Saint-Dié-des-Vosges

Saint-Dié-des-Vosges is a town of 20,000 people (2018) in Lorraine.

Understand
A major part was destroyed in November, 1944 and was rebuilt largely in a material imitating red sandstone.

After World War II, the right bank of the river Meurthe was completely razed and most people lived outside the town in wood cabins for decades. The radical plan created by Le Corbusier in 1945, which called for a large plaza with factories and other buildings in the heart of the city, was rejected in 1947, and only one private factory belonging to Jean-Jacques Duval was ever built. There were no means nor materials in this terrible period and the great street called "rue Thiers" was finished only at the end of 1954.

The river Meurthe flows in the Permian basin of Saint-Dié surrounded by wooded mountains Ormont, Kemberg and La Madeleine. The peaks of these mountains are 550 metres (1,800 feet) high, and are composed of Triassic formations, especially the so-called "Vosges sandstone", a kind of red sandstone.

Get in
Saint-Dié is 80 km (50 mi) southeast of Nancy and 45 km (28 mi) of Lunéville.

By train
is served approximately once an hour by regional express trains (TER) from Nancy via Lunéville, the journey takes a little over an hour. In Nancy there is a connection to the TGV from Paris. A TER runs five times a day from Épinal to Saint-Dié, also taking an hour.

From Strasbourg there is only one TER to Saint-Dié a day. The nearest more important train station on the Alsatian side is in Sélestat, 45 km away, on the Strasbourg - Colmar - Mulhouse - Basel route. There you can change to the bus to Saint-Dié every two hours. From Strasbourg it takes a total of 1 hr 45 min by bus and train, from Colmar 1½ hours, from Basel SBB 2 hr 10 min.

By bus
On weekdays, bus 30428 runs every two hours from Sélestat train station to Saint-Dié, travel time 70 minutes.

By car
Saint-Dié-des-Vosges is on the route nationale N59. This leads from Sélestat/Strasbourg in one direction and Lunéville/Nancy in the other direction. From the prefecture town of Épinal you can get to Saint-Dié via the D420 departmental road (50 km, 55 minutes). From Nancy it is approx. 85 km (driving time about an hour); 90 km from Strasbourg (just under 1½ hours).

Get around
The urban transit bus network is called "Sylvia".

Do

 * The city has 220 km of marked hiking trails including the #533 long-distance hiking trail linking Moselle Lorraine to the Vosges counties.
 * Le Chemin des Abbayes. Short railway cycle path that connects 3 abbeys, 8 km from Étival to Senones.