France remains the world's most popular country in terms of foreign tourist arrivals, according to official figures - and quite deservedly in the opinion of tens of millions of visitors. Many of its cities and regions have, through familiarity, entered the popular imagination and consciousness, from glamorous Cote d'Azur and lavender and cypress-scented Provence to seductive Paris and raffish Marseilles.
For decades, Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace in northeastern France, has borne a rather staid image as a city where red tape takes precedence over red wine. But that unfair perception is set to change, thanks to a new high-speed TGV rail-link from the city to Paris which opened last month, cutting the four-hour trip to a mere two hours and 20 minutes.
It also finally connected Strasbourg with the growing pan-European network of high-speed lines that stretches from the London end of Eurostar, through France to Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and beyond.
Strasbourg is the seat of many of the continent's most important institutions, including the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, and the European Court of Human Rights, and so integration into this network would appear long overdue.
As a result of having been off the high-speed steel track for so long, the city as a destination has remained a largely overlooked vintage, medium-bodied and complex, in the vast wine cellar of French destinations. Enjoyed slowly, it reveals its charms as viscerally as a fine Riesling from one of the vineyards on the hills overlooking the city.
Located in the Rhine Valley between France's Vosages mountains and Germany's Black Forest, Strasbourg with its population of about 650,000, is a compact metropolis built on a human scale, but whose historic centre is sufficiently grand to have been awarded World Heritage site status by Unesco in 1988.