Alsace: A December Between Strasbourg and the Vosges
There are parts of France that seem to have made a deal with winter. Places where the cold doesn’t bite so much as glow. Alsace is one of them.
During the winter we spent in Burgundy, one of my sisters came to visit. We decided to head north to show her the Christmas markets that Alsace is famous for. The three of us, plus Sully, traded the grey grisaille hanging over Beaune for something sharper and brighter. Colder air. Cleaner light. A kind of cheer that felt earned rather than manufactured.
We stayed in Gertwiller, a village that smells faintly of gingerbread and fermenting grapes. Which, as combinations go, works. Our gîte sat inside a working winery, the kind of place where you fall asleep to the low, steady hum of barrels settling in for winter. The owners welcomed us with a bottle of their Riesling and the kind of easy warmth that reminds you hospitality is still very much alive in rural France.
The days blurred together in the best way. Christmas markets and storybook villages. Riquewihr, Ribeauvillé, Colmar. Each one looked like it had dressed specifically for December. Half-timbered houses leaned together under garlands of pine. Gingerbread hung from windows. The air was cold enough that mulled wine felt medicinal rather than indulgent. Somewhere between roasted chestnuts and choirs echoing off cobblestones, it became clear that Alsace doesn’t decorate for Christmas. It inhabits it.
One evening, we drove west to Barr for dinner at L’Essentiel. The restaurant sat quietly on a side street, glowing without advertising itself. Inside, starched white tablecloths, soft light, and that hushed murmur reserved for places that know what they’re doing.
Dinner moved at exactly the right pace. A delicate opening of seafood and citrus. Then something deeper and more grounded. Duck, maybe. Veal. It almost didn’t matter. The wine, a local white, was crisp and mineral, catching the light like winter sun. Everything arrived when it should, left when it should, and never once tried to impress.
On the drive back to Gertwiller, the road wound through sleeping vineyards. The ruins of Château Saint-Ulrich glowed faintly above Ribeauvillé. The villages had gone quiet again, Christmas lights reflecting in puddles of melting snow.
The next morning, Sully found a stick in the frosted vineyard and immediately turned it into the most important object in the world. Running. Dancing. Rolling in the snow. Nose dusted white. Tail working overtime.
It was one of those small, ridiculous moments that somehow explains everything. The beauty. The imperfection. The simple pleasure of being exactly where you are.
In a year full of new places, lost adapters, and bureaucratic endurance tests, Alsace felt like a reward. A reminder that not every French experience needs to be navigated or survived.
Some are just meant to be savored.