Knit Two Together And Travel Too!

I've reached to my last post about Alsace. The trip started and ended in Colmar. Colmar has really nice old city center which is full of tourists. We spent there a day and it was enough. You can see pretty much everything there is in a day. So what did we see?

When we arrived we first went to see the market because it's not open every day. The building looks really nice from the outside and is surrounded by the water.  Inside you can find lots of fresh vegetables and fruits, some cheese, meat products and fish. There are also couple of small cafes offering lunch.


Sculptor who is the author of Liberty statue is from Colmar. We visited his museum. It's quite small but interesting because for many works they have also his sketches on display and you can see how the idea developed. That was really fascinating.

Next to the museum is Saint Martin Church. It's quite huge and has a nice mosaic roof.


The canals of Colmar are just nice. There's even an area called Little V…

Riquewihr is officially considered to be one of the prettiest villages in France. And it really is worth seeing! The whole old center is really well preserved and absolutely beautiful. It is really popular among tourists and we were smart enough to make a dinner reservation. The restaurant where we had dinner got really packed.  And now I'll let the photos do the talking.




Last small town we visited before returning to Colmar was Turckheim. Turckheim has also quite well preserved old center but it's much quieter there than in the other towns in the area. I guess it's still a little bit undiscovered by the tourists. So if you want to stay in a nice town that is not yet so touristic then I recommend Turckheim.




Some useful linksOfficial tourist info of Riquewihr and Ribeauville - http://www.ribeauville-riquewihr.com/Riquewihr pdf - http://apps.tourisme-alsace.info/photos/ribeau/photos/229001752_d11.pdfTurckheim tourist info - http://www.turckheim.com/en/

Bergheim is mostly famous for its witch trials in the past. There is a museum about it but unfortunately it is opened only in the afternoons and we were in Bergheim in the morning. Just reading about it is already fascinating...

Bergheim is quite small but charming and there are less tourists compared to the other surrounding villages.

From Bergheim we continued to Saint-Hippolyte to see the festival of new wine. It was a village festival with some folk music but nothing too spectacular. From there we hiked to the castle of Haut-Koeningsbourg. It's quite a lot of going uphill and you feel really glad when you finally reach there. Going down is much easier. The castle itself is quite big and as it's located on a hill you can see quite far. And now some photos:




Some useful linksBergheim history - http://apps.tourisme-alsace.info/photos/ribeau/photos/229001745_d11.pdfHaut-Koeningsbourg - http://www.haut-koenigsbourg.fr/en/Hiking around the castle - http://www.tourisme-alsace.com…

Hunawihr is a small old village very close to Kientzheim. It's quiet and not very touristic.

You can just walk a little bit around but don't need to plan too much time for a visit. Village's main attraction is the old fortified church.

From Hunawihr we continued to Ribeauville. Ribeauville is much bigger and there you can meet more tourists. It's not as crowded of tourists as Kaysersberg. As you can see the gingerbread theme continues:


Canals, flowers and old colorful houses:


From the town you can see the castle ruins. It's Saint-Ulrich castle. We didn't go up there though.


On the main square there was really nice book exchange set up:


And here is the most famous site of Ribeauville - its clock tower:

Kientzheim is a small charming village where we stayed. It's conveniently located very close to all the more famous old villages and towns. Kaysersberg which is one of the most touristic towns in the area is just 2 km away.

Kientzheim charmed me from the very first sight. Old houses, narrow streets and small water canals. Hardly any tourists compared to all the other villages.

There is not much to do in Kientzheim itself, although there is one museum but if you like to bike or hike then it is a good place to start your days.

As I already said it's only 2 km to Kaysersberg. It's quite amazing that only with 2 km you get from peace and quiet to a town full of tourists.


Gingerbreads are one of the local specialties that  you can get all year around. And as you can see there are even houses that look like gingerbread houses.



One fun thing to do in this whole area is to look at the signs of small businesses. They are really creative and self-explanatory.


We climbed to the c…

Couple of weeks ago we spent a long weekend in Alsace. We took a bus from Zürich to Colmar and from there rented bikes to get around. It was very nice and relaxing way of getting around because there is quite good bike route network between vineyards. There are hills so occasionally it takes quite a lot of effort to go further.

Here is the agenda:

Day 1
Arrived to Colmar.
Had lunch in Colmar and then biked to Kientzheim where we stayed at a lovely bed&breakfast.
Kientzheim and Kaysersberg.

Day 2
Biked from Kientzberg to Saint-Hippolyte and back.
On the way made stops at:

HunawihrRibeauvilleBergheimChâteau du Haut-KœnigsbourgRiquewihrDay 3 Biked back to Colmar. On the way passed by: KatzenthalTurckheim Did some sightseeing in Colmar and took the bus back to Zürich. 
I will write more about all the visited places. In short I really liked the area - little medieval towns and villages, endless vineyards, hills, castles, good food, wine and nice weather. What more could you ask for?
And h…