In the morning we headed down in to the town of Obernai, which essentially marks the Northern start of the Alsace Wine Route. They have a convenient free motorhome aire (no services), which is handy for town parking. Although the signs say parking only for motorhomes, this day the car drivers had ignored the signs, but as we are a more modest length than most, we found a corner to tuck into.

Obernai is an attractive town, that isn’t too big, but isn’t tiny either. Our ideal towns are those not too extensive, and we particularly like the small ones. I was determined to get a decent meal today, so whilst Sophie took the photos, I hunted out an eating venue. Still hot in these parts, we were keen to eat outside, and when it came to it, although the setting was very pleasant, the food felt a bit mass-produced and we weren’t too impressed. After a post-lunch scout around the town, we extricated ourselves from the oversubscribed aire to continue our tour of the wine route.

Next on my agenda was a service stop. Park4night alerted me to a SuperU supermarket that provided this and in fact it also had overnight parking. As we looked around the aire, it was clear that the motorhomes tightly packed in here on this crazy hot day, were quite happy to have this as a base. Not our idea of great holiday accommodation.

Relieved to have escaped that motorhome mayhem, we began the southerly drive that would take us through some of the region’s tourist attraction pretty villages. They are attractive, and worth seeing, but in our view, feel a little too “chocolate box”, with their brightly coloured half-timbered houses. Perhaps you can have too much of a good thing, or perhaps we’re just Philistines.

My objective for the night was a car park behind a chapel, halfway up a hill and set in some vineyards. This Park4night at Dambach-la-Ville was in a great setting, with long views as well as all those lovely vines. Another evening sat outside with the stars, a candle, a book, and a glass of Riesling.

*** Just to mention that our blogs can be up to a few weeks behind reality, as we’re always in catch-up mode ***