertaining anecdotes, legends, folklore stuff, news, but always in a… Can you guess? That’s right: in a Happy way of course! 😀
And to cook that up, the whole team gets to work: Elise, Gabriel, Gilles, Gustave, Leo, Matthias and Remy. Between us, we call ourselves the “Happies”, a nice team of passionate people. What we love most is to share our stories, so, in the end, to create a blog was the obvious thing to do… We all trod different paths before we got here, but we grew up in our beautiful Alsace and rallied to that passion for culture(s). If you would like to know more about us, go check our descriptions!
We hope you’ll have a good time reading our writings and feel free to comment below them, you can even contact us to ask questions or give us some ideas!
We wish you a good reading.
Happily so,
Elise, Gabriel, Gilles, Gustave, Leo, Matthias, Remy.

The districts’ names (part 1/4) – Diverse origins
Now’s the time to delve into the districts’ names, something we more rarely have the chance to talk about during our free walking Tours. These names indeed appear along the way as they are born and thus follow a historical logic. There is also an aspect of practical designation: they should help you find your way easily!
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Art Nouveau in Strasbourg
At first an ideological trend initiated by craftsmen, the Art Nouveau (literally «new art») flourishes for a very short period of time, between the last decade of the 19th century and the Great War. A short period of time, yet it left its mark on Strasbourg and still can be seen today.
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The tanners’ ditch
Strasbourg has always been a city of canals. Built in the origin between two arms of the Ill river, on an island called nowadays the Great Island, it had many more canals. The successive phases of urban planning along with some changes in their use led to them being displaced, covered or simply to disappear.
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Kléber Square (part 4/4)
This is the continuation and conclusion of our series dedicated to the main square (see previous post). By the end of that last note, we still won’t be done with it entirely. Yet, if I entertain myself by telling you all of it in these pages, how can I hope to arouse enough curiosity in you that you will get up from your couch and come frolic with Happy Strasbourg?
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Kléber square (part 3/4)
This is the third part in our series dedicated to the Kléber square, we find here a troubled century and the birth of an urban area. But we will also see that some issues are nothing new…
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Kléber Square (part 2/4)
In the previous article (Kléber Square 1), we have discussed the quite recent transformations of Strasbourg’s main square, then we started digging there, just a few meters deep. I now suggest we keep on going back in time together by delving further into the place’s strata.
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Kléber square (part 1/4)
This is today the main square in Strasbourg, possibly you walk here every day and yet… Do you have the faintest idea where you set foot? On what? Or, should I say, on whom?But let us go back in time a…
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Strasbourg mon Amour
Since 2013, Strasbourg has tried to escape its fate as “the Christmas city” to become the city of lovers as well! That’s fitting, for anyone who has ever strolled down its streets in good company will…
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