On Monday morning, we awoke to sunshine and chilly weather. Bill and I had decided that we wanted to visit Kaysersberg, since we didn’t have a chance to go there during our last visit over Memorial Day weekend in May 2018.
Before we drove to Kaysersberg, Bill and I dropped off some empty wine bottles at the bottle drop on the edge of town. Then we picked up a few items at the grocery store and took a short walk through a part of Ribeauville that we missed on prior visits. I don’t know how we missed the northwestern part of the main drag, but I’m glad we visited it a couple of days ago. I was rewarded with a few nice photos of the ruined chateaus that overlook the town…
Bill flaring his nostrils at breakfast, because I told him to “get to fixin’!” 
A morning view of Ribeauville… 
Dropping off bottles… 
Still some Christmas decorations. 
These were all over the northern part of the town… 
Your chance to be someone else. 
I might have tried this… 
to look slimmer for a change… 
A zoomed in shot of Château de Saint-Ulrich, one of three castles that overlook Ribeauville. 
There is a third castle, Château du Girsberg, but I didn’t have a good shot of it… 
Château du Haut-Ribeaupierre… perhaps in fitter days, I would have tried walking up there. 
It’s easier to photograph the tower on a rare sunny day…
Some might recall that Kaysersberg has the distinction of being the quaint French town where famed chef and food writer Anthony Bourdain committed suicide in June of 2018. Bill and I were rather mystified that we had been so close to where Bourdain was at the end of his life; but the truth is, we had wanted to go there during that previous visit. We’d heard it was a quaint town with good restaurants. So this time, since we didn’t have dogs with us, we decided we’d go to Kaysersberg. It was very easy to visit in January; we practically had the whole parking lot to ourselves.
The town was pretty much dead when we arrived, but I still managed to get some beautiful photos thanks to the splendid sunny weather. Yes, it was cold outside, but everything was still very inviting and pretty… and in a different month, I imagine Kaysersberg is hopping with tourists.
On the way into town… 
Albert Schweitzer, famed physician, was born in Kaysersberg… 
The town was dead… 
But I still found a lot of photo ops… 
It really is a cute place. 
I heard the rushing water and was sad that someone threw a plastic bottle into the river. 
The Kaysersberg Tower peeks over the ridge. 
A shot made for Instagram. 
This was in German, French, and English. 
You can’t kill the fish here. 
But you can enjoy baked goods… 
A better shot of Kaysersberg Tower… perhaps on a warmer day, we might have visited the chateau.
We decided to stop for lunch at a hotel restaurant called L’Art is Show. It was one of two restaurants we saw operating in Kaysersberg on Monday, although I’m sure at least one or two more were serving. I’ve noticed that this time of year, some businesses close while others stay open, then they seem to switch in February. Art is Show gets very good ratings on Trip Advisor and, indeed, had a pretty decent lunch crowd. Our waitress spoke a bare minimum of English, but we still managed to order lunch. They had a lunch special, which included a trip to a very generous looking salad bar, but we opted to order a la carte.
Despite all the signs, Bill still tried to enter through the wrong door… 
I really enjoyed this wine, which was composed of some of my favorite grapes… 
Grenache, Syrah, and Mouvedre make a delightful red… 
Parker changed her mind against getting a entrecote and went with the bouillabaisse… 
Bill had carpaccio… thinly sliced, raw, beef… 
I had the entrecote, but after seeing so many get burgers, I kind of wish I’d gone for that. 
Excellent frites! 
Bouillabaisse was a hit… perfectly seasoned broth with lots of fresh fish and crustaceans. 
I wish I had taken a photo of the funny signs in the bathroom advising that garbage cans must be worn. Google Translate fail! 
More Kaysersberg scenes… 
Another gite possibility… this one is right over the river. 
This is where Anthony Bourdain ended his life… 
They were on vacation.
As we were leaving Kaysersberg, I got a private Facebook message from Ellen Stillman Thomas, an American who lived in Esslingen (and Heidelberg) for years and is very involved in arranging tours for Esslingen, a cute town near Stuttgart. I have been corresponding with her via Facebook and the Stuttgart area Facebook groups since about 2014 or 2015. She happened to be in Kaysersberg on Monday, with her friend, Louise, and had plans to visit a nearby winery. She asked if we wanted to join her… and we did. More on that in the next post!