A Day in Husseren-Les-Chateaux

July 1, 2024

Keeping up with the journal has been tough. When we ride everyday I am too tired to do much and when we have down time only one of us can work on it at once. So, I am writing this 5 days later and struggling now with my 64 year old memory.

We are staying at the start of a road called the “route of the cinq chateaux,” which is a road France punched through in the 1960s to encourage tourism to 6 ruined chateaux. I am not sure why they didn’t name it the “route of six chateaux.” Three of the chateaux are just 2 km up the hill from us so we took our bikes out on a cloudy but nice morning and rode a stiff climb up and then parked to hike up to the three ruined castles. It was fun but I can’t say I learned anything. We expected to see good views of the valley but the foliage was so thick we really couldn’t get a good look. There were quite a few folks around doing the same thing. Afterwards I tried to look up some history of the three castles but there wasn’t much.

A pleasant hike from chateau to chateau. A rare day for Jill to wear shorts on this trip.

We clamored around a bit and met Martin, Niamh, and their daughter Miehin, who were living in Perth, Australia now but they had lived in quite a few interesting places. The mom, Niamh, is Irish (hence the Irish name) and we had a fun conversation about cycling in Ireland, since we are thinking to do that next year.

Since the weather seemed to be holding (rain was predicted) we continued our ride up the route of cinq chateaux past the fifth chateau (which we never did see, as it off the road somewhere) and wound up eventually at Chateau Hohlandsbourg. The ride up was really fun, on a twisty steep road through a thick forest. The hiking would be excellent. At Hohlandsbourg, which is rebuilt and not really a ruin, you could pay to go in and look around which we did. We were able to walk all around the ramparts and see a 360 degree view of the valley, the city of Colmar, the vineyards and multiple little towns. It gave great context of the area. It was also quiet with no crowds. In the book store there, we bought a small paperback cook book on savory Alsatian specialties. Last night at the hotel we had an amazing tarte l’oignon and Dave started strategizing on how to make one at home. As we are nearing the end of our trip he is beginning to think about cooking. Needless to say there was an onion tart recipe in the book and it was small enough to carry in our panniers (the book I mean, not the tart).

The chateau had installed a family friendly via ferrata.

That evening we dined at the hotel and had a wonderful meal. We love this little resort and are happy we could stay two nights. We would stay here again: Hotel Spa Husseren-les-Chateaux (but no tubs).

This was a starter with leeks and noori and a few other things. It was delicious.

The hotel has a wonderful garage for bikes with plenty of outlets for charging e-bikes. One of our easiest storage places on the whole trip. Plus, no steps to maneuver.

Today's ride: 12 km (7 miles)
Total: 2,179 km (1,353 miles)

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