2018-06-28 Alsace Wine Route Domaine Fritz to Dommartin

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Alsace Wine Route Dommartin to Pont-a-Moussan

Alsace Wine Route by Motorhome

Having been on the Alsace Wine route for some time we sat at breakfast considering whether to continue or change direction and focus of our motorhome trip.

We inspect ourselves for mosquito bites, we are happy to see there are none, mosquitos have been troublesome. Later Gill finds three have been lurking on the window behind the blinds. Soapy foam catches them very quickly.

Another hot blue-sky day; we sit after breakfast and plan our route for the next few days. We decide it is time to move on if we want to return via the Moselle. We leave Soligsheim late morning on the D10 and pass through a lovely village called Niedmorschwihr, which we would like to return to (another time). We turn onto the D1B and climb upwards into the Ballon des Vosges mountains and regional park. It is a steep forested road with many hairpin bends and switchbacks, but the road is of good condition and we make our way slowly up to a winter sport resort at Trois Epis which is at 1200m. There is an Aire du Camping Car here, (and a huge car park for about 150 cars… for winter sports we think) so we park up and inspect it.

It is very good, with water, grey/septic disposal, so we empty our tanks, have lunch and explore the possible hiking trails… there are several. Back on our way on the D11/D10 through Zimmerbach and Gunsbach to the D417. We make our way to Munster (of the French cheese) through the Vosges mountains. Again, we climb through forest roads with steep hairpin bends and down again to Lac de Longemer to a largish town at Gerardmer. Onwards through Le Tholy, Saint Amé to our Aire du Camping Car at Dommartin les Remiremont.

We have only covered about 70km but on small winding roads where we take our time. We find the Aire behind the church in Place d’Eglise, we are the only ones here. The Aire is next to a large municipal car park in the centre of the village, with the six spaces on the edge of a big grassy rectangle dedicated for motor homes. There is water, electricity and waste discharge point.

We take the spot at the end, next to the hedge (and hook up point) with the large grassy area in front of us. The car park is quite busy with the comings and goings of the locals, when we walk along the road, we find they are all visiting the Boulangerie just around the corner! Sure enough, they park their cars are gone 5 minutes and come back with a pain wrapped in paper!

The church tower has a clock which chimes the hour, with the number of bell strikes of the hour (at six o’clock there are six strikes of the bell). This is followed by a peal of three bells for about five minutes, we decide there is a church service but not many locals arrive. At seven o’clock the church bell strikes seven times, a few minutes go by and it strikes seven bells again. We discover it does this every hour: the bell strikes the hour and about four minutes later it strikes again. We enjoy the cool of the evening and the regular striking of the church bells… twice! We are greatly amused by this and wonder if the locals need reminding of the time, something like: Er… how many bell strikes was that?

Our trek through the Alsace tasting wine

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Summary of motorhome journey