Hôtel de Ville

This guide to the Hotel de Ville in Strasbourg begins with a puzzle: gilded stucco ceilings painted with hunting and boating scenes, built for entertainment rather than paperwork. It traces the palace back to Count Johann Reinhard III of Hanau-Lichtenberg, who tore down an older mansion in 1728 to build this one, its gate carved with lions, stags and boar spears. You'll hear how the Revolution stripped his family of the building in 1790, and how Strasbourg only gained it through an unlikely swap involving Napoleon and the grander Palais Rohan. Inside, look for the Gobelins tapestry of Parnassus, the mountain where Greek myth's muses were said to dance.