Day 5 – Ribeauville, un village ancien

Sleep problems aside we are feeling reasonably good, except Bev seems to have contracted a cold. Perhaps it was the slowing down in Singapore that did it!

Canal near our apartment

Bikes are everywhere. Outside the Gare de Strasbourgh

This morning we picked up the car from Europcar. It was quite a wait to talk with someone as the people before us were having problems. In the French way there were loud, apparently angry, voices of disagreement and disappointment. I felt that way at one point when they said they were going to take a deposit with was 33% in addition to the value of the rental. Eek. Despite that the customer service was very good. Our car for the three weeks is VW T-Roc which is the SUV version of the Golf.

I think I would still prefer to have the Golf but it seems that the rental car companies are now renting SUVs as that is what the market is demanding.

The nice thing it did have was Active Cruise Control and lane assist. The first is wonderful. You put the car into cruise control, set the speed and it automatically slows and speeds up the car depending on the speed of the car in front. The “active lane assist” nudges you back into the centre of the lane if you veer too much to the left or right by just drifting. Two pieces of cool technology which do make driving safer. Another step toward autonomous driving.

A happy man

We drove to a very picturesque village, Ribeauville. It is an historic village, and is pretty. This means there are hordes tourists like us there. And since it was Easter that meant it was mainly French and German tourists. The locals all seem to speak both languages plus a smattering of English. Oh to be so lucky to be bilingual if not trilingual.

It was a gorgeous day, clear blue skies although there was a brownish haze apparent, despite the air clarity. It was lunchtime when we arrived and we spied an interesting restaurant with a menu de jour that was very reasonably priced. We got a seat outside and under an umbrella. The food was simple but well-cooked and tasty. A French version of lamb shanks. It was a great place to people watch. Next door to us was a couple with their two miniature dogs, one who was in the lap of the woman and the other happily in a spare seat at the table. Then a little later a couple turned up with what I thought was their child. But no, it was a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. This fascinated Bev who has two of them who are well pampered also.

We wandered around the village for an hour or so. Behind the village and the hill are les 3 Chateaux. The big one appeared in the background as we walked up the twisting street making it quite a spectacular sight. The photos I took don’t quite do it justice.

Having had a bottle wine that was broken on our way over to London I needed to replace it as it was destined for friends we were staying with. I found a wine producer who was local and was able to get a grand cru as a replacement. The wines he made were superb and we only tasted his organic wines.

After a wander around the village, we headed back to Strasbourg to get some supplies. We found an enormous hypermarché that had an enormous range of products, more than any I had ever seen! Whereas our supermarkets have reduced choice, here it was almost overwhelming. Of course, there was a huge car park to go with the place!

As it was so warm when we got back to the apartment we sat on our balcony and had a drink and read our books.

Afterwards I cooked a light meal of poached egg on white asparagus (seasonal at the moment) with a herb roasted tomato, accompanied by a Jean Sipp Pinot Gris 2016. Bev pronounced the meal to be very nice.