Carnet de Voyage: Wine Route

Travel notes from the real France. Carnet de Voyage is a weekly personal travel story in France sent in by readers. If you’d like to write a story for Carnet de Voyage, head here for details on how to submit.

On August 1 2011, travelling from Berlin by train (my flight had been cancelled so I benefitted from a lazy train ride with magnificent country views), I arrived in Colmar to hot and sunny weather. I exchanged my umbrella for sunglasses and my heavy jeans for lightweight cotton capris. After a late dinner with friends who waited for me, I looked forward to new adventures. 

As always in a new place, I boarded the Le Petit Train Touristique to get an overview of my new town. Colmar is an adorable, dollhouse-like town, a true photographer’s delight. The buildings are beautiful and there is a law to preserve “polychromie” – no house can be the same colour as the house next door. There are flowers everywhere. The stork is the local honoured bird and you can find it stuffed, painted, sculpted, baked, glazed, embroidered, and forged. It decorates everything.  

After the little train ride, I went to the Musée Bartholdi (sculptor of the Statue of Liberty). There are copies of the statue in various parks in Colmar. I learned that Bartholdi’s birthday is August 2nd – today! For lunch, I met my friends at the lovely outdoor terrace of Les Tanneurs in the La Petite Venise area. I had delicious choucroute garnie and a beer. “When in Rome . . . or in this case, Colmar.” 

I wanted very much to see the Route des Vins, but alas, I do not drive in France, especially as I wanted to taste the wines. I went to the tourist office after an AHA! moment that I can indeed see the Route des Vins. There must be a tour! What are the odds that 5 minutes before closing, another woman travelling alone would come into the tourist office looking for a tour of the Route des Vins that required a minimum of two people? And that the chauffeur would be available! On avait de la chance! We booked the 4-hour custom tour of Eguisheim, Turckheim, Kientzheim, Kaysersberg (birthplace of Albert Schweitzer) and Riquewihr. It was expensive, but worth every centime to sit in the car and look at the breathtaking scenery without having the responsibility of driving. I speak French, but my Japanese tour companion did not, so the driver spoke to me in French and I translated for her in English.  

La Route des Vins has vineyards as far as the eye can see. The 5 little towns that we visited were magnificent. By the late afternoon (the driver gave us 6 hours instead of 4!), we were “bien arrosées” – roughly translated as “plowed.” The wine-tastings were plentiful and free at three of the towns. We had Crémants – both white and rosé – Muscats, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Gris Grand Vignes, Pinot Noirs, Blanc de Noirs, and Rieslings. We took many pictures. We ate on the run with food we picked up. It would have been wonderful to sit in an outdoor café in every single one of the villages, but we enjoyed the time sightseeing and tasting. The weather was perfect. The driver brought us to a town, took us to the wine-tasting, then dropped us off at one end while he parked at the other. We ambled our way down from one end to the other and saw all that there was to see. Most of it was charming architecture from the 15th and 16th centuries, lots of flowers, statues, fountains, churches, and lots of “OMG” moments as we saw something gorgeous every time we turned a corner.  

Back in Colmar, Yves, our driver, dropped us off the Musée du Jouet, an adorable museum of toys, dolls, games and model trains. There was a Barbie exhibit very much like the one I had seen at the Musée de la Poupée in Paris on a different trip.  

I checked off the Route des Vins from my (wine) bucket list and prepared for my visit to Dijon.  

Read our other Carnet de Voyage entries here.

Ruth’s love for all things French started when she was a small child listening to her aunt’s Edith Piaf records. She started learning French in junior high school and is still learning. She first visited France in 1971 and has been there more times that she can count, some years travelling to Paris 3-4 times a year. In 1991, she spent the entire summer travelling all over the country with her children. It is her favorite place on the planet.