|
|
|
|
|
|
|
8 DAYS IN SEPTEMBER, 2012 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE HEART OF ALSACE - ROUTE des VINS |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
8 DAYS IN SEPTEMBER, 2012 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE HEART OF ALSACE - ROUTE des VINS |
|
|||||||
|
For those of you who follow our travels, probably know that we love wine and good restaurants. We've made several trips to enjoy a particular region's wines, and this was one of those trips. Alsace is famous for its white wines, and Alisa much prefers white wines to reds, so this trip was for her. |
|
||||||
|
A VISIT TO ALSACE |
Alsace is located in the northeastern corner of France, bordering the Rhine river and Germany in the east, and Switzerland in the south. Click on the thumbnail map to the right to see a full sized map. The region has undergone many changes of rule during the last 1000 years, with the last official one being France's annexation at the end of World War I. It was occupied by Germany during World War II, but returned to France after the war. The predominant language here today is French, but many people speak a local Alsatian dialect which is similar to German, and German is also widely spoken (today, probably because of German tourism). The area has often been linked to the bordering province, Lorraine, although it is an independent province of France. Many people refer to the area as Alsace-Lorraine. |
|
|||||
| The most typical foods of the area have a distinctly German flavor, with the most popular dish being choucroute (just sauerkraut for English speakers), served with sausage, pork, and even fish. The Alsatian version is very light, and mild as it is generally soured in white wine or beer. More about food later. |
|
||||||
|
|
As for wines, the area is known primarily for its riesling, pinot blanc, pinot gris, and gewürztraminer. These whites have a surprising body (they have to in order to go well with the local foods) and the good ones will last for many years. The only red wine of any note is pinot noir, which is made as rosè in Alsace. The reserve designation in Alsace is the "grand cru" designation, of which there are about 50. The Alsace grand cru designation has its critics, as its parameters (borders, locations, terroir) are not completely defined. | ||||||
|
Whether you are interested in wine or not, the main attraction in Alsace is the towns of the "vins d'Alsace, the local wine route stretching about 90 KM from Marlenheim in the north, to Thann in the south. The route is a chain of beautiful towns, with hundreds of wineries in and around the towns. The vintners are very friendly, and you can expect a warm welcome and a generous tasting at most wineries ("cave" in Alsace). It's not anything like Bordeaux and the prices are very reasonable. |
 |
||||||
|
|
We discovered that September was an ideal month to visit, with every town in full bloom, and the beginnings of the grape harvest in full swing. The weather we had was ideal, with mostly sunny days and comfortable temperatures. Alsace is the province with the least rainfall in all of France, and that's what we experienced - only a few drops of rain during our 8 day stay. | ||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
We used 2 bases - Obernai and Colmar. Obernai is a lovely typical Alsatian small town in the northern section of the wine route, and Colmar is a large city (66,000 population) in the southern part of the route. We stayed in each for 4 days and we really enjoyed both of them. As for geography, Alsace is divided into 2 basic parts - Bas-Rhin (lower Rhine) in the north, and Haut-Rhin (upper Rhine) in the south. The reason that the "upper" is in the south and the "lower" is in the north is that the Rhine river flows from south to north. To the west is the Vosges mountain range which separates Alsace from its neighbor Lorraine. |
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|
||||||
|
OBERNAI |
|||||||
|
Obernai is a lovely town filled with lots of delightful medieval houses lining narrow streets and open plazas, all set within the original ramparts of the town. The greatest miracle of the town is how well it escaped damage during World War I and World War II, and much of the town appears unchanged from its heyday in the 15th and 16th centuries. The picture to the right is of the beautiful St. Peter & Paul church, which is considered second in importance in Alsace only to the cathedral in Strasbourg. |
|
||||||
|
|
The town has several good hotels and many good restaurants. We stayed at LeColumbier Hotel, which is located about 50 feet from the absolute center of town (Market Square). The hotel has paid underground parking (which we took) for 13 Euros a day, and it was worth every cent. Our room was nice sized and breakfast was more than adequate. | ||||||
|
While in Obernai, we ate at 3 different restaurants. The first (and the last, since we ate there twice) is the town's most famous - "La Halle aux Bles" (the corn exchange), It's a huge restaurant serving all the local specialties and it's a real experience to eat there. The place is very rustic, and has great decorations all over it - inside and out. If you visit Obernai, this is a "must visit" restaurant. |
|
||||||
|
|
The other two restaurants were the Le Freiberg, a nice (but not exceptional) restaurant serving local cuisine, and the other was "Jardin le Rampart", a gourmet restaurant which is part of what looks like the best hotel in the entire area - "La Cours d'Alsace". This restaurant was one of the best of the trip. We had shrimp with vegetables in a saffron sauce, foie gras in a cranberry sauce with fruit chutney, lamb chops with veggies and potatoes, and sea bream with fresh pasta and chanterelle mushrooms. To the left is the sea bream. We had a dessert too, and everything was delicious. | ||||||
| We really enjoyed Obernai as a base and were fortunate to be there for the Thursday morning weekly market. To the right is Alisa in her second most favorite place to be - in a market selecting vegetables to enjoy with our hotel breakfast. |
|
||||||
|
MARLENHEIM |
|||||||
|
|
Marlenheim is the northernmost town on the wine route, and is a pleasant and very quiet little town. Here we visited our first winery - Mosbach, which Alisa decided had the best wines of all the wineries we visited. To the left is Alisa at the entrance to the winery. In Marlenheim, we also visited Metz, which is one of the biggest wineries in Alsace. | ||||||
|
DAHLENHEIM |
|||||||
|
|
Dahlenheim is a tiny little town, not officially on the wine route, so the winemakers here are grateful for any visitor. Here we visited a family winery called Heckmann, where we had a lovely visit with Sylvie Heckmann. The wine was very nice and we bought a couple of bottles. To the left is a restaurant in the center of town, and to the right is me with Sylvie in the winery. |
|
|||||
|
MOLSHEIM |
|||||||
| Molsheim is on the wine route, although it is best known as the home of Bugatti, the legendary Italian automaker. Molsheim has a lovely center, which is shown in the picture to the right. |
|
||||||
|
B A R R |
|||||||
|
Barr is an overlooked village on the wine route and we had a lovely visit here. It's a typical Alsace village, with lovely houses and lots of wineries. We visited Klipfel, a family winery founded by family patriarch Martin Klipfel in 1824. To the right is Alisa with our host. We had lunch in a nice restaurant in the center of town called "Le S'Barrer Stuebel". This restaurant was a big surprise. It looked like just another Winstub, but the food was really really good. On the left are 2 pictures. On top is Alisa's delicious and beautiful shrimp dish and below it is a beautiful restaurant across the street from where we ate. Barr doesn't get as many visitors as its neighbors, and we enjoyed our visit. |
|
|||||
|
ANDLAU |
|||||||
|
|
Andlau is a town with lots of history. It grew up around an Abbey founded by St Richarde, the wife of Carolingian king Charles the Fat, in the 9th century. In the "Saint Peter and Paul Church", built in the 12th century, you can find a shrine dedicated to her. Andlau has been making wine since Roman times when retired Roman legionnaires started planting vineyards here. If you love old medieval houses, you'll see lots of them here and if you're in the mood it's only a half day hike (3 hours there and back) up to see two medieval castles (Haut Andlau and Spesbourg). | ||||||
|
In Andlau, the vintner (Remy Gresser) with whom I had made an appointment didn't show, so we visited one of his neighbors, an entertaining fellow named Wohleber who makes very nice wines and was very friendly and hospitable. We enjoyed his wines and bought a nice bottle of Grand Cru Wielbelsberg Reisling. |
|
||||||
|
MITTELBERGHEIM |
|||||||
|
|
After Andlau, we drove to Mittelbergheim, not knowing what to expect. What we found was a lovely village with very few tourists, and the most surprising restaurant of the trip. We ate here at "Raisin d"Or" (the golden raisin), and everything was absolutely fabulous. It's a family restaurant. The family son is the chef, and the lady serving us was his mother-in-law (or maybe his Aunt). Alisa had trout almandine, and I had the absolutely best duck tenderloin I have ever had. It was served with broad beans, fennel, raspberry sauce and excellent french-fries. Pictures to the left and right. |
|
|||||
|
DAMBACH la VILLE |
|||||||
|
|
Dambach was another surprise. It's a lovely walled town where we wandered around for quite a while and took lots of pictures. There was even a wedding going on. | ||||||
|
MONT SAINTE ODILE |
|||||||
|
|
Mont Sainte Odile isn't a wine town. It's a monastery up on a mountain with beautiful views of the countryside in every direction. To get there, you have to go through Ottrott which is a town on the wine route. We didn't spend any time in Ottrott but we spent plenty of time in the monastery of Odile, where the picture taking was superb. |
|
|||||
|
|||||||
|
HAUT-KOENIGSBOURG CHATEAU |
|||||||
|
|
The Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg is located near Orschwiller, in the Vosges mountains just west of Sélestat. It's actually in Haut-Rhin rather than Bas-Rhin, and we visited here on the way south from one to the other, so I have included it here. The castle is nestled at a strategic location on a high hill overlooking the Alsatian plain; as a result it was used by successive powers from the Middle Ages until the Thirty-Year-War when it was abandoned. In 1900 it was restored under the direction of Emperor Wilhelm II and today it is a major tourist attraction.. | ||||||
|
|
The castle can be visited from top to bottom, and features wonderful views in every direction. Many of the rooms are furnished and it has full facilities for tourists. It is open every day of the year except January 1. When we were there, there was a mini-marathon going on, several roads were blocked, and part of the race course ran right by the castle. Even though we were unaware of the scheduled race, we were fortunate to arrive early enough to avoid the resulting traffic snarls. |
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin are separated by a line running east and west just south of the town of Selestat. Just south of this line are what most guidebooks and tourism sites will tell you are the "must-see" Alsace towns. All agree that Ribeauville and Kaysersberg are such towns. Most mention Riquewhir and Eguisheim as well. We visited all four and can't argue with the recommendation that if you only have a day or 2 in Alsace, these really are the towns not to miss. All 4 of these towns are located between Selestat and Colmar. | ||||||
| There's a big difference between these towns in the center of Alsace (geographically in Haut-Rhin) and the towns of northern Alsace. The northern towns are quiet, and peaceful, with the only real exception being Obernai, (the only must see in Bas-Rhin) which we enjoyed immensely. The 4 towns (the "must-sees") I mentioned above are far more commercialized and tourist oriented, full of stores and restaurants, and...as might be expected...full of tourists. With all that, they are lovely and each should be visited for long enough to absorb the atmosphere. Below are more details about these towns. |
|
||||||
|
RIBEAUVILLE |
|||||||
|
|
Ribeauville is Alsace's answer to St. Emilion in Bordeaux, or if you didn't like it, Disneyworld in Florida. It has one long street (the Grand Rue) which runs through several centers, filled with charming stores, restaurants and wineries, with 3 hulking ruins of chateaux overlooking the town. The Grand Rue is about a full kilometer long and connects the lower town to the upper town, which are separated by the "Butchers Tower". It's all very impressive and entertaining. This was the only town we visited twice. We were there first on a beautiful Sunday, when it was inundated with tourists, so we decided to come back on Monday and visit it when things were quieter. Things were much quieter on Monday, but even on a Monday morning, there were still plenty of tourists. | ||||||
|
KAYSERSBERG |
|||||||
| Kaysersberg is about 10 KM from Ribeauville, and is very similar to it, although a bit quieter. It's also a lovely town, full of stores and restaurants, but is laid out quite differently. It has several streets to stroll, and even has a stream (maybe a canal or a river) right through the center. It also has a castle ruin above the town, which you can hike up to if you haven't had too much wine. Kaysersberg is also famous as the birthplace of Albert Schweitzer and his birthplace has been made into a museum that is open daily. To the right is a picture of a fountain with a statue of Emperor Constantin from the 16th century in the Place de Sainte-Croix Church. |
|
||||||
|
RIQUEWHIR |
|||||||
|
|
Riquewihr is right between Ribeauville and Kaysersberg and is just as lively and charming as its 2 larger neighbors. The French declared the town as an historic monument in its entirety as Riquewihr escaped World War II completely unscathed and made successful efforts to carefully maintain its 16th and 17th century architecture and atmosphere. Because of this special character, it's become one of the "must see" towns in Alsace. Riquewihr has 13th century walls and city gates as well as a torture chamber available for touring. And on top of it all, there are 4 museums in this little village, the best known of which is probably the "carriage" museum. |
|
|||||
|
|
In spite of the crowds, Riquewihr is a magnificent town to wander through - a veritable living museum of old Alsace. You can wander away from the main street, and explore the back streets, alleys, and medieval courtyards. The Tours des Voleurs (The Thieves Towers) maintains ancient prison cells and torture chambers. Organ concerts are scheduled on Sundays in the summer months and A Degustation of Wines with musical accompaniment is held during the first three weekends of September. |
|
|||||
|
|
We missed the wine festival, but we did spend several hours in this charming town, as we had lunch at a very nice restaurant and visited 2 wineries. We had lunch at a restaurant called "Au Trotthus", where we had one of the best meals of the trip, and chatted with chef, Philippe Aubron. Check out the dish to the left, which was my main dish. It's lamb tenderloin, on a bed of ratatouille, with vegetables, garlic and caramelized shallots. Looking at the picture, it's even more beautiful than I remember from the restaurant. All the dishes were perfect and the restaurant was beautiful. On the right, that's us with chef Aubron. |
|
|||||
|
|
We also visited the Hugel winery center. Hugel is one of the biggest wineries in Alsace, and we are familiar with the wines, so, we visited, tasted a few wines, and then politely left. The place was full of customers and the attendant had little time to chat with us. We much preferred our visit to a little winery we found near the restaurant, after enjoying a small bottle of its wine with our lunch. The chef recommended the wine and the winery, so we visited. The winery is Engel, a small family winery and we tasted the wines and chatted with the winemaker and owner. We also bought a bottle of Riesling Grand Cru "Sporen". |
|
|||||
|
EGUISHEIM |
|||||||
|
|
The 3 towns I have described above were certainly charming, but our favorite was Eguisheim. There are no museums in Eguisheim, and they don't need one. The whole town is a museum. It's built in concentric circles around a central core, in such a way that it's almost impossible to get lost. If you stay on the same street for a while, eventually you'll get back to your starting point. | ||||||
|
|
The central area is dominated by a beautiful church - St Leo Chapel, and a renaissance fountain. There are ramparts, and above the town are the ruins of 3 castles. The narrow winding streets are enchanting, and most of the stores are very tiny (literally "holes-in-the-wall") and unusual. I think we strolled down every one of them. To the left is a shot of one of the "hole in the wall stores" (this one was selling sweets and souvenirs), and to the right is the St Leo Chapel and fountain. |
|
|||||
|
I guess you can tell that we really enjoyed Eguisheim. We bought some items at a shop almost completely dedicated to mushrooms - mushroom statues, mushroom dips and spreads, dried mushrooms, mushroom spices, as well as gourmet delicacies such as foie-gras, and others. See the picture to the right of Alisa in this mushroom wonderland. |
|
||||||
|
RORSCHWHIR |
|||||||
|
|
Rorschwhir is a sleepy village just north of its noisy neighbors noted above, and the highlight of our visit here was our visit to the Rolly Gassman winery, where we enjoyed several wines, and bought a couple of bottles. The Gassmann family has been making wine in Rorschwihr since 1676. The Rolly Gassmann winery converted to the biodynamic philosophy around 1997 and Pierre Gassmann is a founding member of the Vignes Vivantes, ‘the living vineyards’, which is a regional body dedicated to composting and biodynamic wine making. It's one of the more interesting wineries we visited and if you are interested, you can read more about their wine growing philosophy here. This winery is held in high esteem in Alsace, and produces about 200,000 bottles per year. The picture to the left is of the front of the winery. | ||||||
|
HUSSEREN le CHATEAUX |
|||||||
| Husseren, at 380 meters elevation is the highest winemaking town on the Alsace wine route. There are wonderful views of the Alsace plain, and (on a clear day) the Black Forest in Germany from its vineyards. Above Husseren-les-Châteaux, you can see the ruins of various fortifications, erected from the 11th to the 13th century, that have given the name to the village. Otherwise, there was not much to do or see. | |||||||
|
ROUFFACH |
|||||||
|
|
Rouffach is a large village (5000 pop) south of Colmar. Rouffach is part of the wine route, although to me it looked more like a working class town than a wine making town. It produces a significant and well known grand cru called "Vorbourg". Apparently it has some significant history. We had a pleasant lunch here at a place which called itself the "Tea House". | ||||||
|
PFAFFENHEIM |
|||||||
|
We had to visit Pfaffenheim, a tiny village just north of Rouffach. We are familiar with Pfaffenheim wines, and really wanted to visit the winery. To our dismay, we couldn't find the winery, and even asking locals didn't help. No one in Pfaffenheim could tell us where the Pfaffenheim winery was located. In the end we found it, and also learned why we had such difficulty. In actuality, there is no Pfaffenheim winery, but there is a Pfaffenheim co-op of local growers. They call themselves a cave, but it is clearly a co-op. The web site explains it clearly - "Today, the Cave de Pfaffenheim has 230 members in the surrounding areas, and harvests some 18000 hl over 250 hectares." |
|
||||||
|
|
In any case, the place has a beautiful showroom and we had a very generous tasting, even after explaining that we had no more room in our suitcases. One of the wines we had (a pinot gris) was one of the best wines we tasted on the whole trip. If our suitcases weren't already full, or if we had another couple of days to drink a bottle or 2 in our room, I would have bought it. | ||||||
|
MUNSTER |
|||||||
|
Munster is a small city famous for its Munster cheese (a very strongly flavored cheese) and the only Alsatian cheese. They've been making it in the same way since the 10th century. Made from cow's milk, this cheese has a distinct, high-class personality thanks to the flora in the Vosges mountain pastures and to its traditional means of production, preserved throughout the centuries. It bears no resemblance to the bland munster generally found in the United States. |
|
||||||
|
|
Oddly, we couldn't find any munster cheese to taste in Munster, so we tasted and bought a small wheel up in the mountains at a little hotel/farm/restaurant where we ate lunch. The place was called Auberge des Trois-Fours. They make their own cheese (it's a farm) and there were exactly 2 items on the menu for lunch, so we were very surprised when a tour bus rolled in for lunch. It's located at an altitude of 1250 meters and the view is beautiful. | ||||||
| Munster is the central point of the Munster Valley, a beautiful area with lots of possibilities for hiking and other outdoor activities. Here's the official site of the area. | |||||||
|
ROUTE des CRÊTES |
|||||||
| Munster is a few KM west of Colmar and is one of the ways to the Route des Crêtes. This route is a ridgeline route of 80km, linking the town of Thann in the south with the Col de Bonhomme pass in the north. Throughout its run, it is sometimes in Lorraine, and sometimes in Alsace. Symbolically, the Route des Crêtes marks the border between Lorraine and Alsace, between the Romance and Germanic language worlds. |
|
||||||
| Before becoming a tourist attraction, it was built for military and strategic reasons. During the First World War the French High Command decided to create a road which would follow the ridge of the Vosges mountain range. thereby allowing easier access to various Lorraine and Alsatian valleys on both sides of the mountain range. This project allowed for the faster movement of French military troops and their war material in the face of the German opponent. | |||||||
|
|
The road travels along bucolic countryside, with beautiful mountain passes, rugged mountains, lakes, rocks, pastures, and forests of tall pines. Most of the main part of the route is above 1000 meters. The most impressive stop for us was the "The Hohneck", the highest point (1362 meters), where you have a 360° panoramic view of the entire area. We were there on a beautiful clear day and the view was astounding. | ||||||
|
THANN |
|||||||
|
|
Thann is the southernmost town of the Alsace wine route, and is also pretty close to the southernmost point of the Route des Crêtes, which is Cernay. It's a town of about 8000 population, and was nice to stroll about. It has a picturesque river running through it and in the centre of the old town is the church known as the "Collégiale" which is a good example of the style of gothic architecture that flourished in the Rhine valley in the late Middle Ages. Its facade is incredible. See pictures to the left and right. |
|
|||||
|
COLMAR |
|
||||||
|
|
Colmar was our base for visiting the towns of Haut-Rhin. It's one of the largest cities in Alsace with a population of 60,000. Despite its size it has a lovely old center, where we stayed for 4 nights. We stayed at the Maison des Têtes, a hotel located in a historical building of the same name. Each morning, there were tourist groups outside taking pictures of the lovely and unusual facade of this building. As its name implies, the building is covered with heads (statues of heads - not real ones). Picture to the left . |
|
|||||
|
|
Our room faced the inner courtyard so it was quiet. It was also good sized with only a couple of minor drawbacks. The main one was the separation between the bathroom and the toilet room. They weren't just in separate rooms - they were in opposite corners of the room. It was a little inconvenient if you got up in the middle of the night. Other than that, the shower was inconvenient and the breakfast wasn't worth the 15 Euro price. | ||||||
| However, the positives far outweighed the negatives, as the staff was excellent and helpful, the hotel has free parking, and it has a wonderful restaurant (purportedly the best in Colmar - more later). It's also located right in the center of things with plenty of stores, restaurants and patisseries just around the corner. The interior design is "funky", and the doors to all the rooms are each painted with a different colorful painting. An example to the right. |
|
||||||
|
|
Colmar has several interesting museums, none of which we visited. The best known is the Musée d'Unterlinden, once a medieval convent, and now an art museum housing, among other things, the Retable d'Issenheim, an altarpiece believed to have miraculous healing powers. Another notable museum is the La Musée Bartholdi which is the birthplace of Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, the sculptor who designed the Statue of Liberty. | ||||||
| The city has 2 notable churches almost next to one another, the Dominican Church, and the Cathedral, otherwise known as Collégiale St Martin. The entire old center is a very pleasant place to stroll about, with the area called "Little Venice" being very attractive for tourists. There are a couple of canals, and the atmosphere is very pleasant. You can take a boat ride for a few Euros, and there are plenty of restaurants. |
|
||||||
| Speaking of restaurants, we ate at a couple of nice restaurants while in Colmar, but the most interesting story has to do with the restaurant we didn't eat at. Alisa prefers fish to meat, and in Alsace, it's tough to find a decently cooked fish. I looked for and found in Colmar a good fish restaurant, called "Aux Trois Poissons". It's located in "Little Venice" and I made a reservation there for our last night in Alsace. The restaurant was badly damaged by a fire the night we arrived. Needless to say, we didn't eat there. |
|
||||||
|
|
As for restaurants in Colmar, we ate at several - Schwendi, a German style bar restaurant specializing in a potato based dish called "Roshti", Pfeffen, a restaurant specializing in local cuisine, but the best by far was the restaurant at our hotel. The meal was gourmet from start to finish, with the hotel owner (the wife) serving us and taking care of everything. (She also worked at the lobby desk.) We had several nice dishes - carpaccio of scallops (picture to the left), perch in a saffron sauce (almost bouillabaisse), turbo in riesling sauce, and filet mignon of veal. The last dish was probably the best veal I have ever had. |
|
|||||
 |
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
Alsace was great fun and we loved the towns and the wine. To be sure, it's quite different from other wine districts in France. It's certainly not Bordeaux, but in a very positive sense. Here, there are no grand chateaux, where you have to make an appointment to see anybody. There are a few large producers, but most are small, family run and very friendly. Also, you can't beat the prices. The typical young wine at a local producer will cost around 5-6 Euros. The better and older wines will get up to 10 to 15. It's tough to get above 20 Euros except at the largest producers, of which we visited only 2 - Metz and Hugel. To the left is the elegant showroom of Metz, and to the right, the much simpler "showroom" of Mosbach. Both are in Marlenheim about 200 meters one from the other. Don't misunderstand me - Mosbach was one of our favorite winery visits. |
|
|||||
| Strasburg is the ostensible capital of Alsace and its largest city with a population of 276,000. We didn't visit it on this trip, as we visited there last year on a Rhine River cruise. It's nothing like the rest of Alsace. | |||||||
| Turckheim was one of the wine route towns that was on our program, but which we didn't manage to visit. It looks like a nice town to visit with well preserved ramparts and lots of history. Here's the official web site of of this interesting town. | |||||||
| I described above only one of the typical dishes of Alsace - the choucroute, but there are several more which I will describe below. | |||||||
| Kugelhopf: a richly flavored, light-textured, yeast-raised cake studded with raisins and almonds, baked in a special fluted mold shaped like a Turk's turban. Basically, it's a yeast cake and it can be found everywhere. | |||||||
|
|
Bäckeoffe: a stick-to-your ribs casserole made with layers of sliced potatoes and leeks with two or three kinds of meats (beef, pork, lamb), cooked together in white wine inside an earthenware casserole hermetically sealed with a strip of bread dough. I had this once (in Barr) and really liked it. | ||||||
| Tarte flambée: the Alsatian answer to pizza, made from a very thin crust of bread dough topped with a layer of crème fraîche (slightly soured cream) or fromage blanc (fresh white cheese), thinly sliced onions, and small pieces of smoked bacon, known as lardons. Known in Alsatian dialect as Flammekueche, the best of these are baked in wood-fired ovens. We had tarte flambe a couple of times - it's good for a quick cheap lunch (or dinner). It's very popular. |
|
||||||
|
|
Bouchée à la Reine: Literally meaning the "bite of the queen", we only saw this dish on the menu in Bas-Rhin. It was advertised as the specialty of the best known restaurant in Obernai - La Halle aux Bles (where we ate twice). It's a dish combining millefeuille, and cubed bits of chicken, with a rich sauce. I had it in 2 different restaurants in Obernai, and other than the 3 basic ingredients, they were quite differently presented. To the left is the version I ate at the Freiberg restaurant. | ||||||
|
BELOW ARE A FEW MORE PICTURES |
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
This is a page from our site "Travels with Steve & Alisa". It describes one of the many trips we have made together. We've built these pages not just to describe our trips, but to help other travelers if we can. Please use the information we've provided freely, and let us know if you have any questions we might be able to answer about your own planned trip, or just let us know if we have helped you. Or perhaps you have some information we could add to the site. Visit our home page using the link to the right. Enjoy your next trip!! ~Steve & Alisa~ |
|
LAST UPDATE: 27.OCT.2012
