Alsace--Wine, Castles, and Cooling off in the Rhine

Wednesday and Thursday had four things in common--extreme heat, quaint villages, comradery, and good food.  Other than that, they were very different.


We descended at breakneck speed (and heavy braking) from the cool heights of our stay at Trois Epis down to the wine country foothills of the Rhine Valley.  Our goal, a castle high on a distant hill, remained elusive and seemed unattainable until we actually got there.

We had lunch in a "4-Fleur" town, which is a French rating for how well the locals decorate with flowers.  Four is the highest, and it showed.

2006 REI Slovenia Trip Reunion

Lunch stop

When we departed for the 7 -mile, 2,000-foot climb to the castle after lunch, it was 97-104 degrees, depending upon whose bike computer you could believe. Fortunately it cooled off slightly as we neared our destination.

View from Hut-Koenigsbourg castle

The Haut-Koenigbourg Castle was worth the effort.  Built in the 12^th century, it occupied a strategic position to watch over the wine and wheat routes to the North and the silver and salt routes from West to East. It was reduced to ruins by the Swedes during the Thirty Years' War and then abandoned. In 1899, Kaiser Wilhelm II decided to rebuild the castle entirely with the aim of turning it into a museum and at the same time a symbol of Alsace's return to Germany in 1877.  Germany lost Alsace after WWI, took in back in 1939, the lost it finally to France in 1945.  That explains why the food, architecture, language and some of the food are so similar.



Cooling off at a spring

View from our hotel

The descent in wet jerseys to the town of Ribeauville was a cool delight, topping off our mileage at 33 miles.  Actually, Ribeauville is also pretty cool delight, except for the stifling temperature of our room and the noise from the plaza below our open window at night.

Our Hotel

Today, Thursday, we changed our plans due to the heat and made it only a 32 mile flat ride.  We stopped at a bunker on the Maginot Line, occupied by the French until the Nazis avoided it and just waltzed into the Alsace region of France from Belgium with no resistance.



Maginot Bunker

The pause that refreshed!

Going in for seconds

We crossed the Rhine into Germany and plunged in fully clothed to cool off. Kathy had a minor wipe out going up a narrow path.  All the way back, she
struggled hard to keep up with the rest of us.  Finally, about one mile from our destination, we discovered that her rear brake was partially engaged.  We calculate her effort in the 100+ heat to be at least 50 miles. 

Dinner Venue

After a  leisurely afternoon trying to take naps in stifling non air conditioned rooms, we enjoyed the local beer, wine, and cuisine, which is a mix of French and German.  

Potato pancakes & salmon salad

Tomorrow?  It's supposed to get even hotter, so we will pare our mileage back even more and perhaps spend some time in cool wine  cellars.  Wherever you are, we hope you are staying cool.

Ribeauville-Alsace France



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