A varied walk though the vineyards and hills of the Vosges in France, visiting two castles and finishing at a great auberge

Date walked: 16th April 2018

Distance: around  7.5 miles

Map used: IGN No 122 Colmar, Mulhouse/Bale covers the area but at a scale of 1cm to 1 km but it is really not good enough for following the footpaths. I subscribe to an App called IGN Outdoors and this allowed me to download and plot each days walk onto my phone at a large-scale (4cm to 1 km).

Arranged through: Sherpa Expeditions, who chose the route, selected and booked our accommodation, arranged luggage transfers and provided detailed walking notes and large-scale map extracts for each walk.

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Bob and I stayed last night at the Hotel Le Riquewihr – a nice place but outside the “character” part of the village and did not do an evening meal. This is fine if you are opting for Bed and Breakfast as you can choose where to eat from the many restaurants in the village.

We had agreed that we would breakfast at 8. I have a complete blank over what it was like which means it was fine. It was another warm and sunny day and we were off by 9. Our hotel was directly opposite our path which required crossing the D3 and then a gentle climb up through the vineyards (marked as Schoenenburg on the map).

That’s where we stayed; nice looking place

We climbed a little higher, following a service road for the vineyards and headed West, giving us a great view over the village.

Pretty, eh?

You want a closer look? No problem, my new camera zooms to the equivalent of  250mm.

At a crossroads we turned right and headed North-East climbing slowly at the edge of the woods. In the hedgerow the blossom of the Sloe was stunning.

We really bad no need of map or guidance as this quiet road was going to our next village of Hunawihr.

A sign suggested that we might see red squirrels; but we didn’t.

We did though, pass a few sheep; this proved to be a pretty unusual sight for the region.

Nous , aimons, les moutons

We crested the hill and emerged at the bottom of the Linck vineyard. 

From here it was just half a mile down to the village of Hunawihr, where nothing much was happening.

Well, the bedding was getting an airing in the warm sun.

My uncle Nigel mentions in his book Walking in Wine Country, having walked up to the fortified church after tasting several wines. At this time of the day, we dutifully followed the few hundred metres in his footsteps, passing a noisy school yard where infants were letting off steam in a break.

I think it’s the surrounding walls that were fortified rather than the church itself

I spent a few minutes in its cool sparse interior of red sandstone; though no candles were available to light to Nigel’s memory.

I thought the altar and its stained glass window particularly pretty.

The town of Ribeauville was just a mile or so further on, our road still forging through the vineyards.

Ahead and high (the height being relative to the increasing heat of the day) above us were three castles which intimidated somewhat as we were destined to climb up to them.

Ribeauville was a bustling and attractive town; a place where you could spend a good few hours wandering around.

We duly noted where we were directed to leave by a fountain looked over by a woman of some historic importance…..

A wine queen according to my rudimentary research

… and carried on in search of refreshment (and in Bob’s case, a set of earphones for his phone).

This was a place that really likes its bread.

The tourist train was out in the streets (we waved, they waved).

As Bob searched (in vain) for his earphones I chose a cafe with tables outside where we happily watched the world go by over coffee for half an hour. It was here that I made the momentous and almost unprecedented decision to convert my trousers into shorts (zip-off legs made this easier than it sounds). I felt very liberated.

Now is that a stupid looking face or what?

We re-traced our steps, passing under the rather lovely Tour Des Bouchers….

….and admiring the pretty tiled roof of the Church of The Providence.

We took the well named Rue du Chateau by the fountain….

That’s Chateau de Saint Ulrich

…. and then somehow got distracted and ended up walking into the grounds of a college.

We were only a couple of hundred yards adrift, so paying more attention to our notes we returned to L’Eglise Saint Gregorie and found the right route. I popped into the church, natch.

I loved the colours of the tableau in the Chapelle  Notre-Dame de la Raydt

Our route took us round the side the church and by some fairly ghastly shrine….

… to an outdoor basketball court where we left the broad and began a steep climb on a stony track up to the Chateaux.

Very thoughtfully, The Powers That Be had placed several benches on the way.

We paused at one of these to admire the view to the Chateau de Saint Ulrich.

From the 11th to the 16th centuries, the castle was the principal residence of the powerful lords of Ribeaupierre

It was, as we say “a good pull”, but well worth the effort. The first castle we reached was that of the Chateau du Giersberg (1732 feet)  .

Seen here from the other one!

The Lords of Ribeaupierre built the castle, then named Stein (La Roche), in the 13th century. They rebuilt it after a fire caused by lightning in 1288. In 1304, they gave it to their vassals, the knights of Guirsberg, from whom the castle took its name. The Guirsbergs kept it until they died out in the 15th century. It was abandoned in the 17th century. Here endeth the Wikipdia extract. Quite why they built it and gave themselves such a long walk to the shops is beyond me.

There was no charge to get in but sadly no ice-cream vendors either so we went over to the other one.

Seen here from the first one

The castle is a very fine example of the military architecture of Alsace in the Middle Ages, including a keep erected in the 12th century and a residence with chimney of the 12th century. In the 13th century, the salle des chevaliers(knights’ hall) was decorated with nine beautiful windows in the Romanesque style which can still be seen.  Here endeth the second Wikipedia lesson.  Wikipedia did explain that having got fed up with such a strenuous walk to the pubs the family moved to a mansion in town after a few centuries.

This was a super ruin, though.

The only downside was that there was no ice creams here either so we sat on a seat and I had an apple and Bob a tin of sardines and some nuts.

The final château was further up the hill; we set off with no hope of ice-cream but knowing that at least we had done our main climb of the day. The leaves had not broken on most of the trees but we were still grateful for their shade.

The paths were good and there were lots of signs on trees but failed to work out which one to take to reach the Chateau du Haut Ribeaupierre.

Our notes suggested that we could have only looked at the outside anyway, so we agreed we had seen it from a distance and were not bothered and took the wide forest track down the hill.

Good action from Bob here and his head is well up.

Time for the second map of the day; we’re near the top by now.

As you can see we were wiggling around in the woods for this last bit. It was so, so peaceful.

There wasn’t much by way of exciting flora or fauna apart from a pretty white-flowering plant that I saw a few patches of. I had never seen it before and tweeted a pic of it and almost immediately someone tweeted back an ID.

Cardamine heptophylla – thanks to Twitter

Having had a very enjoyable wiggle for a mile or two, the path gave us a first glimpse of Thannenkirch.

Road side crosses at junctions are commonplace in France; we had probably passed several already that day but this stone one took my visual fancy.

The actual entrance to the village was marked by an altogether louder announcement.

The Easter decorations were ongoing; a fountain spouting from a block of conglomerate had a duck on its nest.

The water may have been drinkable but I couldn’t reach the spout.

We were staying in the Auberge de la Meuniere which was situated on the main street.

I loved everything about this place. We found an entrance round the back by the terrace overlooking the valley. Inside it was all woody and cabin-like. Someone had style. We were greeted warmly by its attractive owner who was just finishing off a meeting; we were happy to sit and cool down and take in the atmosphere. Bob was for a beer on the terrace but I saw my first really good snooze opportunity, so forwent the beer in favour of a shower and bed. Our bags were already in our rooms, reached on the first floor by a glass sided lift with a potted plant on its ceiling.

Our rooms were at the end of a corridor which was a close to beautiful as a corridor could get. This was one of those rooms that made me feel happy just to know that it was mine for a night.

Unspoiled by my strewing my gear everywhere.

The bathroom was equally pleasing.

Bob and I met around 6 for a drink on the terrace and our customary game of crib. It was a warm evening and though after a while I was glad of my fleece I would have been happy to sit outside until it got dark. We were eating there; the restaurant was as cosy as the rest of the place and the food was not far short of superb. We were given an chicory (or was it endive?) based foamy soup to start, followed by a stew of pork cheek with batons of Kohlrabi, followed by a Blueberry sorbet. All delicious. I took some pics but they are rubbish, so here’s a pic of our wine. Chilled, light and fruity. Fabulous. Sorry Nigel, that’s the best I can do.

If you get a chance – go and stay there.  Such a great finish to a very nice day.