The Two Rs

After our brief trip to Switzerland, we arrived in Alsace on Saturday afternoon. The landscape has changed completely from forests and mountains to rolling hills covered in vines. We're now in the land of half-timbered houses, white wines, and a cuisine that is a strange (but generally tasty!) mixture between French and German.

We're staying in the final "gîte" of our trip, in the small village of Mittelwihr. Despite being a modern build, they've gone old-school in their methods by not supplying towels, soap, toilet paper etc. Luckily we were aware of this so the towels we dragged all the way from home finally come into use. Annoyingly what we didn't expect was to have to make our own bed, which is the last thing you want to do when you arrive after a long drive, a day of sightseeing, and a trudge around the busiest supermarket we've ever been in!

On Sunday we headed out on the local bus to the village of Riquewihr, just a few minutes away. This area is known for its charming medieval villages and Riquewihr is one of the most famous. It's reasonably busy with tourists but not too crowded, so we spend a few hours wandering around, sampling some local wines, and even find our first mulled wine (vin chaud!) of the season.

The pace of travel has been fairly intense up to now, so we decide to take an unprecedented two days off to do nothing but laze around, watch movies on the laptop, and catch up on needed rest.

On Wednesday, we head out again for a day of sightseeing, heading to another famous nearby town, Ribeauvillé. Like Riquewihr, it's famous for its half-timbered houses, but it seems less touristy and more like a place where people actually live.

In Ribeauvillé, we stopped for lunch at a local Alsatian restaurant for some of the local specialties - Baeckaoffa, a casserole made with beef, lamb, pork and white wine; and Choucroute garnie, sauerkraut with different types of sausages and salted pork meats.