Palais Rohan
Stand with your back to Strasbourg Cathedral and the Palais Rohan fills your view: a long, composed French Baroque facade that has been absorbing the cathedral's shadow for nearly three centuries. It was built to impress — Cardinal de Rohan wanted a residence that announced his authority — and the effect still lands.
Inside, three separate museums occupy different floors and the basement, so you are essentially getting a full day's worth of collections under one roof. The Archaeological Museum keeps the automaton rooster from Strasbourg's 1354 astronomical clock, which alone is worth the four euros.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back tend to go floor by floor on separate visits rather than attempting all three museums at once. The Decorative Arts rooms on the ground floor — Cardinal apartments rebuilt after the 1944 bombing, dressed in stuccoes and Rococo furnishings — are where most linger longest. First Sunday of the month gets you in free.
The story behind Palais Rohan
Cardinal Armand Gaston Maximilien de Rohan commissioned the palace in 1727, and Robert de Cotte — the royal architect who had worked on Versailles — drew up the designs. Construction ran from 1732 to 1742 under municipal architect Joseph Massol, with sculptor Robert Le Lorrain providing the reliefs. The finished building hosted Louis XV, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, and Charles X at various points in its life.
On 11 August 1944, British and American bombs struck the palace, and a fire in 1947 destroyed a significant portion of the Fine Arts collection. Restoration continued in stages and was not fully complete until the 1990s. The palace was listed as a monument historique in 1920, long before the damage that would test that designation most severely.
Good to know
Tram Line A to Langstross Grand Rue or Broglie puts you two minutes away. The palace closes Tuesdays and several public holidays; check before going. Budget an hour per museum if collections are your thing; a single-floor visit works fine if your time is short.
Where is Palais Rohan?
More tickets & tours for Palais Rohan
Book directly at the provider
What travellers say about Palais Rohan
A very impressive museum in the heart of Strasbourg, with rotating exhibitions and static exhibitions. From fine art to photography at its finest. Also to be seen is the palace itself with its ornate furnishings and the unique history of its being. The staff are friendly and polite and also a museum shop offers some excellent memories of your visit.
This palace is most impressive. Well worth the modest entry charge. If you like to see such pkaces then it's not to be missed!
This is basically 3 museums, on 3 different floors. The day pass would be best if you want to see more than 2 museums. There was also a temporary exhibition. It was amazing to see, but I wish there was an audio guide or a guided tour. There was a written guide which was nice, but it would be much better if you could walk and listen. Also the layout of the museums were a bit confusing. In some rooms there was only French descriptions. There is a locker room that does not need coins.
Two adults visited the Archaeological Museum and the Fine Arts Museum located in the Palais Rohan in Strasbourg, France, on a Wednesday in mid-June. We were visiting Strasbourg as part of a river cruise and had several hours free. We spent about one hour in each museum and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves while barely scratching the surface of each museum. We hope to return someday to finish our tours. Both museums offer a handset with an excellent guide in English to some of the objects in the museums. Very few of the actual exhibits in the museums had English translation descriptions, so we felt like we missed some of the context from the exhibits. There was no available Wi-Fi in the museums so we couldn't use Google Lens to translate the descriptions from French to English like we were able to in some of the museums in Germany. However, the exhibits were excellent overall. Note that the entire museum complex closes from 1 to 2 pm each day for lunch. Free lockers are available to store large items like backpacks.
A beautiful building and art. A lot of religious art in the Beaux Arts museum section but a good variety of later art genres. The archaeology museum in its basement is small but well put together with a few reconstructed Roman rooms which work well. The decorative arts museum has the bedrooms of Napoléon and Marie Antoinette in it. Worth a visit, opposite the cathedral. You can buy a 24 hr pass that lets you into all three museums in the palace.
More of Strasbourg
Discover where to stay, what to do and the best deals for your trip.
Explore Strasbourg →More attractions in Strasbourg
All of Strasbourg →
Background adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · ratings & place photos via Google · other photos with per-image credit. Ticket links may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you.