The Alsace - Colmar and Riquewihr and Ribeauville

This past weekend we drove to the Alsace region of France with Martin's parents. We stopped in the town of Colmar for lunch on Friday, then headed up to Riquewihr where we spent Friday and Saturday nights, then did lunch in Ribeauville on our way back to Zürich on Sunday. These towns are all connected by the route des vins which is a small road that winds its way through about 30 towns and all the vineyards in the Alsace region. Lots of scenic views along the route des vins and multiple wine tasting places in every town. It would probably take you a solid month to taste all the wines that are grown in this region, and that's if you really dedicated yourself to tasting wines from multiple vintners per day. Riesling, Gewurtztraminer, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, and Muscat are the main grapes grown in the Alsace. All the wines are white and many of them are very sweet. We found that we really enjoyed the Muscat wines which have a wonderful bouquet and a full flavor but are not too sweet (Muscat wines from warmer climates are sweet, however, so only Muscat wines from the Alsace are not sweet). I didn't like any Gewurtztraminer wines they were all too sweet for me but I found a Riesling that was not sweet at all which I enjoyed.

The towns in the Alsace are absolutely adorable and every building is decorated with abundant flowers. We spent a lot of time just wandering down the streets taking pictures of every house and building. In Colmar, some of the buildings dated back to the 13th and 14th centuries. Many of them had issues standing up straight or maintaining square structures due to sagging and bending through the years. Here are some pics (it was cloudy and rainy on Friday so the light was not that great);











There was also a big church (actually two of them I think) that were both kind of orangey:





I found Riquewihr to be cuter than Colmar. Riquewihr is only about one street big whereas Colmar is much larger, and Riquewihr has a wall around it which just automatically makes it smaller and more interesting. Here's the little alley our hotel was on (note the vineyards in the background):



Here's the main street:





One of the entrances to the town and the wall:



Here's Martin telling me to grow balls of hedge on our balcony:





The cute alley our hotel was in, at night:



And the specialty of the Alsace region, macaroons! In many flavors including raspberry, pistachio, orange, banana, and chocolate. Martin and I got one of each and tried them all. I wasn't a fan of the orange one but enjoyed all the rest. All still warm from the oven too, of course.





The official bird of the Alsace (so it seems) is the stork. Many buildings have stork nests on top of them, and they put up special circular metal structures on the tops of the houses to make it easier for the storks to nest there. We stopped in Ribeauville for lunch on Sunday and saw these storks:





You can buy stork stuffed animals in every shape and size in almost every store in the Alsace but we held ourselves back from buying any. Here is the main street of Ribeauville (I think I even managed to get a castle in the background of this picture):