La Rue du Vin - Riquewihr, France

20-21 August

While I was researching places to stay for another trip, I came across Riquewihr, France, a tiny town along the Rue du Vin (French wine road) that looked like too much fun to miss. So when Brian and I had a free weekend, we booked a night at the Hotel De La Couronne, which I would HIGHLY recommend. Good price, beautiful stay.

Here is the video Brian made for this trip that perfectly captures our experience

La Rue du Vin from Brian Rentsch on Vimeo.

On Saturday, we had a leisurely morning at home, which included homemade waffles and coffee. Once we got on the road, we drove on great side roads that took us through some dense, green forests in Germany. For lunch, we stopped for some currywurst with tons of other motorcyclists at this little restaurant in the woods. Good food, but lots of bees, so you know I was ready to get out of there :)

When we crossed into France and began our journey along the wine road, the views were amazing.

For the first time in our motorcycling experience, the wine road signs were much easier to follow than using the GPS. Turning off the GPS and navigating together by finding the next sign was a lot of fun!

The cute little towns and overflowing flower boxes made this drive one of my favorites. A lot of the towns had medieval walls surrounding them, which were very cool to see. We also had the warmest riding weather we've ever experienced - temperatures in the 80s! Here are some of pictures that attempt to capture the charm of these little towns:

After riding through quite a few towns, Brian changed up the scenery by taking us along a mountain road. We definitely enjoyed the shade, cooler temperatures, and elevated views of the towns below!





The tour book our friend John let us borrow said Riquewihr (the town where we stayed) is the most picturesque town on the wine road, and I would have to agree! We were excited to drive into what felt like the scene of a beautiful, old French movie. And our hotel was perfect - right in the middle of town, a 16th century building that was nice, clean, and fitting with the town charm.

After cleaning up, we went for a nice walk around town to explore and most importantly, find dinner!

Old Riquewihr Clock Tower

As an appetizer, we bought some perfectly baked macaroons at this shop.

Searching for a good spot for dinner...

Found one!

We found a great restaurant in a small alley that had the ambiance we were looking for. We really wanted to eat outside because it was such a nice evening, but we were also looking for a quiet place to relax. This little restaurant had all of that plus delicious food and wine! And as we were getting ready to order dessert, some street performers came into the restaurant. I know what you're thinking, because it's normally how I think of street performers. But these guys were SO good! One played the accordion and the other played the guitar, and the French songs were just perfect. You can see them at the end of the video Bri made. I was on cloud 9.

Our little alley

After we overindulged at dinner, we went on a walk around the town.

And then we decided to sit in the alley outside our hotel and have some more wine. When in Alsace, do as the Alsatians do! When we got there, we had the little area all to ourselves.

But then more and more people started to join us! By the end of the night, most of the tables had couples and friends enjoying wine.

We found it hilarious how small the wine glasses were in Alsace

The next morning, we woke up and had breakfast at our hotel. The little breakfast area was awesome with its wood beams and rock walls. And they had great coffee, homemade granola and yogurt, French cheese, meats, and of course, croissants!

After breakfast, it was a beautiful day, so we did some more sight seeing in Riquewihr. We found more bakeries, beautiful glass stores, antique stores, and even a cool handmade soap store.

We also made our way up into the hillside to walk through the vines.

Riquewihr from the vineyards

As we were walking along the side streets in town, we saw this old man standing in the doorway on the left side of this picture.

He invited us in and gave us a tour of what will be a bed and breakfast, opening in December of this year. It's an old timber house that he was completely remodeling on his own, and he was very proud of it (as he should be! it was beautiful). He didn't speak English, so Brian conversed with him in German (love my husband/translator).

Then it was time to head home. But we couldn't leave without buying some wine, so we stopped at Dopff au Moulin on the way out of Riquewihr to pick up a couple of bottles.

Perfect fit in our motorcycle case!

At Dopff au Moulin

And as you can probably guess, the ride home was just as spectacular! What a perfectly romantic weekend getaway!