Riquewihr

After a short train trip to Colmar and a taxi ride, we arrived in the small and picturesque village of Riquewhir. It is one of many villages in the Alscace wine growing region, many of which end in ...wihr. Our accommodation was a beautifully appointed apartment in a row of very old houses built into the side of the old village walls.

Riquewihr is a very old place with lots of 17xx dates on buildings and shops, narrow cobbled streets and gingerbread style houses. We braved the slippery ice to go walking through the vineyards to a nearby village, it was all very pretty and you could see ancient battlements or castles on the nearby mountains. It would seem that there has been a bit of a dispute over this area at different times. In the evening we dined at a winstub on traditional Alsace food. I had Choucroute which contained 5 different meats laid out on a bed of saukraut with a very boiled potato n the side. Kind of a "farmyard on a plate" arrangement. It was interesting but not the sort of food you would need every day. The reisling and other white wines that we tried from this area were very good.

On the Monday, it started to snow. Although cold, this made the whole scene very pretty and inspired us to do some more walking. We slipped and slid in the direction of one of the other villages and I was very proud that I only hit the ground three times. After all this exertion, we did some more wine-tasting and some shopping.

On Tuesday, we took the train back to Paris and then on to London. After getting back to Ben's place, we rushed out for some Thai which was a welcome change from the Munster cheese and other Alsatian delicacies.