For our last full weekend of the year "in Basel" we decided to head up to Alsace for the day on Saturday. It only takes a little less than an hour to reach by car, so it reminds us a bit of our day trips to Sonoma back in San Francisco (it feels much more like Sonoma than Napa). Unlike our last visit which was during the middle of summer and super hot, this time it was cold and overcast -- very gray. And being November, the towns were much quieter - in one place we felt like the only people in town. We started our afternoon in Riquewihr, a popular town we visited last year, and it was just as cute as we remembered it (only a bit quieter). And with the Christmas holiday just around the corner the decorations were starting to go up. Unfortunately most of the wine tasting places looked closed, so we settled for coffee (plus, coffee is warmer), and it was too early in the day for vin chaud! After toodling around for a while and hitting the big Marché de Noel store, we were ready to head to our next destination.
Our next stop was the small town of Kientzheim. It was really tiny with absolutely nothing open and no people. Huh. The town was quaint with the typical picturesque Alsatian half-timbered buildings, but we were glad we were just passing through on our way to the next town.
For lunch we stopped at Kayserberg, just a few kilometers down the road from Kientzheim. It was bigger and more bustling than Kientzheim, but the bar was set pretty low. Not a lot of people out and about but the handful of restaurants seemed pretty full. The town is really charming, with a river running through the middle and an old castle on the hill right above the town center. We found a small bistro for lunch, taking the last two available seats. We ordered the local flatbread specialty (flammekuchen) which is like a really thin crust pizza, and cordon bleu - a very French (and tasty) and filling lunch. On the way home we tried to stop by a "chestnut festival" in a neighboring town, but after failing to find it on our first try and seeing on attempt #2 that it was held in the equivalent of a school gym, which didn't excite us, we decided to forgo the festival and head home.
On Sunday we went just across the German border to the Vitra design museum and flagship store. Vitra is a fancy furniture store that manufacturers the works of many renowned designers. It's also famous for the architecture of its campus buildings and its design museum. The museum holds a few design-related installations per year, and the current exhibit is on "lighting". In addition to the museum there is a large (very cool) store showcasing the furniture they manufacture - which is basically a really expensive IKEA (think €7,000 Eames chairs in a Herzog and de Meuron designed store). We were surprised by how crowded both the museum and store were - I guess it is what people do on a Sunday since there isn't much open (the restaurant was really popular - no Swedish meatballs here though)!
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