Day 75: Colmar to Obernai

May 3, 2025

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We were really relieved to be leaving the "Primo" hotel, because finally we would have air to breathe! Even at the last, though, it was not so simple because of the cigarette smokers "guarding" the door and fouling the air where we would have loaded the bikes. We had to flee to around the corner to get ready to finally leave.

Even though the "Primo" was not so far from lovely Colmar centre, it managed to locate in a totally plain Jane neighbourhood.

But Primo was really yesterday's news. Today we would follow the Alsace wine route, with fresh air and vistas, great bike ways, and some glorious streetscapes and buildings. By the way, if you think Dodie is going the wrong way, she's not. People who put up direction signs love to point them straight at forks in the road. We found out that the route goes left here the hard way.

The sign warns we have to share with tractors.

but the fact is that most are micro sized, to fit between the vines!

The layout for the wine route is dominated by the fact of the Vosges mountains, forming a wall to the west, and the Rhine plain forming the boundary to the east. Between these limits, the vines are arranged to mount the Vosges slopes, and sprinkled among them are about 100 villages, many with extremely beautiful cores of fachwerk buildings.

Mountains, villages, and vines complement the great cycle paths here.

Despite the photo above, and this one, the general rule is vines up the slopes and villages below.

There will also be churches of many sizes and styles, all looking magical against the mountain backdrops.

For the first perhaps 20 km out of Colmar we really didn't see much of vines, and villages were made up of solid but plain houses. There were a lot of newly sprouted corn fields, and many orchards of apples and cherries.

We also noticed that the rapeseed had dropped its yellow blooms an was working on seed formation. The fields were still very fragrant, though.

Signage along the way was really good, both for signaling the turns and for information about what was coming up.

But at Kintzheim, things picked up.

Up on a balcony we see some of the decorating themes of the region- storks, gnomes, mushrooms, geraniums.

We were happy to run into this bakery. The photo composition is a bit strained, as I tried to avoid cars parked out front. You can still see lots in the window reflection.

I think tartes flambees is actually flammkuchen which is actually very thin crust pizza, and frankly, not all that great.

What a nice town. The stork nest is empty - strange.

The outskirts of Chatenois - quite plain.

But that must have been new construction. Deeper in were fancier buildings.

Here is a story about the town burning down in 1879. We snapped the info panel but have not yet taken the trouble to really learn the story.

Dodie is heading for the Sorcerer's Tower, 1402.

We stopped in at the church, noting that it was within concentric defensive walls of the town.

Each piece of stained glass featured a different saint.

Nearby building wears a stork's nest hat.

I had picked up a pamphlet of the church inside, and only looked at it one we were underway. It mentioned the "Virgin of the Apocalypse". I am not one to miss a named virgin, so back we went!

Virgin of the Apocalypse. Baby Jesus is carrying a cross - he has his timeline mixed up!

We saw this in another town as well, but never quite got to walk through the mentioned gardens.

In Scherwiller we stopped to eat our sandwiches. The barrel cart in the photo is stationed in front of the library. I had a close look at it, and it seemed extremely useful and capable, if of course you had a horse and five barrels of wine!

We slammed on the brakes to say hello to this baby miniature horse. Being a baby and a miniature made him really small. Some other cyclists stopped as well. We found they were from Bonn and their final destination was Colmar. How cool to be able to jump on your bike and follow bike routes all the way for an outing like that! That's 400 km of pure fun!

There was a steady stream of touring cyclists along the route.

A very pointy church tower, near Dambach

Roadside panel extolling the Black Redstart

This shot looks great, but in truth the bike way turns right rather than climbing the hill.

Around the corner we found a nice rest area, with some info panels about the region.

The picture below illustrates the mountain region to the west, the strip of vines and villages in the centre and the Rhine area to the east.

The towns are so close together it can be hard to figure out which you are looking at from the distance.

We are calling the one above Nothalten, though perhaps the church does not match the illustration?

It can be significant about which town is which, if you happen to spot a really nice hotel in one. We are thinking it would be good to make a headquarters in a nice place and from there to cycle all over the region over a period of days.

Barr looked ok from above, but somehow we found it plain.

4 km from Obernai we began to wonder if our GPS was wonky.

We got to the outskirts of Obernai, our destination for the day, and found it clogged with parked cars and camper vans, plus a lot of construction. We pushed on through, and landed in front of our hotel, the Sainte Odile. (Odile of Alsace was born in Obernai in 660 a.d. She is the patron of good eyesight.)

The hotel is on the crowded main street.

We ae eager to see what else lies on our street. But first we drop our gear and bikes.

We took a short walk, stopping in for instance at this cheese store.

and looking at all the fabulous buildings

Here was the St Peter and St Paul church. Let's have a quick peek.

Stained glass without religious figures, was also found in side windows. Would be so nice to have at home!

Stepping back outside, we could look at city hall, and its bell tower:

The two oldest bells date from 1429 and 1474.

A painting with the tower, on the landing at our hotel.

Obernai must be really great at Christmas, and in fact we did spot some Christmas shops. How about this image from one:

The rest of the shop is very bright too.

We trudged back to the hotel, past more and more of these great buildings.

and had a last look at the roofs and storks before retiring to write the blog.

Tomorrow we expect to reach Strasbourg, while first passing through even more of the wine villages. Even now, Alsace can join Provence and Mallorca as the standout cycling places from this tour.

Oh, we didn't see any "new" birds today, but how about this Kestrel!

or this Black Kite, from the small camera

Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 2,471 km (1,534 miles)

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Bill ShaneyfeltLooks like you are on a trajectory to put you near Kaiserslautern in a few days. We lived in a little town of Erzenhausen, population about 400 not far from there for 2 years.
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3 days ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Bill ShaneyfeltWe will be near, but not that close. At that point we are heading north along the Rhine to Mainz.
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3 days ago