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Day 20, Mulhouse to Colmar - 60 kilometers

Route conditions: Once out of Mulhouse, very easy riding on flat roads and bike trails with little or no traffic. Some slight uphill portions to reach Eguisheim. Directions: Leave Mulhouse north on the D20 riding through the villages of Baldersheim and Battenheim to Ensisheim. Leaving Ensisheim, travel west on the D4bis along bike path and roadway through Ungersheim and Raedersheim. Turn north on the D15 and ride the bike trail to Merxheim, Gundolsheim and across the N83 highway to Rouffach. Leave Rouffach on the bikepath that parallels the N83 on the west side through Pfaffenheim and Hattstatt to Eguisheim. Take the bike path from Eguisheim to Wettolsheim and then the D417 into Colmar.

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    Our plans called for visiting some villages on the way to Colmar. We wanted an early start but when we took the bikes out of storage, Roxcie's rear tire was flat again. I pulled the tube to find that the two glueless patches were blistered and leaking. I replaced them with new patches and we were off.  We left town  heading north again but this time crossed the A36 using the D20, slightly east of where we had crossed it the day before. The traffic was a little lighter.

    We had been given a free cycling map at the TI in Mulhouse and decided to use it rather than the Michelin maps to plot our route to Colmar. The D20 took us through a number of small villages that were suburbs of Mulhouse, each brightly decorated with flowers along the roadway and in flowerboxes mounted to the houses. It seemed that the riding was slightly downhill and we made good progress until Roxcie had another flat in her rear tire. I pulled the tube and again put on new glueless patches, the third attempt, cleaning each area meticulously before applying them. I just couldn't believe that Performance would sell a product that was so prone to failure.

    The tire repair and early start had built up an appetite. We were nearing the village of Ensisheim and rather than pass it by, we turned off and rode towards the village. We were entertained by the sight of a large green frog sculpted from a bush, sitting in the center of a flower garden in the village park as we approached. Additional flower boxes decorated the bridge we crossed to enter the town. A patisserie was one of the first businesses we came to and we picked out quiches and pastries for a late breakfast along with drinks. A memorial park was just around the corner from the bakery. We sat on the park benches and read the testaments to the victims of WWI, WWII, the Resistance and the Deportations as we ate our lunches. I noticed a building directly across from the park with some severe damage to the masonry that resembled the damage from bombing I had seen in England. The location of the park was possibly not a coincidence.

    We left Ensisheim following the cycling map in a westerly direction, following bike trails and roads that would eventually take us to Eguisheim, a town mentioned as especially worth visiting by Rick Steves in his Europe series. A large part of the time we were on cycling trails that paralleled the road but were not shown on the cycling map. It made the cycling carefree since we were separated from any vehicle traffic and the paths were fast to travel on. We had to stop AGAIN because Roxcie's tire went flat. I gave up and this time put in a new tube.

    Eguisheim was just on the western edge of the valley where it meets the Vosges mountains and we had to pedal up a few hills to reach it. It was worth the effort though. The town was something out of, "Hansel and Gretel," a real storybook place. We did some wine tasting and bought two bottles to take with us, ate some more quiches as a late lunch and looked in the shops. Colmar was just a short distance away and almost all downhill so it didn't take us long to reach it once we were on our way. We followed the signs to the old town and soon found ourselves in front of the Unterlinden Museum, one of Rick Steves' favorites. The square in front of the museum was full of people so we chained the bikes to the bicycle racks and walked into the museum to look at the exhibits.

    We walked through the first floor quickly because we only had two hours to see three floors and the first floor was dedicated to church art, something that we had seen a lot of in the past two weeks. Jeanette looked for a stairway to the upper floors but found they were all blocked. She went back to the ticket booth only to find out that the two top floors were being refurbished and were not open. We were a little upset having paid close to E20 and not really seeing anything of the museum but the clerks were not interested in Jeanette's complaints.

    We decided to haul our gear to the youth hostel where we had reservations and then return with the bikes to visit the rest of Colmar. It was easy to find the hostel and after dropping off our stuff, we were soon back in central Colmar. The old village was huge. We visited the famous areas such as Petite Venice and the Tanners Quarters, admiring the half timbered houses in their bright colors. We picked out a terrace right on the river for dinner only to find that the couple right in front of us got the last table. 

    Another outdoor restaurant in the Tanner's Quarters had looked attractive so we walked back and sat down to what ended up being a 2 1/2 hour dinner. The single waiter was overwhelmed and just couldn't properly serve the roughly 15 tables. Jeanette was disappointed and frustrated by the time the meal was over. At ten-thirty it seemed that Colmar was just coming alive and more and more people seemed to be arriving in the old village to eat and drink at the outdoor cafes. To us however, it was late, we weren't used to staying up past ten. We rode back to the hostel tired after a long day.

Accommodations and recommendations:

AJ "Mittelharth" FUJA
2, rue Pasteur
68000 Colmar
Tel : 0389805739

Day 21, Colmar to Selestat - 44 kilometers

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