Ribeauvillé, Alsace
Ribeauvillé is one of the oldest towns in Alsace, located near Colmar and surrounded by vineyards and mountains. This village is very popular with tourists. Main street of the town (Grand Rue) and other picturesque streets are divided by pretty squares which are decorated with fountains and many flowers. The main square in the centre of the town has also picturesque buildings with several cafes & restaurants. Ribeauvillé is located on the Alsace Wine Route (Route des Vins).
Parking in Ribeauvillé
We park the car in the parking lot located near the entrance to the main street - Grand Rue (P; GPS: 48.191868, 7.325256). Parking is paid, what is however not obvious at first glance. You also should take into account that during the high season there can be a problem with free places.
Grand Rue
Grand Rue is the main street of Ribeauvillé - it stretches practically through the entire town from east to west (or vice versa :)). It begins with a small square with a nice fountain - Fontaine du Vigneron (A; GPS: 48.193056, 7.324210). We walk in a westerly direction passing colorful half-timbered houses, very characteristic for the whole region of Alsace. On the summit of the mountain we can see the ruins of the Saint Ulrich castle. We reach the first bigger square: Place de la 1e Armée (B; GPS: 48.194103, 7.322244). We see many restaurants and a sculpture representing a man playing the flute.
By the way, there are more sculptures or drawings depicting flutists in this town. Going farther down the Grand Rue street we encounter another, even larger square (C; GPS: 48.194960, 7.319113) - this is the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, where we find the mayor's house and another beautiful fountain from 1536. Next, we get to interesting clock tower known as the Butchers Tower (Tour des Bouchers) (D; GPS: 48.195287, 7.318600). This is a thirteenth-century building which is also the border between old and a new town. In sixteenth century its height has been doubled from 15 to 30 meters. Going farther down the Grand Rue street we pass interesting Place de la Sinne in a triangular shape (E; GPS: 48.195973, 7.316499). In the middle of it there is erected a fountain with a beautiful statue of a woman symbolizing the town of Ribeauvillé. We finish our stroll visiting medieval church of Saint-Grégoire from thirteenth century (F; GPS: 48.196965, 7.316633).
Ribeauvillé - the town of storks
Being still in the parking lot we noticed the nests of storks and also the storks themselves on some roofs of buildings. This scene was a little abstract, so we thought that it is a promotion of Alsace or something like this. However it turned out that the storks are real since they started flying :). Going deeper into the town we also encountered another nests and storks flying around them.
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