Easter Weekend Part 2: The heart of Alsace

After checking out Eguisheim, we headed to the very top of the Alsace region to the city of Strasbourg.  Strasbourg is a big city with distinctive Alsatian elements in the architecture, cuisine, and culture.

The historic, Petite France area of Strasbourg

The grand, gothic cathedral in the center of Strasbourg. The colors of the stone were amazing.

Alsatian food is quite heavy and full of creams and meats

On Sunday morning, we drove through the "Route des Vins", a local 170 kilometer road that winds through vineyards and goes through one beautiful village after another.  To get to the Route des Vins, we set our GPS to one of the towns on the route and then followed the signs for the "Route des Vins" from there.  

A map of the Route des Vins

Along the Route des Vins, we stopped for lunch in Riquewihr, a town surrounded by a perfectly preserved medieval wall. While beautiful, I would caution that Riquewihr is very full of tourists so it seems almost not real at points.

Standing outside of the medieval wall in Riquewihr

The wall that surrounds Riquewihr

By evening, we made our way to Kientzheim, the hometown village of one of my friends from Geneva.  Pauline has shown me pictures of her wonderful village in the past and I was excited to finally see it.  At her suggestion, we stayed in an old abbey that was converted into a hotel and we had dinner with her and her husband at a wonderful restaurant in Riquewhir.  Eating at a 1 star Michelin restaurant in the middle of a medieval city was a uniquely French experience, with food that looked as pretty as it tasted!

Overlooking the vineyards of Keintzheim from our hotel

A pretty courtyard that we found

The town of Kayersberg, next to Kientzheim

Kayersberg

On Monday we met Pauline and her father at their family vineyard tasting room.  Pauline's family owns Domaine Paul Blanck and Fis which produces wines from Alsatian vineyards that are hundreds of years old. A little tid bit on Alsatian wine: the region is known for its Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Gris, and others. Wines from Alsace can be easily identified by their trademark long neck wine bottles.

Pauline's father Philippe gave us one of the most educational and inspirational wine tastings we have ever had.  Not only did we get to taste their fantastic wines but we learned more about wine tasting from one hour with Philippe than we have from all other wine tastings put together.

Taking home some wine after our wine tasting with Philippe Blanck

EAT: Fink Stuebel in Strasbourg and La Table du Gourmet in Riquewihr

STAY: Hotel D in Strasbourg and Hotel L'Abbaye d'Alspach in Keintzheim

PLAY: Route des Vins, Riquewhir, Kientzheim, Kayersberg, Domaine Paul Blanck and Fils

Easter Weekend Part 1: Northern Switzerland and Alsace

We spent the long Easter weekend taking a road trip through Northern Switzerland and Alsace this year. Alsace was a destination that I've had on my Europe bucket list for several years now, mostly because of the photos I had seen of its gorgeous, quaint villages that look like they have been plucked right out of a story book.

I like to think of our journey on Friday as the "Pinterest day" because I chose our destinations based on Pins of Switzerland that had popped up for me over the past year. We first visited the Rhine falls in Northern Switzerland which is Europe's largest waterfall.  Despite the weather being cold and wet, we took a quick CHF8 boat trip to a little rocky island in the center of the falls and climbed steep stairs to overlook the rushing water.  We weren't overly impressed by the falls; but, then again I have heard that the late spring is a better time to visit because there is a lot of melting snow water passing through.

The falls from the rocky island in the center

Lots o water

The falls from afar, the rocky island in the center is the one that we climbed up

After leaving the Rhine falls, we drove to our hotel destination a half hour away in a tiny town in Northern Switzerland called Stein am Rhein.  Again another Pinterest destination, this tiny town mesmerized me. It is surrounded by a medieval wall and all of the buildings in town are decorated with intricate paintings and colors.  Many buildings were constructed in the 1300s!  Seriously, walking around this village had me at many times asking myself, is this place real?!  I promptly declared it the winner of my prettiest village in Europe award.

Waking up on Saturday morning, we began the second leg of our trip leaving Switzerland and entering Germany through a corner of the Black Forest (a great drive) and then passing back into France into the region of Alsace.  Three countries in one morning!  Alsace is on the border of Germany and France and has changed nationalities many times throughout its storied history. This contributes to a unique culture which is infused with a special Alsatian French dialect, Germanic cuisine, and architecture that alternates between Germanic, French, and Gothic styles.  In addition to its unique culture and beautiful architecture, Alsace is also a well known wine producing region (more on this later).

At the recommendation of my grandmother, our first stop in Alsace was Eguisheim, a medieval walled Alsatian village.  Again, literally out of a story book, but with a uniquely Alsatian touch, brightly colored buildings squished together vying for space in tiny, cobblestone alleyways. The weather was dreadfully cold but we were able to walk around and explore. I can imagine this little town is overrun with tourists in the summer, so although it was freezing, there were minimal tourists, so we were able to experience Eguisheim as it should be, a living village.

More on the second (warmer!) half of our Easter weekend road trip in the next blog post.

EAT: Nothing noteworthy
STAY: Hotel Chlosterhof
PLAY: Rhine falls (during the late spring), Stein am Rhein, Eguisheim