Day 16: an incredible lightness of biking

A few days ago, the weather was looking quite ominous for the early part of this week. But as we have learned on these trips, you can’t really let the 5-day forecast dictate your plans. Good thing we didn’t too, because though it was a fairly grey day, we didn’t get a drop of rain, and the cool temperatures made for ideal cycling weather.

The day was born out of our instant liking for this town (Riquewihr) and the desire to explore the surroundings—which include some of best wine-growing country in all of Alsace—a little more thoroughly than we would normally do if we were just passing through.

After a lazy morning and yet another fruitless stop at the tourist information bureau (we have seriously begun to wonder why the French even bother to have them...), we hopped on our ridiculously light sans-panniers bikes and pedalled up the hill south of Riquewihr and down into the Kientzheim/Kaysersberg region, through some wonderful grand-cru vineyards. The vistas were just spectacular.

We rolled slowly through Kaysersberg and then on up along the Véloroute de Kaysersberg, which climbs the Weiss River valley, and then on up to the little town of Fréland, definitely off the tourist track. The last 3 kilometres was a pretty good climb, but we managed quite well without our panniers weighing us down and reached the town in good spirits for lunch.

             Fréland 

Fréland is far enough into the Vosges that there is not a vineyard to be seen, and we really felt like we were in the mountains; the fresh air and treed slopes made for a lovely change of scenery. I even felt a bit of nostalgia for my youth in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Then we flew back down to Kaysersberg, amazed that we had climbed so far, and a little bit proud of ourselves. We definitely could not have done something like this on our first trip!

We walked our bikes through the down and then stopped at a highly recommended winery, where we had a lovely tasting and picked up another bottle of good wine. I don’t normally buy expensive wine, but I may never be back in this area again, and compared to Canadian wine prices, the grand-cru wines here are pretty inexpensive.

Kaysersberg 

Then it was one last push up the hill and back down into Riquewihr for a rest, supper (and wine), and then a really lovely self-guided tour around this truly wonderful little town. We tend to fall in love with at least one unexpected spot on these trips (it was Cochem on our last trip), and Riquewihr is it this time. If you’ve ever in the area, don’t miss this hidden gem!

Just a few of the beautiful sights of Riquewihr