For 227 years, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg held a peculiar record: the tallest building on Earth.

From 1647 until a Hamburg church finally overtook it in 1874, this pink sandstone spire dominated the skyline at 142 metres, a Gothic skyscraper designed for two towers but finished, mysteriously, with just one. Inside, the astronomical clock steals the show.

Three clocks have occupied this spot since the 1350s, each more ambitious than the last. The current version, rebuilt in 1843, tracks not just hours but planetary positions, lunar phases, and eclipses. At half past noon, automated figures parade past Death while a mechanical rooster crows. Its predecessor's gilded cockerel, still preserved across the square, is thought to be the world's oldest surviving automaton.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the cathedral's role in Strasbourg's turbulent history: four fires, Protestant and Catholic claims, and a city perpetually caught between France and Germany.