From the previous episode https://th.readme.me/p/5329, We carry our disappointment from Colmar then continue heading to Riquewhir.

The rain is showering all the way to Riquewihr, and when we are approaching the city, both sides are full of vast vineyards. Unfortunately, the grapes have just been cut, left only their stumps to be seen with no green leaves for us to capture a nice picture to you guys.

Wet all along the way

The vineyards aren't wonderful to look.

Riquewihr is a small village on the countryside, which is only 12 kilometres away from Colmar and located on the famous wine route in the Alsace region. It is one of the most beautiful villages in France (Les plus beaux villages de France) with the style of houses are similar to those in Colmar. Moreover, as the distance is not far,thus, it is just right for a one day trip rather than spend the night here. Yet, if you would like to go around all the small villages around this area, spending the night here is a nice alternative choice rather than sleep in the famous city like Colmar which the accommodation might be more expensive.

When we reach our destination, we then find a place to park outside and then walk inside and wander around the old town. The way inside is rather small and narrow so we could not even drive a car into the area. Although this place literally looks similar to Colmar, nevertheless, the atmosphere in a village seems to be much different.

We park the car and paid for the fee.

We walk until the end of the road.

Nice flowers along the way.

Let's walk to the town together.

The first feeling while walking in the area, it is like I lost in a fairytale city. Almost all the houses here are furnished and decorated with flowers, dolls or small decoration stuffs and it is really adorable. This place is not effected much from World War, therefore, it is still beautiful like in the Middle Ages time. Furthermore, local people here still maintain and keep their houses in a good condition or even their career like the old times such as produce wine, local desserts or local crafts which all seems to be an advantage in promoting this place as a tourist destination. As in Wikipidea states that

"Riquewihr looks today more or less as it did in the 16th century"

meaning "How it looks in the past, it still looks like the same in present" which is a good thing that we would have an opportunity to see the atmosphere that used to be in the past. As I am walking along the narrow alleys, I somehow imagine myself walking in the Diagon Alley like in Hary Potter book.

This village is very small and takes less than two hours to walk around. There are one main street in the middle of the town called Rue du Ge'ne'ral de Gaulle which there are shops, restaurants to visit along the way. And there are many small alleys branch off from the main street as well. You should try one of the famous desserts here which is "Macaron de Riquewihr", it is a unique macaron with a lot of flavors to choose from, the taste and its look are different from the one that we are familiar with. Actually, it makes from a coconut baked with sugar which is very tasty and smell delicious. Well, we did buy and try it, and found that it tastes really awesome.

This place is considered a compensate for the tour members as now we are pretty impressed with the surrounding atmosphere. For those who like to take selfie photo, this place would not disappoint you as there are many lovely corner around town for you to take a lot of pictures. Moreover, there are lots of colorful houses and just a plain color clothes would suit this place so much.

The Macaron is really tasty, you should try it.

The sweet time always come to an end pretty fast. Now we do not have anymore time left to visit anywhere else because we have approximately three hundred kilometers distance ahead of us from Riquewihr to our today's destination which has a very short name, Gex city. The reason that we choose to stop over at this city is because the city looks interesting and it is not a tourist destination. Moreover, this city is not far from Annecy which will be our next destination in the next day and as Annecy is a famous city for tourist, staying at the hotel will be much expensive and over our budget.

The distance from Riquewihr to Gex is approximately 320 kilometers and when we calculate the distance without using an expressway would be around 4 hours and 45 minutes, meaning that we have to travel through small villages and small cities along the way and when entering those cities, we could not drive fast at all because the driving speed in the city is strictly restricted at not more than 50 kilometers/hour. A decision to safe cost for expressway comes with more traveling time on the road and the weather is also add up more problems to our journey.

The atmosphere inside the car between the trip to GEX, I act as a navigator of the trip by using Google map and Maps.me to help along with the GPS in the car. The reason that we need many navigators is because we do not want to waste anymore time getting lost as the regular time of traveling takes so much time already. For the rest of the members in the trip also help looking at the route along the way too.

The view from both sides of the road are really refreshing, it might be because of the two whole days rain so the road is very wet all the way. Some part of the route that we drive along the highway route, we could speed up a little bit like 90kilometers/hour, however, when we drive on a small road which gets pass the village, the speed would limit to only 70 and 50 kilometers/hour respectively. Furthermore, some part of the route that we have to get pass the school zone, we have to drive only 30 kilometers/hour.

Now our driver is getting familiar with the vehicle more and drives with confident. One good thing is that we now out of the big city, therefore, there aren't much car on the road right now and the atmosphere is more relax and fun. Well, the weather is not quiet good as there are still rain along the way, and in my mind I am praying that today will be the last day of rain for our trip like the weather forecast I seen. Because from tomorrow planning, we should go and be able to take pictures at the beautiful sights as during last two days we faced and walk in the rain and it is not fun at all.


But then again, the amusement we just had died down as soon as we see the road ahead of us fills with the heavy fog and visible to see only 5 meters ahead. The atmosphere inside the car started to tense and we are not sure what the unexpected situation we will face ahead.

The next excited thing we have faced is that when the driver tells me to look at the car dashboard. It mentions the temperature outside ...OMG!!!!! at the top right corner of the dashboard shows "The temperature outside 2°C". It is possible that we would surely face something more interesting than before and everyone is excited, panic and anxious as we could not know what will happen from now on.

The most important part right now is that we are very "Hungry", hence, we will find some rest area for something to eat before continue on our journey again. Well, if we not stop for some foods, our driver would faint because of hunger and we would be in a big trouble. Let's see what will happen and what will we face next.

You could see our pictures from our journey and greet us at

https://www.facebook.com/TravelWithPiyaiAndNoolek/


Piyai&Noolek

 Monday, November 28, 2016 3:40 PM

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