On our 3rd day in France we had a long program of activities. Early morning a small bus picked us up and drove through the hills of Alsace to the Château du Haut-Koeningsborg.
The castle was spectacular. The impression of power emanating from is created very much by it’s size.
It was quite difficult to take pictures of the Haut-Koeningsborg, but the scale model provides an opportunity to understand the castle’s size:
Built in 12th century, destroyed, then rebuilt in 1400s; it was destroyed once more in the 17th century before being completely abandoned. The Haut-Koenigsbourg was fully restored in the beginning of the last century.
A medieval garden of the castle on the photo below.
It was quite interesting to walk through the labyrinths of stairs, halls, rooms. Everything was really massive.
After the Haut-Koenigsbourg we continued to our next destination – Ribeauvillé. Beautiful landscapes on the way:
The town of Ribeauvillé is known from the 8th century. On the horizon one can see the Haut-Koenigsbourg:
A corner with no tourists 🙂 where I had this photo taken:
We saw a stork’s nest on one of the houses (red arrow):
A closer photo:
Lunch time at one of the restaurants. From left to right: Per, Carsten, Kristian, Inge-Merethe. Food is always good in France, and probably therefore we often forget to praise it.
Butches Tower on the photo below. Built in 1290 and raised in 1536, it has often been threatened with destruction. Today it is a town emblem; it rises to 29 m.
The next place we visited was the Le Linge, a first world war battlefield, where one of the bloodiest confrontations of the war took place between July and October 1915, resulting in 17.000 deaths.
The small exhibited area outside the museum is a sacred ground. Several thousands of the young men still rely for their last sleep, buried under the rubble, shells, in trenches or temporary shelter.
After The La Linge we drove to Münster where we could buy products from the local farms.
It was a great day, full of exciting and different activities.