Tour to Haut-Koenigsbourg Chateau, some wine villages.

We decided to take a tour in a small bus to Koenigsbourg Chateau and some wine villages. We had a terrific, well informed guide Chloe, and as it turned out we were the only two had booked, so it ended up being a private tour.

The turreted Koenigsbourg Chateau sits strategically high on the hill.

Originally built in the 12th century, it was in tatters when it was faithfully restored by the German Emperor Wilhelm 11 to it's former glory at the beginning of the 20th century. It's pink sand stones were quarried from the surrounding Vosges Mountains.

 

Through the portcullis.

The draw bridge. The fortification at this castle are very serious indeed.

 

Inside many of the rooms are decorated.

 

A Duch oven for heating.

 

An enclosed spiral staircase.

 

This chap really means it!

 

On another draw bridge.

 

A gorgeous view from the top tower. You can see across the Rhine plain as far as the Black Forest in Germany and on a clearer day, the Alps.

 

 

Looking down on one of the wine villages.

 

 

This is the entrance to our guide Chloe's village, Bergheim.

Wine tasting at the area's oldest winegrowers' co-operative founded in 1895, the Cave de Ribeauville. The wines in the Alsace area are mainly white, especially Reisling. The one red is Pinot Noir. Joy liked their sparkling Cremant.

We also stopped at Riquewihr, another beautifully preserved medieval village enclosed by ramparts and the most popular with tourists. By now we were a bit perfect chocolate box villaged out and were looking around for a bit of graffiti or even a bit of rubbish. Not to be found.

A happy wine maker.

Chloe makes friends with a stork.

 

 

Riding to Munster and Equisheim

We hired a bike from Colmar for a couple of days and rode out to some lovely wine villages.

Here we go again, another Tour de France hill!! Actually we followed the bike path up a pretty valley to Munster. It was a steady climb the whole way, with a few little hills thrown in for good measure and it took quite a time to do the 25 or so kilometres to get there. Coming back to Colmar was a quick wiz.

Quite a bit of the riding was through forest, which was just as well considering the heat that day.

 

We spotted quite a few villages like this on the rolling hills along the way.

The storks of Alsace greeted us in Munster. Can you believe there were only 20 storks left in Alsace in the 1970s. Not too good, especially as they are the emblem of the area. A conservation program was set up and now they are everywhere again (a bit like crocodiles in the NT).

They always seem to make their nests on top of tall buildings, like churches.

 

Munster's Main Street.

Munster is famous for it's cheese (of course we had never heard of it) so we had to buy some. Turns out it is a soft cheese, liked by Bill but too smelly for Joy.

These musician statues were everywhere in town.

 

Next day our bike trip was to Eguisheim, chosen as one of the most beautiful villages in France. We took a roundabout way to avoid the traffic. A lot of the ride was by rivers and canals.

 

A cross in the wheat fields.

 

Eguisheim certainly lives up to it's reputation. It's beautiful. This is the Neo-Romantic style church.

 

The Chateau St Leon.

 

Bill by the fountain with the church and castle in the background.

 

Lots of flowers everywhere of course.

 

A long medieval street surrounds the village, built on the old ramparts of the castle.

 

This is a typical house owned by winemakers. The living part is at the top and the wooden doors at the bottom lead to the courtyard where the wine is processed. The doors are wide enough to let the carts in.

 

 

Colmar, Alsace, France 30 June - 6 July

Wow, Colmar's large old town is picture book perfect. We think we may be in a medieval folk tale. The town was built between the 15th and 17th century. This is Quai de la Poissonerie, the former fishers' quarter.

 

We have a gorgeous little timber framed medieval apartment overlooking The Square de la Montagne Verte for six nights. It is great to be able to spread ourselves out and to prepare most of our own food.

 

Our building is the white one and we are on the first floor with the three open shutters.

 

View of the square from our windows.

 

The little tourist train trundles by on the cobble stones every so often.

 

Colmar is known as Little Venice, because of the canals flowing through it, so first thing we did was to take a little boat ride in a flat bottom canal boat.

 

Because Alsace is close to the German border, and has been German territory several times in it's history, it is a bit of a hybrid culture. You see typical French shutters on typical old worldy timber framed German buildings. Also they speak French and Alsatian here, which is a language more like German.

 

All the bridges are beautifully flower decked.

 

We needed to duck down to go under this bridge.

 

The market is by the canal which was partly build for farmers to bring their goods to the original medieval market.

 

Is this a chocolate box or what?

 

The Rue des Tanneurs, where the rooftops were used to dry the freshly tanned hides.

 

The Customs House.

 

The Mansion of Tetes, or House of Heads.

 

An evening photo of the town.

 

 

 

Last day of riding and Macon 30th June

Today was described as flat and easy, but there were quite a few little hills actually and a couple of long ones too. Easy enough, but certainly not flat. Sometime we wonder if these people who write the instructions have actually ridden the routes.

 

The highlight was the Tunnel du Bois Clair which is 1.6 metres long and was built in the 19th century. It is the longest European train tunnel restored into a route for cyclists. Here we are excitedly posing before we entered the tunnel.

 

Luckily it is lit up all the way along.

 

Stalagmites have already built up in the tunnel.

It must have been slightly down hill, as no sooner were we in than we were out again.

 

The castle at Berze la Ville.

 

Some goats amongst the beech trees.

 

 

We arrived in Macon to much excitement and shouting and hooting as France had just beaten Nigeria in one of the World Cup Football matches.

Our last nights celebration dinner was in a lovely old, very French, restrauant, La Lamartine, named for a famous French poet who came from Macon. It was also officially Ian's first day of retirement, so great celebrations all round.

 

You can see a portrait of the Romantic poet Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869) behind us.

 

Macon's Neo-Roman Saint Pierre' Cathedral.

 

Joy and Lyn lounge about next to the Cathedral.

 

Next morning the view from our hotel room was this building...

 

and men weeding the football floral display...

and Lyn and Ian hurrying off for an early morning train to Austria.

 

We spent until after lunch looking around Macon, before taking our train to Colmar. Only of moderate interest, Macron is on the Saone River. 

 

Lamatine's statue graces the water front.