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.
Read more
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.

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…

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.

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…

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…

Uncommon signs – the Crocodile
Hello once more, dear reader! It’s a real pleasure to find you here again. Especially since this is a follow-up to our review of the signs in Strasbourg (part I – The Iron Man). This time, we will look…

Street names in Strasbourg (part 2/3) – From the Castrum to the Renaissance
As we have seen in our previous article, the street names in Strasbourg have really varied origins. As we study these names one by one, we can find a sample…

Street Names in Strasbourg (part 1/3) – The Origins
The current street names of all cities marked by History take us on a ride through time and Strasbourg is no exception! When, how and why did they appear? Trite as they may seem…

About the Schwörbrief and Strasbourg’s political system
After numerous hours spent into books, your favorite guides in the Happy Strasbourg team enjoy debating among themselves on different details of Strasbourg’s history. The…