Eguisheim ended up in my travel guide in the best way: an article on the Internet classified it as France’s most beautiful town and chosen by French people themselves as their favorite town. And this all happened weeks before our trip: what a happy coincidence.
However, arriving in Eguisheim exactly on their Annual Winegrowers Festival (Fête Des Vignerons d'Eguisheim) without any previous planning: that is, in fact, a happy coincidence.
On the way from the parking lot to the town center, I noticed something that made me smile on the inside: every street was named after a type of grape.
Passing by the local houses, we observed that nearly all of them had a vineyard on their backyard. And I kept wondering how it must be to live there. You make good wine, so does your neighbor. Having friends over for dinner must be memorable!
Downtown we could watch the whole parade which kicks off the festival. Marching bands played, and everybody wore ancient costumes. Bottle corks were thrown on the crowd and white wine, their specialty, was served freely to anyone with a glass on their hand. Was that paradise? Certainly, yes.
Right in the middle of the town there was a small church and, on top of the church, a stork in its nest. I had never seen a stork before, and it was huge! So, I realized the legend about storks bringing babies had traveled hundreds of years and thousands of kilometers to reach that little Gaucho girl in the mountains of southern Brazil. How could a culture so different from mine had, somehow, make part of me?
Going up the mountain we saw bigger vineyards and we stopped to taste some of the grapes. Every grape with a different color had a smell and a taste which was completely unique. On top f the mountain, there were the ruins of three castles. And from up there, a surreal view of the vineyards which draw on the ground designs in shades of green.
Even today, months later, I still make mental calculations of what it takes to quit my life here and go live in Eguisheim. That is always followed by a sigh.
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On a journey that had already embraced beautiful cities such as Paris, Reims and Strasbourg, I certainly did not hope to be blown away the way I was in Colmar and Eguisheim. But let’s leave Eguisheim for the next round.
I already considered myself a connoisseur of Germany and German culture, and in that trip I had just become acquainted with the French bon vivant way of life. Parisians certainly know how to wander the streets or read newspapers in the park as if they are meant to be part of the scenery. As if you were meant to photograph them… Or envy them.
Germans, on the other hand, besides knowing how to make beer, are also very fond of punctuality, and why not say they are actually proud of their bureaucratic, yet efficient routine.
By the time in my life I had discovered the previous two pieces of information, and had enough time to certify and digest them, I arrived in Colmar. As if dreaming about living in, at least, three other countries I had visited before hadn’t ruined my brain enough…
Colmar is so well-kept, so well decorated with flowers, has such intact half-timbered buildings and clean streets that it looks like it is part of a fairy-tale story, just like the Brothers Grimm’s style. But at the same time, the sensation that you are still in France is undeniable: gourmet food, amazing white wine, the “waiter ritual”…
It was a Sunday, when most of stores and restaurants close, but I had the joy of witnessing the preparation and tasting the best Brezel I had ever tried in my life, completely changing my opinion about that dry weirdly-shaped bread.
The canals, the lanterns in the houses and on the streets, climbers giving the buildings even a more rustic air, the typical shutters, the competition of which city has more flowers… That makes the place look unreal, as if the traveler were immersed in a dream that seemed too real to believe.
That piece of land where the German organization meets the French self-indulgence: true perfection! Certainly “the best of all possible worlds” (Voltaire).
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