An itinerary through Alsace, fascinating land full of villages with pointed roof houses, windowsills with flowers, and vineyards decorated with roses hedges.
Arrival in Strasbourg airport where you will catch the bus. Visit to the city. It is the seventh biggest city of France, and Alscace’s capital. Its old town centre is located on an island of the river Rhine, and is dominated by the majestic gothic cathedral with its pinnacle of 142 metres high. One part of the island includes the ancient district of timber frame houses by Petite France,once a hangout for fisherman, dyers, millers and nowadays seat of the artisans’laboratories. This place where the time looks as if has stopped, with its alleyways, bridges and the timber frame roofs, since 1988 is Unesco World heritage Site.
Check in to Maison Rouge**** in the centre of Strasbourg. Dinner in a typical restaurant of the city centre. Return to the hotel.
Full day excursion to an exclusive circuit of private gardens in the south of Rhine River. Visit to the Fattoria Blue’s garden, a modern garden built around a farmhouse, dating back to period of the thirty years’ war,(XVII century), when houses in the protestants’ farms were painted blue. The difference sections of the building, has somehow given to the place a peculiar structure that matches really well with the varieties of the gardens. During the walk, visitors discover a unique cobbled courtyard where oleanders, roses, and wisteria from japan grow. Further up, a beautiful pond where the nymphs grow proceeds the small “crystal garden”, a beautiful greenhouse in use as an orangery during the winter season. An elegant avenue full of legumes leads to a garden with flowers and box hedges, which looks like an impressionist pictorial representation.
Transfer to Marguerite’s garden in Plobsheim. Free time for a walk in the hamlet. In the afternoon, transfer to Ottrott to visit Domaine du Windeck, nowadays owned by the Association Le Foyerde Charitè of Alace. The park in romantic style,overlooks the ruins of Ottrott castle. In the evening, return to Strasburg and dinner in a typical restaurant in the city centre. Back to the hotel.
Breakfast in hotel and departure for Perrette’s private gardens, in Diebolsheim, a garden that brims with poems and fantasies, a paradise of leaves and scents. We continue towards the beautiful Strada dei Vini, (road of wines), which crosses an area of rare beauty. The visit starts from Haut Koenigsbourg Castle built by Frederick Barbarossa, and reinstated to its original aspect by the Emperor William II. Lunch, ( not included) in a typical restaurant in Riquewhir, a picturesque hamlet with houses built in bricks, sandstones, and wood. In the afternoon visit to the hamlet. The town is partially surrounded by two concentric walls with a rectangular layout, and a castle dating back to 500s’. At the end, wine tasting of well-known wine of Alsace. Arrival in the late afternoon in Colamar, delicious town where we will be visiting its characteristic districts Quaide la Poissonerie and la Petit Venise. Dinner in a typical restaurant of the town. Afterwards, return to the hotel.
Visit to a circuit of Gardens of the Upper Rhine river.
Breakfast in hotel and departurefor SchoppenwihrPark in Ostheim: a romantic English garden. Covering an area of 40 hectares, this romantic English garden offers to visitors, rare trees, the ruins of a castle and wild animals. Created in the XVIII century, it was redesigned around 1850 by a Scottish landscape architect, before being restored at the beginning of the XX century by Achille Duchêne. Next, visit to Wesserling Park and its four gardens. With four sumptuous gardens and a museum, the ancient manufacture of Wesserling is a unique testimony of the textile industry in Alsace. The Wesserling garden, listed among the Historical Monuments, is one the most beautiful in Alsace. Here you can discover an English garden, Mediterranean terraces, a French-style garden and a vegetable garden, a contemporary replica of the XX century workers’ gardens. Every summer, in the parkis held the Festival des JardinsMétissé during which artists and students create vegetal works of art on the theme of textile. These artistic gardens are made of vegetables, fruits, flowers, textile and aromatic plants.
A must see is the textile museum. it is located in an ancient building for the printing of fabrics on slab of 1819. It tells the fascinating story of this ancient factory. The link with the past is represented by the exhibition of different forms of textile art: embroidery,and patchwork. In an area set up like a factory, the museum presents the evolution of the printing of fabrics, and in this way becomes the living memory of a flourishing industrial activity of the past.
In the evening, return to Strasbourg.
Boat cruise along the Rhine river and dinner served on board.
Return to the hotel.
Breakfast in hotel and transfer to the airport.
End of the tour.