We spent last weekend in Alsace which, as anyone who has studied 20th century history knows, is the region in the very east of France which has changed hands between Germany and France no less than 3 times. The reason for the very sought-after land is abundantly clear from even a brief visit. Aside from being exceptionally pretty, it houses the river Rhine and some very fertile agricultural lands which now produce excellent wine and a large part of France’s hops for beer production.
We roughly followed the Route du Vin, a road that takes you through some very lovely towns with colourful maisons cordonnages (not sure what the direct translation is, but they are the houses with the wooden beams on the exterior...), lunched in Bergheim and spent the night at Turkcheim.
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Being an inveterate celebrity spotter, I could not resist staying at the L’Hotel des Deux Clefs after I learned that Generals Leclerc and de Gaulle both stayed there. Not that I expected to find them there (although the hotel is reportedly haunted by fairies...) The hotel dates from the 15th Century and has a lovely sitting room at the bottom where one can sit and sip Gerwurztraminer and play chess. The rooms are warm and sweet, with pink wallpaper and red tiled bathrooms (with big baths) and the beds were super comfortable. The window glass resembled the bottom of wine bottles and opened out onto a little square.
My favourite village was Ribeauvillé which I understand is the most heavily touristed of all of the towns on the Route du Vin. It is utterly charming with cobble-stoned streets and plenty of medieval buildings. We sprinted up the walk up to the chateau at Saint Ulrich (one can do a walk of the three chateaus surrounding Ribeauvillé) as we were losing light (don’t start this walk after 5pm in November...), but it was absolutely worth the rather treacherous walk down in the almost-dark. The castle is huge and sits on top of the town. You get a great view of the town and the plains of Alsace below for your efforts and you can easily imagine a medieval battle or two taking place over the stone walls of the ruins of this very atmospheric castle.
The walk down to the square below can yield a very welcome, refreshing beverage at the name-appropriate Bar Saint Ulrich on the place de la République which has around 100 artisanal beers and an almost equal number of scotch whiskies. It is also a real “pub” in the english manner - dark wood, can-barely-see-where-I am going lighting, which is something I occasionally miss living in Paris.
Sunday lunch at A La Couronne in Scherwiller was great and absolutely huge. We had a very light lunch of grenouilles in a cream sauce in vol au vents pastry followed by two enormous tartes flambées covered in creme fraiche, munster cheese and lardons. Phew! (Alsace does not produce haute cuisine sized portions, just haute cuisine calorie-density). Lucky we had a few glasses of Pinot Blanc and Riesling to get us through. A La Couronne also has a tiny bar out the front where you can wait for a table or have a digestif after your huge meal- much needed, in theory at least.
The following week in Strasbourg was only slightly less calorific, but fortunately, we stayed right near the Foret de Neuhof which is a huge woods in the south of Strasbourg. During a run in the forest one morning we discovered a charming, small farm with geese and goats and a couple of donkeys. There was a small restaurant right next to this farm in the middle of nowhere. We were intrigued and had to book a table for Friday night. The farm is actually owned by the daughter of the restaurant owners. The restaurant was called Restaurant Oberjaegerhof and was so warm and homey and managed to avoid looking twee in the manner of many of those regionally decorated establishments which I always thinks should come with a warning: do not try this at home, regardless of how lovely it looks in situ.... Our dinner was delicious. We chose another tarte flambée which we shared and then had some great fish (salmon and filet de loup (which I think is a sea bass)) and washed it all down with a Pinot Gris from Turckheim - for the sake of nostalgia.
And then we were back to Paris and back to the gym.
