Yes, We Have No Crémant

Wednesday, September 30 -- Another beautiful morning for a run, and I went up the hills through the vineyards and down through neighboring towns of Hunawihr and Zellenberg.  The latter is actually a little off the road, so maybe I did not run through the main street.  Still a nice morning, and five miles pretty much exactly.

Back at the apartment in Riquewihr, everyone was up and bustling about.  We found that the little red Nespresso coffee machine had given up the ghost, so we made coffee with a normal drip percolator.  In my view, better coffee. 

We set off driving, and decided on my recommendation (as well as positive reviews in the guidebooks) to visit Hunawihr.  We parked in the designated car parking area near the water tanks where Saint Hune, who was canonized in 1520, grew up around the fountain.  The tradition claims that she came there to wash the clothes of the poor.

I had not noticed so much on my morning run the 15th/16th century Church of St Jacques le Majeur overlooking the town of Hunawihr.  The church itself is surrounded by a fortified cemetery (you don't see so many of those).  Moreover, it is a good example of a church that also served as a donjon where the inhabitants could take refuge in case of attack.  The church had once been Catholic and then later Protestant, so the cemetery was divided into the respective faiths. Catholics put up better monuments to their departed family members.

We continued on to Zellenberg, and eventually to Ammerschwihr. On the way we stopped to take pictures of the fantastic garden, graced with gnomes and all sorts of nonsense, alongside the D1b highway.  

Neither Zellenberg nor Ammerschwihr seemed particularly welcoming to tourists.  In one of them, it may have been Zellenberg, we found our way to the premier vintner's courtyard, but the guy we found there had no interest in accommodating us.  We drove on to Ammerschwihr, but they were pretty much closed for lunch too.

In the end, we turned back toward Ribeauvillé. We found a modest cafe on the main street and settled in, enjoying the bright sunshine.  A number of bikers stopped in while we were there, because this is a main spot on the trail up to three castle ruins in the nearby Vosges Mountains.

After lunch and little look around Ribeauvillé, we continued on in search of a good tasting opportunity.  We stopped in the village of Bergheim at the vineyard of Emile et Yvette Halbeisen.  

They were friendly and helpful, but that day were not tasting crémant -- the

sparkling white wine based on pinot gris or champagne grapes -- that day, much to our disappointment.  We did proceed however to taste some riesling and to buy a couple bottles. That was, however, nothing like the seven or eight cases of wine that the girls from Germany were squeezing into their car parked next to us.

Our evening repast was set for the Michelin-rated restaurant, L'Sarment d'Or, in Riquewihr. It features bare 17th century beams, a large medieval fireplace, and is reputed to offer regional cuisine -- things like goose rillettes,

salad and mushrooms, foie gras and Gewurztraminer jelly, veal kidney, fillet of beef with pepper… Marcia said the sauteed fresh foie gras with chanterelles was absolutely fabulous! All of us agreed our main courses were fine, although a bit understated. Most people really enjoyed their desserts, but Marcia's chestnut dessert maybe wasn't the best choice.  

In the end, it was a fine end to our Alsatian eating experience.

High Gothic: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg

 Tuesday, September 29 -- Another bright, sunny morning with the vineyard glowing outside our bathroom window. I decided to go for a 5-mile run through the vineyards, down the hill to Hunawihr, and then back through Zellenberg on the D1b, occasionally stepping of the road to let traffic go by. Workers were picking the late harvest grapes in the fields as I ran back into Riquewihr.

The River Ill

We drove to Strasbourg, about 70 kilometers or 45 minutes on the A35 superhighway. Following the signs for "centre ville" or  "Cathédrale" was sufficient direction to find our way into the city.  We parked in a public garage called Austerlitz near the Quai Saint-Nicolas.  In fact, the city center is on the Grande Île in the River Ill.  The Rhine is not far away, however. 



Well, it does not take too much walking before you turn a corner and there, just

beyond all the tourist shops, rises the towering (466 feet) reddish facade of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg.  Kind of takes your breath away.

We walked up for a closer look, and of course turned right to get a view of the flying buttresses.  This side is more Romanesque in architectural style, having been started in 1015.  



 
  

The inside of the cathedral is no less impressive, with a tall, steeply arched nave leading to the pulpit and the chancel, as well as stained glass windows dating back to the 1200's and 1400's.  We were told that these windows were removed during WWII and stored in a German salt mine.  they were returned to the Cathedral by the by the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section of the United States military -- "the Monuments men."

We paid for the tickets and waited about 45 minutes to see the famous 18-meter tall astronomical clock to strike.  Swiss watchmakers, sculptors, painters and creators of automatons all worked together to build this device.  At precisely 12:30 p.m. one angel sounds the bell while a second turns over an hourglass. Different characters, representing the ages of life (from a child to an old man) parade in front of Death. On the last level are the Apostles, passing in front of Christ. The clock shows much more than the official time; it also indicates solar time, the day of the week (each represented by a god of mythology), the month, the year, the sign of the zodiac, the phase of the moon and the position of several planets. Apparently it can even correctly calculate the date for Easter each year.

After all this hard work, we needed a coffee before setting out on more adventures.  The good news is that the cafes on the square in front of the cathedral do a pretty good business on a sunny morning.  We chose to be inside because it was just a little cool, but many seemed happy to soak up some sun. 

After refreshment, we walked off to the area called La Petite France.  Once the area of fishermen, tanners, and millers, today it is a well-preserved throwback to the old Strasbourg.  The Quai de la Petite France runs along the canal waters and there are nice views of the old houses.  We took some pictures there while searching for a good luncheon spot.  And the hunt for lunch took some doing, menu examination, and comparing of notes. 

La Petite France, Strasbourg

Our task was more difficult because it was a sunny day and many Strasbourgers were out enjoying the warmth. Eventually we found ourselves back on a street fairly close to the cathedral, but we did get a table and the tarte flambée was okay.  And, the wine was priced fairly.

As we drove back to Riquewihr, the idea of a wine tasting or dégustation seemed attractive to everyone.  It would be a chance to taste some of the characteristic wines produced by vignerons in Alsace – riesling, gewürztraminer, sylvaner and pinot noir. Every village we pass through is lined with wine cellars offering tastings.

 
Largely on Faye's recommendation, we turned in to the Trimbach estate in Ribeauvillé. After a couple of wrong turns in the work yard, we found the tasting room.  

The young lady was happy to help us, but she pointed out that we had to be quiet.  The owner was using the other side of the room to give a tasting to a group of wine buyers from America!  We could tell from what we overheard  that they were discussing wine very knowledgably.  

At one point Jean Trimbach came over, introduced himself, and offered us a taste of what he was showing the Americans -- a 2012 Selection de Vieiles Vignes riesling.  It was pretty fine. I was also impressed by the souvenir menus that graced the walls and other indications that the royal family of Sweden like Trimbach wines enough to serve them at family weddings and official state dinners.

We decided to take a few Trimbach bottles with us for "testing" back at the apartment in Riquewihr.  You know, just to be sure it is good stuff.

Back in Riquewihr we parked the car and wandered around the town a little.  As it was nearing six o'clock, the tourists were thinning out.  We planned to eat in the apartment, as I remember.

Bakery in Riquewihr

 
We did stop in the little bakery to buy some kugelhopf -- a a high, fluted, circular coffee bread that is apparently close to the hearts of Alsatians.  Dusted with powdered sugar just as it is sold, kugelhopf beckons from every bakery window.  

We discovered however that it is not sweet, but rather a neutral, plain flavor that could go fine with morning coffee or evening beer, or anything in between.  
  

A Pretty Good Castle (And Big, Too!)

Getting oriented in Kaysersberg

Monday, September 28 -- Lured by the listing of a good farmer's market in the nearby Alsatian town of Kaysersberg, we set off in morning sunshine.  The name of the town means Emperor's Mountain in German.
 
The fortress that dominates the city skyline serves as a reminder of both its strategic importance and its warlike past, but we did not bother to walk up there. Together with the rest of Alsace-Lorraine, Kaysersberg was very much part of Germany during the period between the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War.  The German influence is evident in shopkeeper's names and signposts.

Emperor Constantine

16th Century Fountain

Kaysersberg is said to be one of the finest wine growing areas in Alsace. (But then they all say that!)    The stories have it that the first vines were brought here in the 16th century from Hungary, and of course wine production is still an important aspect of the town's economy today. Wine produced from the Pinot gris variety is a local specialty.

Romanesque portal on l'Église Ste Croix

Weiss River

We wandered around the picturesque town, taking in the sights and looking into the little shops. Like other villages along the rue de vin this one features lots of half timbered houses, flower boxes overflowing with blossoms, and the river Weiss runs through it.

The fortified bridge over the Weiss was in the bright sunshine and a magnet for all the tourists, it seemed.

 
Kaysersberg is also the birthplace of of Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965), the famed theologian, musician, philosopher, and physician. His home is here, but on the basis of Rick Steve's expert recommendations, we thought it probably not worth the price of admission. 




The French seem to have an enthusiasm for recycling which manifests itself in twin and even triplet trash cans all over the cities.

The market itself turned out to be something of a disappointment.  Held in a car parking lot, it seemed to attract only a smattering of vendors selling vegetables, clothing, flowers, and some refrigerated trucks with meats, pate, and cheeses. There was nothing wrong with it except that it was much less in volume and local color than the ones I remembered from the Bordeaux region a few years ago.   
 

Port Haute from 51 Grand Rue

We soon moved on toward lunch, driving to Bergheim, a small village on the route des vins. We drove into the town, right through the 14th century Porte Haute fortified gate, looking for our restaurant, the Wistub du Sommelier at 51 Grand Rue.  That turned out to be the main street which goes right through the gate. It was just a hundred yards into the village.  I went back and put the car in the free parking lot outside the gate near the old lime tree.  I later read that it's a really old lime tree, thought to date from the 1300's.

Driving into Bergheim

 The Wistub had been recommended to us by mutual friends who described the "pork cheeks in red wine sauce" dish as "one of the best meals" they had ever eaten in Europe. Or something like that.

The restaurant's decor was cooly efficient, in smooth dark woods, grey place mats, and white napkins rolled around the silverware.  We began with a glass of crémant, the Alsace version of champagne, which even Dick thought was pretty good.  It is a little less bubbly than some sparkling wines.  With our meal, we had a nice Emil Beyer riesling wine from Eguisheim. And I thought the pork cheeks were pretty good too!

Wistub du Sommelier

Here, as in almost every restaurant during our two week trip, we  found the staff to be almost perfectly comfortable in English.  They routinely volunteered a description of the dish and its ingredients when serving you, and did not take anyone's plate away until all at the table were finished with their meal.   




It was not a long distance from Bergheim, but it was a steep climb up to château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg.  We wound back and forth up the switchbacks on the D1bis highway, with a certain amount of discussion of why you name a road the "D1 to" without saying "where to?" (In German, Dick said, "bis" means "until" or "to.")  On one of these curves was also where we met the Japanese tourist driving down the wrong side of the road -- a near miss!

Haut-Kœnigsbourg is a grand medieval castle near Orschwiller in the Vosges mountains just west of Sélestat.  It's right on the border between Haut Rhin and Bas Rhin, and it has a commanding view over the surrounding countryside and villages down on the plain. We had a look at the views before heading on foot up to the castle itself.

The castle dates from the early 1100's and was used by successive powers from the Middle Ages until the Thirty Years' War when it was abandoned. In the period from 1900 to 1908 it was rebuilt at the behest of the German emperor Wilhelm II.  His idea seems to have been to solidfy relations between Germany and Alsace, and to establish the links between his own Hohenzollern family and the Habsburg rulers of the Holy Roman Empire.  Wilhelm II wanted to legitimise himself and the House of Hohenzollern at the head of the Second Empire, and to assure himself as worthy heir of the Hohenstaufens and the Habsburgs. 

The architect of the reconstruction attempted to rebuild the castle with all its many rooms, as near as possible, as it was on the eve of the Thirty Years' War. Walking through the castle with the audio guide was a pretty good introduction to early twentieth century history and the reign of Wilhelm II. 

Marcia took a nasty fall here while looking up at the ceilings and walking from one room to another.  While she limped a bit for the rest of the day, she did not suffer permanent damage.

 

Haute Koenigsberg

No doubt, Haute Koenigsberg is a very cool castle because it shows what life was like in the old days. It gets about a half million visitors annually, and as Marcia said, "Seen from afar, this looks like a castle should!" 

On the way home we stopped at the hypermarché E.Leclerc in Ribeauville for some supplies and gas for the car.  

As usual, buying gas is something of a comedy routine as Dick and I try to guess what the automated pump wants us to do next with the credit card, the pin number, or the pump handle.  It's always an adventure...I should have taken a picture.

What? No croissants?

September 28, 2015 -- We are pleasantly surprised by Alsace.  No more of the simple, sandy-colored villages of the Burgundy wine country.  Here the combination of half-timbered houses, history, bright colors, German influence, and especially the fine food and wine makes Alsace very special.
Riquewihr is, as the guidebooks say, the jewel in the crown famous for the local dry Riesling and other great Alsace wines produced here; and looks today much as it must have in the 16th century. Remarkable as a charming little medieval city hidden between the Vosges mountains and some of the most famous vineyards in Alsace, Riquewihr is only seven miles from Colmar and minutes from other popular Alsatian villages like Ribeauvillé, Hunawihr, Eguisheim or Kaysersberg. < The half-timbered houses recall the days when Riquewihr and neighboring towns were home to a local but landed aristocracy.  The village main street is a steep one mile climb from bottom to top where the big Dolder gate stands sentinel.  

Along either side of Rue General de Gaulle are shops and the former homes of the wealthiest citizens.  I found that one can set out on a morning run through the vineyards and the roads that enable tractors and wagons to get to the grapes.  With the sun shining on the hillsides, it's easy to see how grapes like this area.

We discovered on our this, our first morning, that there is no artisan bakery in this village, and that the local grocery store, just around the corner from our apartment, only opens at 9:30 a.m. While they do always have a few croissants, the entire supply was exhausted by 9:40 a.m.  I guess it's a very flexible market for bakery goods.

There are very few tourists in view early in the morning, but by 10 a.m. they are beginning to arrive.  

The town has two churches, one Catholic and one Protestant, both standing on the same street -- but at opposite ends of it.

We drove about 20 miles south to Colmar, where the secular and religious architectural landmarks reflect eight centuries of Germanic and French architecture and the adaptation of their respective stylistic language to the local customs and building materials (which include pink and yellow Vosges sandstone and timber framing).

Colmar is situated along the Alsatian Wine Route and considers itself to be the "capital of Alsatian wine" (capitale des vins d'Alsace). 

The city is renowned for its well preserved old town with cobbled pedestrian-only streets, its numerous architectural landmarks and its museums, but it is also a bustling modern city with factories and warehouses along the highway as you drive in.

Colmar's city-center features lots of interesting buildings with steeply pitched red- and green-tiled roofs, pastel stucco walls, and aged timbers.  The very French style shutters combine with German style half-timbering and cascades of window box flowers. Your eye will be caught by the image-rich and colorful signs which identified merchants and tradesmen of all kinds.  In an age of illiteracy, these distinctive signs helped customers find their services and goods.

Marcia and I are standing here before the Koïfhus, the former customs house, that had a strategic place at the confluence of the Grand’Rue and the rue des Marchands, two of the major roads in the medieval city. Built between 1433 and 1480 at the Place de l'Ancienne Doaune, the merchandise subject to communal tax used to be stored on the ground floor, while on the other floor used to sit the representatives of the Decapole, the league of ten free Alsace villages. 

There are many striking views and  cityscapes in historic Colmar. An part of town that is crossed by canals of the river Lauch (which formerly served as the butcher's, tanner's and fishmonger's quarter) is now called "little Venice" (la Petite Venise).  We saw boatloads of Japanese tourists floating serenely through the city, cameras snapping photographs with machine-gun rapidity.

Green and red tiled roofs

Isenheim Altarpiece

The Unterlinden Museum was closed and undergoing a renovation, and we were directed to visit the austere Dominican Church nearby to see the famed Isenheim Altarpiece that dates from 1515.  The altarpiece was a little hard to grasp at first, being a series of three paintings on hinges that pivot, so that it can be seen open, or closed, or from behind. It is said that Germans know this painting with the same affinity and rereverence that Americans know the Mona Lisa.

Schongauer's "Virgin In A Rose-Bush"

In the same Église des Dominicains you can see another famous work, the exquisite Virgin in the Rose Bush by Martin Schongauer.  Painted in 1473, the colors and texture make it look like it was done yesterday. A graceful Mary is shown as a welcoming mother, and the robins, goldfinches, and sparrows in the rose bush bring it to life.

This painting used to be in the nearby Church of St. Martin (which we did not visit at all) but was stolen in 1972.  When it was recovered (no further details offered) a few years ago, it was placed in the Dominican Church for better security. 




We wandered over to a nearby cafe for a hot pretzel snack, and then continued our way through the city, admiring the architecture and the scenes.  The sun had slipped under a cloud and it seemed cooler than before in the breeze. We saw the "meter man," a figure carved into the side of a building at #9 Rue Marchands which once housed a tailor's shop.  He is holding a bar, Colmar's local measure of about one meter -- a reminder of the days when each town had its own set of measurements as well as time.

We returned to Riquewihr for a wine tasting at the Hugel shop -- it is just down the street from our apartment.  

We did buy some wine!

There was in fact no charge, and we did our best to be good visitors by buying three bottles to take home and drink.  Unlike the German and other tourists we see at these tastings, we simply can't buy a half dozen cases to put in the back of the car and drive home.

The Dolder

Rue de General de Gaulle

While wandering the town, we discovered a cheese tasting room.  It was downstairs in the cellar, but had pretty much the same kind of arrangement:  you get to taste several kinds of cheese with the understanding that you'll probably buy some to take away.

We did.  

I believe soon after this we acquired some delicious munster cheese as well as some more epoisses, a soft aged cheese whose name means "worth the effort." There was a cheese cellar down the street, which worked much like a wine shop -- you can taste and sample, with the understanding that you'll probably buy something.  

Again, we did.

For dinner, we had reservations at d'Brenndlstub, a restaurant in a hotel that is run by the same family who own the Michelin one-star La Table du Gourmet. This establishment has a modern, hip vibe to it and it was quite busy.

Marcia remembers that we had the three course menu; her omble fish with pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, celeriac, apples and citron cream sauce was one of the more inventive dishes she enjoyed during two weeks in France! All the food was very good.

Riquewihr, after the tourists left