Opéra national du Rhin

This guide to the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg opens beneath six sandstone muses carved by Alsatian sculptor Landolin Ohmacht between 1804 and 1821, and the budget scandal that saw the theatre's cost balloon from a promised 300,000 francs to over two million. It follows the Prussian bombardment of September 10, 1870, that gutted almost everything behind the colonnade, leaving only the facade and its muses standing. Look up at that portico today: the stone above you is original, scarred and genuinely from 1821.