Breakfast is at 7:30 this morning, followed by route review at 8:30. It’s moving day too, so we had to have our suitcases packed and outside our doors before 8:30. One of the great things about this trip is that we basically bicycle from hotel to hotel; there is not a lot of shuttling going on. On many trips we end up spending several hours either at the beginning of the day or at the end, on a bus being taken to or from our hotel. Not the case on this tour which also means we have more time in the day for other activities or for exploring the town in which we are staying.

During route review we get some history of the Alsace area and how it has changed from Germany to France over time. This also shows up in Ross’s family Bible; his grandfather was born near Strasbourg in 1868 and it was originally recorded as in France but that was later crossed out and rewritten as Germany.

Then we have a review of our day and it’s clearly a busy day with a potential 37-mile ride, a guided visit of a Vauban site, a boat ride, and then a wine-tasting.

We leave the hotel the same as yesterday with a somewhat lengthy descent into the main part of the town. We wend our way through the city, following mostly a bike path, crossing streets, and watching traffic, and eventually get out into the countryside.

This morning‘s ride is 26 miles to the town of Neuf-Brisach where we stop for lunch.
Here, I follow Ross along the bike lane where we continue to see Iris in bloom.

We also travel through many crop fields in Germany. These are strawberries.

Looking across a field toward the Black Forest area.

In this photo we are crossing the Rhine river and Ross is in France and I’m still in Germany.

It was along this section of the bikepath that Ross‘s phone fell off his bike . But a rider behind us rescued it and there was no damage.

An interesting church in a small village.

We stopped for a photo op of this corn-drying crib. Later, we saw another crib that still had corn stored in it.

Across the road, we saw a farmer in his tractor possibly checking his GPS.

Another photo of the bike path strewn with blooms from Poplar trees.

After nearly 26 miles we arrive in Neufchâtel-Brisach. Lunch is at Aux2Roses near the town’s historic square.

They serve a traditional food of the Alsace area, Flammkuchen, or tarts flambée. It is a very thin bread dough covered with either fromage blanc or crème fraîche similar to cream cheese, plus onions and lardons, small pieces of fatty bacon.

Other varieties may have mushrooms or different types of cheese, or dessert versions with berries or apples.

It’s not a pizza and I can attest to that because of the sour taste of the fromage blanc but it has a nice thin crispy crust. We see lots of these over the next few days.

After lunch we have a guided tour of the fortifications that date back to 1696 and were commissioned by King Louis XIV as a defense against the Habsburg empire. Our guide is the Sun King’s military architect, Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban. He designed twelve sites around France that as a group are called the Fortifications of Vauban and are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. His work influenced military construction from the 17th to the 20th century. This site was his last work before he died in 1707.

A photo of the outside wall. Supposedly 1,500 to 2,000 men were employed daily to build the fort from scratch on flat ground.

The cornerstone which shows the date of 1700. The fortification was built between 1699 and 1703.

A photo showing the inside wall. This was an example of Vauban’s most successful fortification planning, to have an inside thoroughfare for troop movement as well as command and civilian traffic.

At this point we had ridden 26 miles and our sit bones were not accustomed to this yet. We had very little opportunity to ride bikes before this trip due to weather. The month of May is obviously, for us, too early for a bicycle trip. So, we opted to skip the rest of the ride and van into Colmar with Emma. For the next two nights, we will be at the Hotel Grand Colmar in the middle of the old town section which is also called Litttle Venice because of a canal that we would see close up later that day.

Later that afternoon our group goes on a scheduled canal boat ride.

It’s a short ride and this photo is of another boat on the canal.

Along the canal we see many half-timbered houses.

Next we have a wine-tasting at local winery followed by a “simple” dinner consisting of potatoes, cheese, lettuce salad, and thin slices of trout. A photo of our host.

The hotel also had a nice outdoor area for gathering later in the day.