The next morning we went south to Riquewihr. Depending on which guidebook you looked at, either Riquewihr or Ribeauville held the title for most touristy, but I think Riquewihr wins (Jack disagrees, however). It was smaller, so the same amount of tourists were crammed into tighter quarters. And there didn't seem to be any activities not associated with tourism. And there were more purveyors of macaroons, wafting their magically delicious aromas to tempt passersby.

Riquewihr was about 2.5 miles away because the road wasn't very direct. Shortly before we left Hunawihr and got into the vineyards, a black lab came out to greet us. He was friendly and accompanied us for a time. We named him "Chouette" (pronounced "schwet"), which means "female owl" and "cool" or "awesome" in French. Once we got about halfway there, the vineyards stopped and forest began, and we decided it was time for Chouette to go home. Only he wouldn't agree to those terms. The only thing that made him pause, momentarily, was when Jack said "Arrete!" But it didn't last. Finally we lost track of him at the city gate, merrily acquainting himself with a Jack Russel terrier.

By this point, all the towns started blending together in my brain. I believe there were homes built directly in the city wall, there were barn swallows flitting from their mud nests under the eaves and pooping all over the place, some charm I would guess, and tarte flambees for lunch at a place called La Dime in an old tithing house--get it, tithing, dimes, 10%?? Riquewihr had the neatest coat of arms of all the ones we saw, primarily because it looked more homemade than most.

The guidebook suggested a nearby restaurant called St. Alexis as hard to find, but worth the trip. Given that there was only one road exiting town to the west, which was the one we had walked on, we thought our chances of getting there were nil without help. We asked at the tourist office, and they gave us some vague directions that didn't exactly inspire confidence.

After lunch we returned to Hunawihr to pick up the car and go on another driving tour. Had Jack and I learned anything from our last drive? Not much more than trying not to carp when things didn't go as planned. We set off from Ribeauville and stopped at the summit of a mountain for a short hike to a view spot. I'll be danged if there weren't five trails originating from the starting point. The book said "to the right of the gravestone"--there were two! So we picked one.

Right off the bat things started to get weird when we encountered a partially buried bunker facing inwards towards France. The book didn't say nothin' about no bunkers. Raggedy trenches, larger bunkers and manmade caverns followed. At the top of the mountain was a picnic table with a view, although not the one we were supposed to see, and some I-beams sticking up out of a semicircle of masonry. It was all very strange. What we wouldn't have given for a flashlight to explore the dark recesses more thoroughly!

We meandered through more charming little towns on the way back to home base. As we were passing Riquewihr we decided to see if we could find the way to the hidden restaurant. We found a narrow, rain-slicked road that we hadn't seen by the route we took on foot. It climbed steeply up the mountainside. There was no room for error and really no room for a car coming the other direction--would we have to back down the hill if we encountered another vehicle? Finally the road opened up a bit and a sign directed us onto a muddy track descending into the woods. We questioned whether we'd be able to get back up if we went down. We paused on the verge of the road for a bit, weighing the pros and cons, and decided to go for it.

At the bottom the trees opened up to a clearing consisting of a church, the ivy-clad restaurant, and another building in the back. They were connected by a lovely large kitchen garden growing a variety of colorful herbs. The terrace looked inviting, or it would have been if it hadn't been damp and cool. A hiking trail ran through the clearing, and it looked like a fabulous place to rest one's feet in the midst of a strenuous excursion.

Although it was billed as a popular place, we discovered only one other table full on that Thursday evening. There was one cozy room complete with a tiled fireplace and kitchy items on the walls. There were a variety of set menus available ranging in price and number of courses. Jack and I each picked one, and got some wine to share. The first course arrived: a tureen of soup for us to each ladle into our bowls. Very comforting. Jack's next course was a meat pie surrounded by lightly pickled shredded vegetables, followed by a plate of hams. I got the choucroute garni, sausages and hams on a bed of sauerkraut. One of them was The. Most. Delicious. Sausage. Ever. I don't know what was up with it--I kept thinking at the time that it tasted caramelized, but that's not exactly right. It had a crispy skin, a medium-coarse texture, and a well-balanced flavor. Thinking back, perhaps it was slathered in butter or some other flavorful fat and then baked or something. I don't know. It was danged near perfect, though.

Then, dessert of two tarts each: one bearing a passing resemblance to a cheescake, and the other consisting of green rhubarb in a custard. That rhubarb pie just topped things off perfectly . While we were there, the one couple left and another entered. A slow night, surely brought on by the bad weather. If I lived in the area, I'd eat there all the time. Did I mention that all this food was for under €20 per person? I didn't think I'd ever eat again.

Another rainy day presented itself to us on Friday. Fortunately, we had anticipated this and come up with a list of small museums in the area we'd like to visit. Our first stop was to Selestat for the Bread Museum. The concept was interesting: the local breadmakers funded the museum, housed in the building that formerly held the guildhall. It didn't seem to be that old, and we enjoyed the informative displays that showed us how 4" tall women in sexy cavemen bikinis ground grain to make bread thousands of years ago (they used stones and stuck their butts out). We learned how much bread people in various countries ate, how bread is actually healthier than most other foods, and so on. A lot of it was propaganda, but it was interesting (as much as we could glean from the French, anyway). Did you know a loaf of bread painted the Mona Lisa? Or that the talking bread on the Muppet Show was originally wild, but was broken and taught to speak by wranglers out West? The original post and beam from one of the larger rooms was still in place, and it featured carved scenes from bakers' work. Their symbol was the bretzel. With all that knowledge packed in our brains, we went back down to the starting point and sampled some breads and then purchased various starched-based goods (including a bretzel, naturally) to get us through the next 1.5 days. I don't think the cookie lasted more than about five minutes, just long enough for the "window to deliciousness", as Jack called it, to develop on the paper bag. The woman who rang us up complimented my French. I don't know what kind of crack she was smoking.

We killed some time in Kaysersburg before heading to our next destination, the Museum of Wine and Winemaking in Kientzheim. The highlight of Kaysersburg was a small graveyard that looked like a neglected sculpture park and the adjacent ossuary in the basement of a chapel. The pastry-wrapped sausage we bought nearby was too cold to be tasty, although the truffles we got at the same place were amazing. Perhaps the store owner should have specialized in one or the other, but not both.

The wine making museum was pretty interesting as well, but not as hands-on as I would have liked (no samples). The museum was run by the organization that tastes the Alsatian wines and determines their quality. They get together periodically and wear outfits like they're old-school academics: black and red robes and giant hats. A few years ago they met for an anniversary and opened some wine that had been in their cellar for more than a century. Does wine that old even taste good? Or is it just the prestige of owning it, like any other antique? And if it was bad, would I have the guts to speak up? They had old-school grape processing equipment; a letter from an 18th century wine manager, noting what a horrible winter it had been, causing cellars to get cold enough to freeze the wine and resulting in numerous deaths of wealthy people who had been on route to buy wine in their horse-drawn carriages when a storm came up and trapped them; and photos of happy young women with huge cans of poison on their backs, ready to start another day of pesticide spraying. But still--the museum was a bit dry. Not as lively as the bread place.

Our last stop of the day was to Lapoutroie to visit the Eau de Vie museum. It was free, and as you entered, they made a brief attempt to show how liquor is made. That was quickly abandoned, and the rest of the place was packed to the gills with tiny bottles. Virtually anything that wasn't beer and wine qualified as eau de vie, if the displays were any indication. It was kind of fun, as it was clearly an attempt to get you in there to buy the house brand, but there was a lot to look at before they gave you the soft sell. We eventually made our way into the tasting room and marveled at the varieties on offer. One thing we had seen before in the grocery store in Wissembourg and been intrigued with was a liquor made of hops. It was nas-tay! We tried a couple of other things and settled on a bottle of ginger liqueur, sweet but with bite, and a bottle of absinthe.

It was our last night in Hunawihr and we felt an obligation to do what we came here to do before we left: taste and buy some wine in a rigorous fashion. So we parked the car at our place and walked up the hill to the wine cooperative. The woman manning the counter looked seriously displeased to see us at 15 minutes to closing time, and really wasn't very interested in helping us select anything, since we clearly didn't look like we were going to buy a gross of Grand Cru. But we tasted a handful of varieties and picked out a few to take back.

We had dinner at the local winstub, Suzel. Another good, hearty, Alsatian-charm-y, pork-filled meal at a place with friendly staff. After we ordered a large pack of Germans entered and proceeded to put tables together to accommodate their multitude. They pretty much walled us off from the rest of the restaurant. They joked to us (in English--how did they know?) that they hoped were weren't planning to leave. They were having a good time though--lots of toasts were made--and generally created a convivial atmosphere. We took the long way back to our place and Jack captured this lovely photo.