Perfect Day in Alsace

After 4 days here of dull, dreary weather, the sun finally appeared today for my last day here before I start heading home.  This afternoon, we drove south and west joining the Alsace Wine Road at St. Hippolyte.  Thankfully, there were still leaves on a lot of the vines which provided some wonderful photo ops.

We stopped in Ribeauville, one of the most famous of the Alsace wine villages.  With the sun out, it did not disappoint.  I first visited this village in 1979 on my first trip to Europe.  I fell in love with it then and I have been lucky enough to come back to visit it many, many times since.  It is just magical - along with many of the other Alsatian wine villages.

Ribeauvillé (German Rappoltsweiler) is one of the oldest medieval towns in Alsace and it lies below the Vosges Mountains about 53 km southwest of Strasbourg.  It was known in the 8th century as Rathaldovilare and passed from the bishops of Basel to the lords of Rappoltstein, famous nobles of Alsace. The lord of Rappoltstein was the protector of wandering minstrels and they paid a tax to him for his protectioin.  When the family became extinct in 1673, the office of king of the pipers (Pfeiferkönig) passed to the counts palatine of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld.  You can see statues and other references in the town to these pipers.  Ribeauville is distinguished by a medieval gate (the Porte des Bouchers) and it has many medieval houses and two fine Gothic churches.  The following are several of the photos we took of the pipers.

We wandered the main street (La Grande Rue) checking out the pretty buildings and interesting storefronts.  There were almost too many to take photos of!

It was a perfect way to finish up my visit here.  Later, we went out for dinner.  We walked by Le Vieux Couvent, Rhinau's 1 star Michelin restaurant which is prettily decorated for Christmas to another good restaurant called Aux Bords du Rhin.  We had a lovely dinner with shrimp with aioli to start then I had a perfectly cooked filet mignon.  It was delicious.  On the way back, I took a photo of the town clock tower which looked beautiful in the very cool evening.

Tomorrow, I head to Frankfurt airport to get a COVID test, stay overnight and fly home the next day.  My vacation will soon be over!