On departure, we dropped down into the town to pay our respects, and to have a nose round. The sort of architecture I complained about yesterday actually is much more interesting when you go round some of the backstreets and see some of the less than perfect and more quirky examples.

Today I also wanted to fit in a trip to Sélestat, as well as the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg. Given the heat, as well as us already having had a town visit of Dambach-la-Ville, Sélestat was demoted to a simple drive-through, but I’m sure that didn’t do it justice.

We then headed up to the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg, which when we saw it high up on a mountain when we were down on the plain, it seemed unlikely we’d be going as high as that. As it happened, the trip was easier than we’d envisaged, and we even took in another chateau en route – Château de Kintzheim. This one was principally about a large bird of prey show, which is a bit sad for those poor things, so we just walked up to the ruins, and left everyone else to be entertained by captive birds.

We were able to park very close to the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg, and enjoyed a free wander up to just inside the castle. On the drive down, the brakes were definitely warming up quite a bit 😉

The first place we checked for that night’s stop was just outside the town of St Hippolyte, and although it was a designated “camping car” parking area, it was empty on arrival, which was a pleasant surprise. The setting was one of the best we’ve stayed in, nestled amongst the vineyards, with the Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg looking down on us.

In fact, 3 others did turn up to share the space with us but everyone kept a reasonable distance apart, although Sophie did have to have a polite word with one who initially was pushing the spatial boundaries. After a walk around the tracks within the vineyard, assisted by maps.me, we spent the evening outside watching the stars and reading, whilst our neighbours put their blinds up and watched TV. Why do they do that?

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