One More Alsation Wine Village

While there are innumerable little medieval villages dotted along the Alsace Wine Road, some are much prettier and more charming than others.  For that reason, they have become much more popular with tourists.  From my perspective, they are:  Eguisheim, Bergheim, Obernai, Riquewihr, Ribeauville, and Kaysersberg.  Some people may also include Kintzheim, Itterswiller, Mittelbergheim, St. Hippolyte, Dambach la Ville, and Zellenberg.  While they are also lovely, for some reason they don't attract tourists the way the others do. 

Since we arrived here, we have visited Obernai, Riquewihr, Itterswiller and Eguisheim.  As well, we have driven through Mittelbergheim, Bergheim and St. Hippolyte.  Saturday, we set our sights on Kaysersberg and Ribeauville as destinations.  They are about a 3/4 hour drive from where we are staying.

We went first to Kaysersberg which, aside from being popular for its coloured, old half-timbered buildings, is where Albert Schweitzer was born.  We walked along its cobblestoned streets taking photos almost non-stop.  It is difficult to take a bad picture here!  There is a bridge in the village centre over the "river" which dates from the early 1500s and almost all of the houses on one street we walked along were built in the 1550s. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped at a plaque which I don't remember seeing before which commemorates the village's liberation by US forces in December, 1944.

There are two lavoirs in Kaysersberg where the village woman would gather to do their laundry.  Wow!  Doesn't that sound like fun - maybe not so much!  One currently has an art installation in it.

 

We noticed clouds were gathering and, lucky for us, we were already heading back to the car when we heard the thunder and the rain started.  We just had time to take a photo of the castle on the hill behind the village.

On the drive to Ribeauville (only about 12 km north), the storm hit with a vengeance.  At times it was raining so hard that I had to pull over and stop driving because the visibility was that bad.  The consensus was to skip visiting that last village on our list and make a run for home.  That storm finished the day for us so, unfortunately, there are no photos of Ribeauville!  We would have been soaked to the skin if we'd walked in that weather!

We stayed in for dinner and, for dessert, concocted a treat made with spiced bread, strawberries and a slice of vanilla Vienetta ice cream.  We called it "Covfefe" in reference to Trump's gaffe and the fact that there was spiced (Spicer?) bread in it.  Ha ha!  It sure was delicious though!