June 7-8 north on the wine route

Colmar was all very nice, but we were now anxious to get back into the wine country. It was clearly the point of being there, we now realized. We had read this, and people had told us, but we hadn't understood. (The map is from
http://www.vinsalsace.com/en/.)

We drove back onto the wine route, bypassing the towns we'd visited earlier, and reentering the wine route north of to go north of Selestat. We still hadn't made a wine-tasting stop at an Alsace vintner, and felt that we ought. After visiting the tourist office in Andlau (the tourist offices have excellent booklets listing all sorts of lodging, and will phone ahead for you if you like), we stopped in Dambach-la-Ville, parking at the ramparts where the town meets the vineyards. At the cellar Beck we tried a couple of wines, not knowing protocol or what to ask for or how to judge it, and then bought a bottle Riesling. The town was very quiet - no doubt, a Monday thing. We walked a bit along the ramparts before getting back in the car.

The booklet of lodgings listed a number of B&Bs (chambres d'hotes) along one street in the town of Barr, which turns out to be a Grand Cru area (back home, at the wine store I found quite a few bottles of Alsatian wine that were from Barr). We picked one place based on the photograph, and although the photo was misleading, still, it was a pretty place in a gorgeous region of the wine country, on a street at the edge of the village and very near the vineyards, owned by a very sweet retired couple - and very economical. The house was full of books. We had the roomy attic room with a big bathroom, and there were flowers and vegetables in the garden all around, and a balcony where we drank our wine.












We took a long walk from our lodging up through the Zotzenberg vineyards, part of the grand cru village of neighboring Mittelbergheim. The setting was spectacular, and the vineyards had interesting informational signs about the grapes and wine-making, including a series of cartoons one might call "Tell me, grandfather,..." As near as I can tell (feel free to chime in here), the "Schiessheisel" (shooting hut) sign is about a hut used at one time to store explosives that were shot by cannon into low clouds with the hope of diminishing the size of the hail that can entirely destroy a grape crop.





















The B&B and the vineyard - we had finally figured out what we wanted of the place. Idyllic. Our room was so much bigger and nicer than a hotel - and cheaper. The setting was As Good As It Gets.

Monday night, it turns out, is, like Sunday night, a bad night for restaurants. Our hosts phoned around, and found one place in Barr that was open. Le Brochet turned out to be very nice - outdoor seating of a hotel, very quiet, on a kind of tiny square. We chatted with a Frenchman from the south who was there on business, and ate: a huge delicious chunk of veal in mushroom sauce with vegetables and fries, and a tarte flambé, the very thin-crust pizza, with mushrooms, bacon, and a white cheese like cream cheese. Rather than dessert, we had two wonderful eaux de vie: poire William, and marc de Gewurz (sorry we didn't bring some home).





In the morning we were served an excellent breakfast before we drove to Mont Ste Odile, a mountain with a convent on top. (I include another sundial photo.)



















The convent is surrounded by walking trails. everywhere, here as elsewhere in the Vosges, there are signposts for walkers.












One of the trails first passes huge ceramic "stations of the cross" (no more than 50 years old) set in a stone wall, then winds along kilometers of a heavy stone "pagan" wall of old and indefinite origin (perhaps 700 b.c.e.).










Our next stop was Rosheim, a flat hot valley town with a fine old gate, where we had lunch at a salon du thé - the plat du jour, which was huge, including crudites, and then a big plate of veal and pasta. Oddly, they did not have any local wine. The salon was across the street from a moving Romanesque church that had some terrific stone statues, including one of a lion eating (?) a man, which Michelin says is typically "Lombard." There was also a synagogue nearby that was not in use but taken care of.












In Molsheim, a largish town with an old walking area, we got advice at another tourist office (each such office only handles lodgings within a relatively small area) and chose Biblenhof, a farmhouse-turned-B&B-type hotel, just outside Saultz-le-Bain (where we stopped at a chocolate place - terrific liqueur-filled chocolates). We had two large rooms and a very large bathroom, quite the value.

That evening we went into Strasbourg - but that is another post.

Previous: June 6-7, Colmar
June 8, Strasbourg and the cathedral