Interesting sights including war sites and wineries

[?] Subscribe To Get Alsaced

My Services

Visitor Contributions

Traveling to Alsace

Where to Go

Cities & Towns

Villages

History

Languages

Food & Drink

Interesting sights including war sites and wineries

by Dale Sevig
(Lakeland, FL USA)

My wife who speaks fluent German and I will be in Strasbourg on May 29th. We may overnight to revisit and then go to Gengenbach Germany to meet up with some old friends from Hamburg for two days and then we're moving to the Alsace for three days.

We toured this area maybe twenty years ago briefly and loved it.

I have reserved a nice B&B near Huttenheim-Benfeld for those nights as a base.

I thought of sort of winging it and splitting up the length of Alsace from north to south in three parts and seeing some of the best villages and a few wineries.

Do you have any suggestions on top sights along the way like the best villages (war sites are of interest), top wineries to stop in at and nice but not overpriced restaurants for at least lunch or maybe dinner

After this we're heading to the Massif Central area of France for eight days to explore. This is our sixth trip to France.

Thank you Dale

Comments for
Interesting sights including war sites and wineries

Average Rating

Click here to add your own comments

Rating

War Sights in Alsace
by: Suzele

My two favorite war sites in Alsace are Hartmannswillerkopf (Vieil Armand) and Fort Schoenenbourg (Maginot Line).

Hartmannswillerkopf is up in the mountains, but easy enough to find because of all the signs pointing the way. It's not far from Cernay and you'll find signs for it in the village of Uffholz which is a smaller village near Cernay in southern Alsace.

It's a World War One battle site and the trenches are in very good shape because they were carved into the mountain itself.

You could spend an entire day there if you enjoy hiking around the trenches or you could just walk around for a few hours. Your choice...

You can see the WWI trenches the best in the late spring before all of the plants start growing in and around them.

My other favorite is a very large underground fort on the Maginot line in northern Alsace.

It's not far from Haguenau or Wissembourg if those towns interest you.

You'll need a few hours to walk through Fort Schoenenbourg and bring a jacket. It's cool down there.

Another site that you may find interesting is the Struthof Concentration Camp Memorial near Schirmeck. It's about an hour south of Strasbourg in the Vosges mountains.

The Alsace-Moselle Memorial is also around Schirmeck. It's in the same location as a Nazi Prison/Work Camp and is all about war history through the eyes of the people in Alsace.

It's focused on the Franco-Prussian War (1870), World War One, and World War Two. It's the "famous" 75 years where Alsatians changed nationalities and languages four times.

Rating

Visiting Wineries in Alsace
by: Suzele

I have a really hard time picking out the best tasting wines in Alsace because most of them are small producers (by American standards) and they all take their wine making very seriously.

If you don't know much about Alsace wine, you can try a few glasses of the local wines in pretty much every restaurant in Alsace, if you find some that really tickle your fancy, then you might want to go to see them.

The village where they are located is always on the label.

You can visit a "big" wine producer and get an experience similar to what you would get in Napa Valley in California except that the wine is Alsatian wine.

They'll probably have someone who speaks at least some English.

If you don't know much about Alsace wine, it may be a good place to start because you can ask them questions about Alsace, wine and everything in between.

Or you can go to a smaller more traditional wine producer...

They'll give you a list of what they have grouped according to the grape variety and usually listed from lightest to strongest in flavor.

And you tell them what you want to try and you can ask them questions.

Small producers don't normally speak English, but they may speak German.

You'll find signs everywhere on the Alsatian wine road pointing towards "caves de degustation".

The big guys have shops right on the main roads usually and they have big signs. The smaller wineries have signs too, but they are usually where they've always been for years and years in the different villages on the wine road.

The smaller wineries in Alsace expect you to buy a few bottles of something. The big wineries charge you a fee up front to taste a few wines. Some will give you a choice.

There are over a hundred wine producing villages in Alsace and each village could have anywhere from a one or two to thirty or more wine makers.

There are some great wines all over Alsace. It's really hard for me to name names.

Rating

Restaurants in Alsace
by: Suzele

Restaurants in Alsace (and all of France too) cost more than restaurants in the US.

It's because of the social security system in France. Employees are expensive and restaurants require more than a few employees usually.

So anything that is more than a sandwich shop in Alsace isn't going to be "cheap".

And Alsace also has almost 30 starred restaurants (as of the Michelin Red Guide 2009 ) and many other restaurants that are not "starred" but are listed in the 2009 Michelin Guide (which is already a big deal) so there are a lot of good places to eat in Alsace!

If you want to eat at some of these very nice restaurants, but you don't want to pay for an expensive meal you have a few options...

1) Go for lunch. The price will be about half that of the dinner menu and you still get the same great food in smaller portions.

2) Take a "menu". In English they might be called a "tasting menu". Sometimes they even come with different glasses of wine for each course included.

3) Go to an out of the way restaurant. Not all of the well known restaurants are in convenient locations. Some of them are in the middle of nowhere even and most of them have a small hotel or bed and breakfast. The very well established and famous restaurants are expensive no matter where they are, but lesser known or newer restaurants that are off the beaten path usually have better prices.

Click here to add your own comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How?
Simply click here to return to Your Questions about Alsace