Biking a long Route des Vins in Alsace

Sunday we did this biking tour a long the famous Route des vins in Alsace. One of the things that I have wanted to do for a long time. We have only driven by car a long parts of this route and to do it on wheels was even more spectacular. 

You take in so much more of the scenery that is absolutely beautiful. You can stop when and where ever you want (however we only did one stop for lunch and some mini-stops when I took these pictures). We had such a beautiful day. 

Sunday morning we met up with our friends Aaron, Carol and Lillie at the Basel train station and hopped on a train to Mulhouse. A train ride of about 20 minutes arriving in French Mulhouse. 

Getting ready, putting on sunscreen, packing a few snacks, plenty of water. Perhaps we should have tried getting mentaly ready for this. Sometimes it is good not to know exactly what lies ahead and awaits you. Had I known that I would be spending the next 8 hours on that bike saddle and completing a total of 80 km on wheels before I got back on a train I might have turned around.

 However the weather was gorgeous. A good mix of sun and clouds and a nice 22-25 C. There are so many beautiful stretches a long this route that it makes you forgett about tiredness.

We had decided on biking from Mulhouse to Colmar. A stretch that is supposed to be less than 80 km but as we did some unplanned detours that added more to our total route than we had wanted and expected. Despite having a GPS navigator we lost the proper route at some moments. The signs and directions are not as excellent in France as compared to Switzerland. In the end it did not matter so much.

 You get to pass by the vinyards close up. You get to see the rolling hills coverd with grape vines in neat rows. It is all so green and lush.

 You bike a long both paved and unpaved roads. Wheat fields, corn fields, cows and horses, pretty flowers. Deep into the French country side. It all smells so fresh. You get to see how and where everything grows. Passing the fields of local produce that is what you find at the local farmers markets.

Passing some very cute little French villages. Pretty quiet on a Sunday but neverless equally pretty. We took a lunch beak in this little village ( I do not remember the name of it unfortunatley). That was about the only break that we took. One hour lunch break and we were all starving. We finished everything on our plats. I think that was a good idea as we had about 6 more hours of biking a head of us (I am so glad I did not know about that at this point).

 So many fields of corn. I guess there are different kinds of corn. All the corn that is grown here is not the edible kind that you can buy at the supermarket but a lot of the corn is also grown and used to feed livestock or used to produce other corn based products.

Entering and passing another little pretty French countryside village.

 You get a great mix of culture and country side. Some of these churches are so beautiful and impressive.

Neat and perfect rows or vines.

I fell in love with this particular wheat field with blue corn flower (blåklint). I just had to make a stop here and take some pictures.

Most of the small French villages that you pass through have these amazingly beautiful flower arrangements all over the place. Flower beds standing or haning with such a pretty mix of colors and with different kinds of flowers. You see them and wish that you could make your own flower beds look equally good and pretty. 

 What a great day, summer, blue skies, biking with friends taking in the French country side. Being able to do something like this is why I love living in Basel so much. Spending a full day on wheels in Alsace on a perfect summer day - LOVE IT!

Route du vin follows the Vosges mountains. The vinyards are located by the foothill of this mountain range.

At the moment the weather has been hard to predict. Saturday evening we had given up on being able to do this biking tour that we after all managed to do. The weather forecast had predicted heavy rain showers and thunder storms through out the day. Sunday morning the forecast looked entirely different so it was all a quick decision to hop on the bikes. 

The dark clouds were threatening us in the horizon but luckily it never started to rain. We manged to make the entire stretch of 80 km without getting a single rain drop on us. We had a gorgeous day. I have never biked this far before. So I broke a personal record today. We took the train from Colmar back to Basel and returned home at around 8 pm. The train coverd the distance we had biked in about 30 minutes that had taken us almost 8 hours. I am very happy I got to do this bike journey. This is again an excellet way to see more and be able to take in the beauty of the landscape in a way that it impossible if you drive.

Tomorrow we are leaving for a few days of vacation in France. Flying off to Toulouse early afternoon and later heading towards Bordeaux. I am going to be off the blog for the next coming week but when I am back have plenty of pictures to share from La France.