The Bike Route Medal Podium

Three of the best new routes on this tour

Even since writing the previous page we have discovered more and more great looking bike routes. To be great in our eyes, a route needs to have a catchy title, available maps, and very importantly - downloadable GPS track.

We are trying to stay focussed, and to be happy with the routes we have chosen. There are fifteen that make up our tour, fifteen stages, they could be called. But of these there are three that stand out as being either new (to us) or extra catchy. This page gives a brief description of the first one, and the next pages cover the other two in turn. We are looking forward to these a lot. With the descriptions maybe you can anticipate arriving at each one along with us.

The Alsace Wine Route

When we cycled through Alsace last Spring we actually had little awareness that the Alsace region is one of the most famous wine areas there is. Not only that, when our friends the Classens wrote to suggest we follow the wine route and not the boring canal, we had to scramble to find out (too late for that trip) what the wine route is. Fortunately we were able to pick up some great maps, and now the whole thing is crystal clear.

The Rhine River is the focus of the story. After starting in the Alps it flows into the large lake, the Bodensee. It leaves the Bodensee and flows roughly west until Basel. at Basel it hangs a sharp right and charges north through a huge valley. On the east side of the valley are the Vosges mountains in France. And on the west is the Black Forest of Germany.

Very roughly, between the Vosges and the river is about 30 km. Nearest the mountains there are of course slopes and also the valleys of Rhine tributaries. The slopes and valleys shelter about 100 wine villages. Among these are about 50 areas designated "Alsace Grand Cru". That's a big deal (especially if you like wine!). A route has been set out that visits each village, but you would have to be a zealot to go up all the side valleys. Instead there is the "Veloroute du Vignoble", which is still obviously the wine route, but which takes a sensible path that does not try to go everywhere.

The whole route is no more than 135 km in length. That would seem to make it no more than 2 km between villages on average. At least 40 of the villages have tourist information offices. We see them listing lots of castles, museums, even stork parks, a witches house and a monkey mountain. This route should be a good one.

Here is the Rhine in blue on the right. The "boring" canal route (Eurovelo 15) is in orange. Then there is all the action of the villages and the red route up against the mountains.

So many villages one after another with the mountains behind.

The (red) wine route with its numbered villages, and the more sensible green bike route.

Maps and web sites made it all clear to us.

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