I knew about Chateau Haut-Koenigsbourg thanks to Kate Ragan, Bill McInturff’s wife. She had mentioned it to me when I had told her we were going to do a European Christmas markets trip that included Strasbourg and Colmar.
Kate said we absolutely had to go to this dramatic castle perched high up on a mountain. When someone is that insistent that a place is cool, I definitely want to go. I researched it a bit – it was not far from Strasbourg (36 miles) nor far from Colmar (18 miles).
As it turned out, the castle can be seen from the main road between the two cities. (Colmar’s more of a town than a city, but you get the idea).
It had been reconstructed at the behest of Kaiser Wilhelm II between 1900 and 1908, back when the Germans controlled Alsace-Lorraine. The person in charge of the effort, Bodo Ebhardt, did a painstaking job of doing it based on as much historical notes and archaeological information as he could dig up.
(Editor: Oh boy, that pun is one of your weaker ones. Writer: Guilty).
The road to the castle was packed as we drove up. We parked three-tenths of a mile from the castle and walked the rest of the way up the mountain. The air was cold and crisp, and the sun was sort of breaking through. And it did, for the most part during our visit, except when fog came rolling in to block the very scenic views of the surrounding valleys. The ground and building had dustings of snow.
There were a lot of people there because, as it turns out, the castle is free to visit on the first Sunday of the month. I had, in my mind’s eye, the three of us wandering about a nearly empty castle grounds and walls. Turned out not to be the case, but on the other hand, it was free! And not just to citizens of European Union countries, but every country, including the USA.
Even though there were a fair number of people visiting that Sunday morning coming down, there was only one or two bottlenecks as we made our way through the castle on a self-guided tour. I’ll let the pictures tell the story from here:
After the success of the stop at the castle, I pushed my luck, taking us to the nearby quaint medieval town of Riquewihr. Well, apparently everyone in France and Germany decided to spend their Sunday the same way. There were lines of parked cars for miles, and lines of cars waiting to try to find parking. Police were directing traffic, or at least indicating there was no place to park that was within the same area code.
We drove through town, couldn’t find any place to park that didn’t entail a two mile hike into town, and decided to bag it. Getting out of town meant we drove on winding roads through vineyards, so it at least was a picturesque failed attempt. It’s called the Paris of Alsace-Lorraine, but only because the people going there that day matched the population of Paris.
(Editor’s Note: Surely you jest. Writer: I do, and don’t call me Shirley!)
The number of people flocking to it suggests that Riquewihr lives up to the hype. We’ll never know.
To add insult to injury, we stopped in a nearby wine town to get lunch. The one restaurant in town seated the people ahead of us, but told us they were then full up. So I had a cookie. On to Colmar!
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