St Hippolyte

After we came down the hill from the castle, we stopped at the small town of St Hippolyte.

As you come down from the castle, you eventually come to a hillside above the plain where the grapes are grown for the local Alsace wine industry.

It's mostly white wine with the famous varieties being gewürztraminer, riesling and pinot gris. There are lots of wineries inviting you to taste and buy their wines in the town. However my French is not good enough to go through with that and you can buy local wine at the supermarket.

The view back up to the castle. From the plain, the castle appears to be much higher.

A grand house with a painted exterior. If you want to see a country where these elaborate painted exteriors are popular, go to Austria.

Yes, more brightly painted half timbered houses.

We seem to thing we actually stayed at one of these place about 30 years ago, but we are not sure. We will have to look at our old slides.

Marianne is still threatening to go to one of the big hardware places to get some of this blue paint. Well at least the sample charts.

Here you can see the grape vines marching up the side of the mountain.