Eguisheim

Eguisheim is another of the Alsace's more popular wine villages. When we arrived and camped, it was already pretty warm, so we delayed our little walking tour until the late afternoon.

Helpful map

Wineries of Eguisheim...44 of them

House rules

The chateau, local boy Pope Leon IX, and the chapel built in his
honor

Pretty much presided over the Great Schism, among
his other achievements

Appropriately Romanesque

With an interior to match; recently updated, we guessed

Going to his rest?

Fixer-upper

Parish church; fairly austere; still Romanesque

Relatively few French churches have Divine Illumination Machines
(DIMs) (because of Suger's theology of height and light); but this
one does...and it's free (gratuitee et illimitee)

The storkization of Alsace continues

"But he was going to move his car before the flea market
began, I know he was..."

All over-looked by the high ground no one anymore wants

Viti-Camping in Eguisheim

After Colmar, we drove on to Eguisheim, another of Alsace's Les Plus Beaux Villages, where we spent the night at Pierre de Vigne/Vins Bannwarth, a family vineyard that has opened its in-town facility to camping-cars. There are 6-8 spaces, with electricity, for no charge. Of course, it might be expected that you try the wine, or even buy a bottle. We saw some campers buying several cases. We know little of Alsatian wines, apart from the fact that they are luscious, and so we (I, Mark) did the presumably obligatory tasting and even bought a couple bottles. Ah, would that every French vineyard, distillery, and brewery be so accommodating! 

Spare parts

Our encampment

Tasting

I've done my share of tastings, and this is the best
crachoir I've seen so far; it was so painful to expectorate
this wonderful wine...

By the camping-car-park, examples of the grapes grown at Bannwarth

Of course, they're not the only show in town

Imagine your own chateau, a couple acres of vines adjoining...

Maybe there'd be room for a couple camping-cars...

Colmar St. Martin's Church: Schongauer's Madonna in the Rose Garden

Googling "Madonna in the Rose Garden" I figured you'd probably get something from the Obama or Biden eras about a singer being honored at the White House. Like getting Homer Simpson when your Google Homer. But no, what you get, or what my algorithm got, was Botticelli's 1470 Madonna in the Rose Garden, a nice early Botticelli, tempera on panel. It does not compare well, however, with Schongauer's version, of almost exactly the same date. Botticelli painted in tempera, doing more with it than any preceding painter, IMHO, while Schongauer painted in oil, which Jan van Eyck had begun exploiting in the 1420s...so much more vivid color, allowing so much greater detail, so much more easily revised or corrected....

Schongauer was not primarily a painter, however. Very few of his paintings have survived. His primary output was engraving--he was the first to realize the possibilities afforded the artist by the recently invented printing press. Durer--who generally gets credit for being the first in this regard--collected Schongauer prints and drawings and took time off to visit Colmar to learn from the master...but who had already died. Michaelangelo's first painting, I have read, was from a Schongauer print. FWIW.

Colmar's only Gothic

Inside, nave view, appreciating the pencil-thin columns;
approaching the painting

Back side of the right wing

Click to enlarge

Abaft the beam

Nice windows

Unusually large spare parts department for a relatively small church

Colmar Scenes

After the museum, we headed off on a sort of walking tour, mainly in search of a resto on one of the canals where we could have the local specialty, tarte flambee. There was much to see on the way, and back.

Frederic Bartholdi was from Colmar...we'll see more
from him

Many interesting houses, buildings along the
way...this one nearly Flemish

Remnant of the bygone

Never did get the story of this doozey...

Great carving here and there

So Voltaire lived in Colmar for a couple years after his break-up
with Frederick the Great; France's greatest thinker had a knack for
getting himself exiled and also getting exiled from his exiles

We think he lived here

Probably not here, although he did champion freedom
of expression...

Finally, the canal

And our restaurant on the left

Our tarte flambee, which we had regarded as a real discovery in 2011;
not so much in 2023; we should have ordered two; sort of like a pizza
but without tomato sauce; and too many onions...

More of the canal, with hundreds of uniform red love-locks; some
sort of city ordinance, we hypothesized; Voltaire probably would not
have approved

Still more of the canal, on which you can take boat rides, as in Brugge,
Amsterdam, Venice, Peoria...behind the canal is the old covered
market, restored and gentrified

And adorned by a Bartholdi fountain and sculpture

Thus

More attractive and/or interesting buildings

In the courtyard of the Bartholdi Museum, which we
eschewed

We have learned that if you look hard enough, you'll
always find an Art Nouveau building; here is Colmar's