Mapping the path

Around the Rhine

Day 4: Riquewihr & The Rhine 

We woke the next morning docked in Breisach, on the German side of the Rhine. The town’s hilltop cathedral, Stephansmünster, loomed above us through a muddle of trees in various stages of autumn decline.

The Romanesque cathedral dates from the early 13th century, though its highly defensible riverside location has been inhabited since the Neolithic period, when it was a princely seat for Celts trading with the Mediterranean.

Beyond the cathedral, further east into Germany, lie the foothills of the Black Forest. In the other direction, the Vosges mountains oversee the Alsace, a fertile strip of France known for growing three ingredients that bring joy to so many: hops, truffles, and, in particular, grapes.

The Romans made Alsace a center for viticulture in the first century B.C., building forts and camps in the area to protect their investment. When the empire fell, a confederation of Germanic-speaking people known as the Alemanni moved in. But in the 5th century, the Franks, led by Clovis, defeated the Alemanni, beginning a 1,500-year cycle of the Alsace changing hands between the German and the French.

Alsace was traded among the descendants of Charlemagne for a couple of generations, then was reunited with the Alemanni in 880 when it became part of Swabia, a German duchy. After the decline of the Holy Roman Empire, France’s ambition in Europe pushed east once again toward the Rhine. Alsace was captured by France in 1444, sold to Burgundy, then claimed by Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and the first emperor of the German house of Habsburg. The French re-conquered most of Alsace in 1639, and finished the job in 1681 with the capture of the Alsatian capitol of Strasbourg.

Following France’s defeat in 1871 in the Franco-Prussian War, Otto von Bismarck annexed Alsace into the new German Empire. The empire ceded it back to France after World War I under the Treaty of Versailles. German troops then occupied Alsace for most of World War II, retreating in 1944. Alsace’s history has been as the red bandana at the center of the tug-of-war between two European powers.

This history of straddling two distinct cultures has given Alsatians an independent streak. Alsace briefly declared independence along with neighboring Lorraine after Germany’s defeat in WWI. (French troops helped clarify the matter within weeks.) Alsace still observes a “local law” that includes statutes created under German rule that are still deemed beneficial to the community. The Alsatian language has recently seen a revival, and is now taught in schools alongside French and German to help promote regional identity.

Back to the grapes, currently residing in France. We left the ship later that morning and boarded a bus through misty French farmland for Riquewihr, nestled against the Vosges. Like so many small winemaking villages of the Alsace, Riquewihr is a fortified town, encircled by walls — a testament to the value of the crop and the history of conflict in the region.

What makes Riquewihr unique is that it is one of the relatively few villages whose historic architecture avoided any significant damage during WWII. Riquewihr’s colorful half-timbered shops and homes remain much as they appeared in the 16th century, earning it an official place on the list of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France ("the most beautiful villages of France"). Riquewihr feels suspended in time, a delicate Alsatian snow globe preserving a slice of history for a steady procession of tourists.

And so our group of tourists wandered up the main cobblestone street, peering down alleys and into shops, as we listened to our guide describe Riquewihr’s history and architecture. (There were actually several tour groups on the street that day, and we easily outnumbered the locals.) Despite the dreary November day, the village’s charm shone through — it’s narrow streets, inviting storefronts, colorful flower boxes, and well-preserved homes built by wealthy merchants and winemakers.

The half-timbered buildings in Riquewihr — many painted bright blue or red, pastel green or pale yellow — capture the most attention from tourists. It is a look that instantly warms the heart with memories of fairy tales set in Old World cottages. But the pride of Riquewihr was once that so many of its buildings were made of stone — a signifier of great wealth centuries ago. In fact, the village has the largest number of all-stone houses in Alsace.

My own attention was drawn quickly to the food shops and their impressive window displays of delectable goodies, hinting at the blend of French and German cultural traditions in the region: a kaleidoscopic tower of fluffy macarons, aged sausage, rounds of soft cheese, and freshly baked pretzels.

The main street — Rue du Général de Gaulle — continues to the western walls of Riquewihr and through the archway beneath Dolder Tower, a watchtower built in 1291 and looking just as sharp as the surrounding shops.

A key regional trading center for wine over the centuries, Riquewihr has a couple dozen wineries in and around town, and several in the village center. We doubled back to one of them, a cave right on the main street called Maison Zimmer (more French-German!).

The Alsace Route des Vins (“Wines Road”) runs parallel to the Rhine along the foothills of the Vosges for about 70 miles, up to a point just east to Strasbourg, our destination later in the day. The Alsace is very much a white wine region, emphasizing Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Gewürztraminer, and Pinot Gris. About 10% of grapes are Pinot Noir, the only real red in the area.

As a California native who favors his home terroir and its dry wines, I was happy to discover that these German staples are not exactly what you might expect when grown in Alsace. Alsatian Rieslings are drier than the more familiar, sweeter Rieslings from Germany. They are also higher in alcohol. Double bonus.

At Maison Zimmer, we stepped down sandstone stairs into a 16th century wine cellar, a homey cavern with a gravel floor and fat barrels as cocktail tables. The Zimmer family has been making wine here since 1840, but a stone beam in the tasting room dates the cellar to 1574. Régine Zimmer and her daughters, Laure and Carole, run the operation today, producing about 50,000 bottles per year. Our host took us through a selection of four Zimmer wines, with my favorite being a delicate Riesling from one of the 51 prized Grand Cru vineyards in Alsace, right on the neighboring hillside.

We made our way back to the bus and boarded for the return trip to Breisach. About 20 minutes later, in Colmar, the largest city in the area, our driver pointed to a wholly unexpected sight on an approaching roundabout: a 39-foot-tall replica of the Statue of Liberty.

The quarter-scale copy honors Colmar’s native son, Auguste Bartholdi, sculptor of the original statue. Bartholdi served in the French National Guard as a squadron leader, taking part in the defense of Colmar in the Franco-Prussian War. When France lost the war, and Alsace was ceded to the German Empire, Bartholdi became inspired by the concept of liberty. He created several monuments to French heroism, then made his first trip to the United States to propose his concept for a colossal statue to celebrate the centennial of American independence.

Back at the ship, we had lunch, then moved up to the sun deck as the AmaStella sailed north toward Strasbourg. Before long, we approached the locks at Marckolsheim. There we waited as a massive amount of water was displaced in the lock chamber around us, and the level dropped low enough to allow our ship to continue under a highway bridge and onward on the Rhine.

I went down to the little balcony outside our room and watched the world slip quietly by. The late afternoon sun lit up the trees along the riverbank in radiant gold as gentle ripples fanned out from the ship and receded back into the river. Swans and ducks promenaded along the water’s edge. The sky gradually began to darken, turning the Rhine to a cobolt blue and then a glassy black, reflecting on its surface the pinks and oranges and purples of clouds receiving the day’s last beams of sunlight.

It was one of those perfect moments that you dream about on a river cruise, both relaxing and invigorating, inspiring the senses to take it all in, to appreciate beauty and good fortune. And it was good that I savored that moment, for the cruise we had booked was about to come to an end.

We were soon called to the lounge to hear Cruise Director Pau reveal the fate of the rest of our journey. The news was not good. In his slow and deliberate style of speaking to distracted children, Pau explained that the ship would not go any further than Strasbourg. The drought had not abated, and the Rhine was impassable even for a smaller ship such as the AmaStella. In some spots, the river was just inches deep. So, instead of continuing on to the German towns of Ludwigshafen, Heidelberg, Rüdesheim, and Cologne — enjoying the sights of historic castles all along the river — we would stay an extra day in Strasbourg to see Baden-Baden, Germany, then take a bus through Luxembourg to Antwerp, Belgium, where we would board an identical ship and sail via the North Sea to Rotterdam before finishing as planned in Amsterdam.

That could be interesting, too, I thought, but it was hard not to be disappointed. On our first cruise of any kind, we were going to spend a good chunk of time sitting on a bus, well away from any river.

There was some consolation that evening. It was our night to be invited to the Captain’s Table, which is actually a few tables in a small dining room at the bow of the ship. (Each passenger is treated to one dinner at the Captain’s Table during the course of the cruise.) There we enjoyed an enticing fixed menu of intricate dishes, elegantly presented and accompanied by Franciscan Magnificat and Mt. Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon — both supplied by our friend Janet. As we finished the meal, we looked out the bay windows to see our ship gliding towards the Pont de l'Europe, a large bridge with two arches, all lit up for the night and heralding our arrival at the capital of Alsace, Strasbourg.

< Day 3: Basel | Day 5: Strasbourg >