Wining and dining along the Alsace wine trail

Thursday 30^th June

We have spent the past 2 days on the Alsace wine trail. We decided to visit one of the castles along the trail before we started any wine tasting. Haut-Koenigsbourg. This castle was superb. The earliest record of this castle dates back to the 12^th century. Early in the 1900s William II of Germany undertook a major restoration of the castle with the aim of making it a museum of the middle ages. Visionary on his part and well worth stopping to look at. So different to the castle we visited the other day where they had renovated but taken all the character and heart out of the castle.

Looking out across the Rhine River valley and to the Jura mountains in Germany from Haut-Koenigsbourg.

A few different views of the castle.

This is a ceramic tile heater - not sure how they work but they had different ones in a few of the rooms.

After lunch at the castle we continued on down the wine trail. We stopped at another small medieval village, Riquewihr. A compact little village where there are no cars except for locals. It is listed as one of the Plus Beaux Villages de France and has real charm. There were some lovely shops in this town and I managed to part with a few euros here.

More storks - saw lots of them in the Alsace region.

More half wood buildings.

 

We thought we needed to make bookings to go and taste the wines but the lady in the tourist office in Strasbourg said that no, all the caves were in the villages and if they were open for tasting we could just rock up. So yesterday we went to our first wine tasting. Nothing appealed to me as they were mostly very dry. We resisted the urge to buy some as we can only buy what we can drink before we leave France.

Our drive today took us along the western side of the Rhine river valley which would be about 20k wide. On the western side of the valley are the Vosges Mountains and on the lower eastern slopes were all the vineyards. They were a beautiful limey green and rows and rows of vines – a patchwork quilt of vines.

Just a few of the vines along one of the exit roads from Riquewihr.

We are staying in a B&B in another small village along the trail. It is a lovely B&B with stunning views from the terrace across the valley to the Jura Mountains in Germany.

Last night we ventured to the village of Eguisheim for dinner. This is another of the Plus Beaux Villages de France. Driving in to the village we noticed storks nesting on several of the taller houses and buildings – we have seen them in a few of the villages along the way in the Alsace region and apparently they are one of the local attractions. When we came out from dinner around sunset we could hear them clack-clack-ing in their nests.

Eguisheim...

...and its storks.

 

More shop shingles throughout this town.

We decided to take a bit of a drive first thing on Thursday and head across to the Rhine River; about 20k. Where the road crosses the river there is a lock and we stood there for over half an hour and watched barges and cruise boats pass through the lock. It is really quite impressive to see how fast the water goes in and out of the locks.

Looking across to Germany - and one of the cruise ships. Lots of white swans on the river. I didn't get too close as they can be quite aggressive.

When we were in France two years ago we visited Colmar and were quite taken with the village so were keen to go back and explore some more. We were a bit disappointed to find that it didn’t line up with our memories at all. Last time I think we found the old village by accident and this was what grabbed our attention. This time we found ourselves in the centre of the town, which is more modern with shops and wide pedestrian avenues to wander along. Don’t get me wrong – we still liked the town, but the centre didn’t have the same old village charm of the old town.

A few scenes of Colmar.

After Colmar we headed back to our ‘home village’ with a detour to the Three Chateaux that we could see on the hill nearby. This is actually the ruins of three different chateaux. It was quite a steep climb up to the chateaux so I waited by the car while Rob walked up the hill. He said the views were spectacular.

The ruins of Dagsbourg castle. See the following photos of Dagsbourg restaurant in Eguisheim.

The view to the east from Dagsbourg castle.

Finally we headed back into Eguisheim for dinner again. We found a different restaurant in one of the streets that circles the inside of the village. It was lovely to sit in the street and watch the passing parade of people. This was just a beautiful village to wander from one end to the other. We have found the villages in this part of France to be very colourful with houses being painted bright colours and lots of flower boxes and planter boxes in the towns and house windows, and all in bloom. We are really enjoying this part of France.

 

This was the shingle hanging at the restaurant - notice the castle as in the photo above.

The outdoor seating for the restaurant was on both sides of the street. No cars in this street,