Alsace
... to Colmar
09/07/10 18:52 Categorised as: Holidays | Summer 2010
castles everywhere. All ruined. Border country, eh!
This shot from Huhnawihr
Our jaunt ended in Colmar - a working town, not a tourist-magnet, but well worth a visit, especially to the area styled “La Petite Venise”
and here, at the end of the Route des Vins, were the vins....
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...onward down the Route des Vins...
09/07/10 16:58 Categorised as: Holidays | Summer 2010
a stork’s nest overlooks the entry to the village of Ribeauvillé
and just a little further along, at the “Centre de Réintroduction des Cigognes et des Loutres” (Centre for the Reintroduction of Storks and Otters) at Hunawihr, storks patrol the car park (we didn’t go in)
We didn’t spend much time at Riquewihr, either. It may be one of the “Plus Beau Villages de France”, but it’s milking its status to the point of being nigh-unvisitable. Here’s a quite corner...
If only it had all been so calm!
morning in Obernai, then out on the Route des Vins
09/07/10 10:07 Categorised as: Holidays | Summer 2010
wake up & it’s an Obernai morning & the first thing that we see, over breakfast, is the geraniums in the Place du Marché
They’re almost everywhere else you look too.
This place is barely French, architecturally...
...but perhaps the more intriguing for that Tuetonic touch...
... it feels like the buildings here look eastwards, directly towards Prague, perhaps.
Years ago, driving back up France towards the Channel, a young friend remarked to Jim that northern France is more “French”, while the south is less French, more Mediterranean. In this trip to eastern France we were to find our attention drawn to a less French, more mittel-Europan architecture and ambiance.
Ideas for future trips rush in... but for today, it’s off to explore Alsace, and after a wrong turn up the forest-engulfed Mont Ste. Odile, we’re away on the Route des Vins, to Itterswiller...
(there’s Ruth checking the menu at the Weinstub - it wasn’t the food, or the prices, but the bus-load of tourists that deterred us from eating here)
and Bergheim...
...altogether a lieu plus sympa, and a good place for lunch...
passage to Obernai
08/07/10 23:04 Categorised as: Holidays | Summer 2010
the second night finds us in Alsace
in the town of Obernai, where we stay for a couple of nights in the Hostellerie de la Diligence. Our room overlooks the Place du Marché
which is worth a couple more shots. I think:
La Diligence is certainly one of the nicest Logis we’ve encountered so far on our “tent and logis” travels