Our days in Alsace, France

Breakfast in Riquewihr, France

7/14/10 -We are in the quaint little midevil town known as Riquewihr in France. It is in the region of Alsace, and is a favorite wine growing valley and visiting spot of French and German vacationers. We’ve only met one other American couple here so far and they were not great representatives of the US. Our day started off in the small walled village (fortress) called Rothenberg, Germany. Rick Steve’s swears by this historical spot…however small it may be we found it loaded with tourists (not us of course..ha) and even busloads with tour guides. It lost a bit of its magic for us because of this. Still we found a sweet little hotel suggested as reasonable but classy in our tour book “Le Gerberhaus” (we rolled in around 8PM after a long drive from Munich and getting lost for 2 hours). A warm evening stroll within this gothic picture book town found us in search of a nice place to eat. We found one, next to another amazingly old (14th century) church where the choir was practicing and sounded great. It was on an upper veranda lit with garden lights in the trees. The only thing that spoiled this amazing ambiance was the loaded Texans at the next table who all had their cell phones out. I was lucky enough to find pasta. This was a brautwurst and sauerkraut kind of place. On our way home there were much fewer loud tourists and we strolled the cobblestone pathways to our hotel.. .when all of a sudden a rat the size of a small cat walked out into the middle of the road. It was all I could do to walk forward…. Ugh! We found this place to have more charm the following morning as we ran by a pathed graveyard and bishops residence. Let me tell you the Catholic church has presence everywhere in Europe…. But having been raised Catholic, it is sweet to me. . however I was ready to get to France… Lyle was apprehensive about distance, but all these countries are so close, I knew it could be done. We had researched a lot about the Alsace region (or wine country). It took us hours of negotiating maps and crazy driving on the autobahn and smaller country roads but we found this place around 6PM. We looked for ColmarRick Steves' suggestion in the guidebook. Knowing it has some remarkable features “Petite Venice with canals and Gondolas” we decided to check it out but the size and busyness of the place made us reconsider and head to a quiet little village we had passed through. There we found a Chambre/Zimmer for 58E or with breakfast 68E. To our delight it wasn’t just a room but an entire little chateau behind their main house, situated in a garden with it’s own private veranda and patio. Very clean and with antiquitated charm we grabbed it. The owners are Jose’ and Lucy and they don’t speak a work of English… which matches our ability to speak French. So we used Spanish, German and hand signals to communicate and it worked. Soon we were off to explore Ricquewihr...and the other small villages in the beautiful valley of France.

7/15 – We slept in but awoke to our in room breakfast that came with the deal , croissants, juice and coffee set up in the small kitchen living area in the main room. Both Lucy and Jose were off to work and we had this place to ourselves. After waking late (9am – I laid in be counting the church bells… one, two, three..”) we decided today’s experience would be to rent bikes and explore the small villages on the bike path which cuts right through the vineyards. It was an overcast and cloudy day but temps were still in the 80’s. Right after lunch and some explorig we went directly to the bike shop (it was now 3:30 PM) and rented two bikes. Luckily the shop owner knew some English and directed us to the first town Bergheim. Now this is life, some exercise, fresh air and exquisite scenery, we were both thrilled with our choice. We found our comfort zone, off the busy roads and into the beautiful farmland of the country.