Strasbourg signaled the start of our stay in France. Truth be known, we didn’t spend much time in Strasbourg itself, we arrived in late afternoon, found our hotel, walked around and saw a few sights and had dinner, but we used it as a base to visit the Alsace wine district which was nearby (within 50 kms.)
Like Reims, Metz, Chartre, and Paris, Strasbourg has a cathedral that is one of its more celebrated sites.
Near the city of Colmar, which is not far from Strasbourg are a string of small villages that form the core of the Alsace wine region. The following pictures were taken in two of these villages which are picture-perfect versions of what at least the North Americans in our party (mostly Laura-Lyn and I) thought such villages should look like. Even though in France, they have many similarities to the villages we saw in Germany.
The first village, Eguisheim, was well organized to receive visitors, with a parking lot on the edge of town and a main street that strongly encouraged people to just walk around and enjoy it.
In case I need to prove the point, here is the map of the 33 wineries located in or around this village. As you might expect, both Laura-Lyn and I did sample some of the region’s wines, mostly whites, and they were excellent, and very good value (4 – 7 Euros for highly drinkable liter bottles).
Just above the village you could wander amongst vines that produced the grapes for these wineries.
A entry way and the courtyard of a typical Eguisheim (Alsace) winery.
Moving on to Kayserberg, we wandered and observed a construction method characteristic of this region. The wooden frame is laid and then a plaster is laid between the wood to provide the insulation and sheathing for the house.
Kayserberg is home to some medieval ruins and the path started out from the village. Charlotte and Allister are at the base of the path to the ruins with some of the village’s vineyards in the background and then shown at the base of the ruins after the 15 minute walk up the hill.
The view from the castle ruins highlights the quantity of grapes under cultivation in the Alsace region and the typical vineyard’s hillside location.
Our hotel room in Strasbourg set the standard for small on our trip. The following picture of our alleged “family room” is taken from the top bunk of the bunk beds overlooking the room’s double bed. As we joked, we had to breathe in to move around the room and broadcast our movements in advance to other family members.
Our hotel room wasn’t the only small thing we saw in Strasbourg. We tend to think of Smart Cars as the small in North American but they are large compared to many European models such as this old Fiat.
