Close contact with vinyards

Today our plan was to cycle along a section of Alsace's famous Route des vins and sample some of the locally-grown and fermented grape juice. We left the hotel just after 10 o'clock and cycled along very busy D roads to the historic town of Eguisheim, 30 minutes south of Colmar. It really feels like there should be better cycle paths in a region like this…

We spent about an hour walking around the beautiful circular old town of Eguisheim and had some breakfast in one of the squares.

At 11.45 we left on a quiet road going north towards Wettolsheim, Wintzenheim and Turckheim.

In Turckheim, we felt like another snack and stopped for half an hour at a café. Lisa liked their bent spoons that could be hooked over a coffee cup and bought a couple of them. We left Turckheim after a scenic loop around the historic centre which was just as pretty as that of Eguisheim, but much less touristy.

We followed the decidedly hilly vinyard route which spoilt us with excellent views of the nearby Vosges mountain range.

Via Katzenthal, the route led us to Ammerschwihr which is very pretty and holds a special place in my heart for some childhood memories. Here we stopped for half an hour at a winery and had a wine-tasting.

The next stop on our route was Kientzheim from which some of the area's countless castles can be seen.

From here, we proceeded onto another vinyard with a view where we stopped for about 50 minutes to cook some lunch near Keyserberg.

At about 3.30 p.m. we were speeding downhill to the town of Kayserberg which was also just as pretty as all the other towns in the area. We stopped for another wine-tasting.

At 4.20 p.m. we returned to Kientzheim via the same vinyard across which we had come, but then turned north again towards Riquewihr. After a particularly steep climb I turned back downhill to see how Lisa was doing. When I got to where she was and wanted to turn around, I slipped in the wet gutter by the side of the road and fell off my bike.

I injured my hands and knees and had grazed skin below my right eye, but luckily nothing happened to the bottles I carried in my pannier bag. I decided it was probably a good idea to find a chemist and get some disinfectant. After some asking and searching around Riquewihr we eventually found the chemist which was strangely located on the edge of the town.

We left Riquewihr via the main street which was very crowded with tourists, but just as pretty as all the other towns we had seen today.

The hills along the cycle path were literally dotted with castles, at one point three were visible at once.

By the time we got to Ribeauville it was already 6.30 p.m. and we had done about 5 hours of pretty hilly cycling.

After looking around town we headed downhill towards the hopefully more level cycle path that went back towards Colmar along the plains, enjoying views of the hilly vinyards. After 90 minutes of continuous cycling we arrived back in the notoriously awkward traffic in front of our hotel in Colmar. Today had been 57km of wine-route cycling.