Alsatian Wine Road

From Basel our boat headed north (while we slept) and docked in Breisach, Germany. The first thing we noticed is how many swans are in the river. That was a fun surprise! We got off the boat in Breisach and hopped on a bus and headed across the Rhine River to Colmar, France. C0lmar is situated in the Alsace region between Strasbourg and Basel.

Buildings in Colmar date from the middle ages. Colmar is a beautiful city with many half-timbered historic homes, cobblestone streets and small canal-like waterways.

On the top of the church is a stork's nest. At first we thought it was just a symbol to represent the church's desire for more babies in the congregation. But as it turns out, there are several stork nests in this area because some of the birds have decided to settle here.

And since Colmar is in France...we'd like to give a shout out to those French pastries ...the baked goods are phenomenally good! When you are walking through town and catch a whiff of the local bakery, it is simply irrestible!!

Colmar is the birthplace of the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty. There is a miniature version of the statue in one of the round-abouts outside the city. (By the way, there are many round-abouts in Europe and they seem to work quite well!)

After our walking tour of Colmar we got back on the bus and headed up the Alsatian Wine Road to the 16th-century village of Riquewihr. What a gorgeous area!!!! Kind of like Napa Valley...but way better!

There are vineyards everywhere and then dotted between the vineyards are these historic little towns.

Each town is dominated by the spire of at least one very old church.

There are many half-timbered homes most with window boxes and SO MANY flowers!

They plant roses at the edge of the vineyards because roses are a good indicator of plant stress or disease.

They plant geraniums in the window boxes to ward off mosquitoes.

The best part of this vineyard area though is that true "Alsation" grapes can only be grown below a certain elevation. That means that the higher parts of the hills and mountains retain their native forested vegetation instead of being covered by vineyards. In fact, no development at all occurs in the higher areas.