The circular streets
Rings turning around the centre instead of a grid or high street.
Véronique PAGNIER — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Pug Girl — CC BY 2.0 · Nicolas Torquet — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Lionel Allorge — CC BY-SA 3.0
**Riquewihr** is more spectacular: its medieval wall is complete, its houses are richer and the Thieves' Tower is a sight in itself — but it is the most crowded village in Alsace. **Eguisheim** is closer to Colmar (you can cycle there), its circular plan is unique, and it is **usually quieter**, so it feels like a village rather than an exhibit. The practical advice: with half a day, choose Eguisheim for its closeness and calm; with a full day, see both with Kaysersberg in between.
Yes for anyone who walks well. It is about **half an hour** up from the village on a dirt path through vineyard and woodland, sloping but not hard. At the top are three close-set medieval ruins — the keeps are **ruins**, not restored buildings, so expect no museum — and the reward is **the view**: the villages, the vineyards and the whole Alsatian plain, out to Germany's Black Forest on clear days. Entirely free. Take water in summer; there is no shade on the path.
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The wine-route village closest to Colmar — about six kilometres south — and the strangest in shape: **Eguisheim is built in circles**. Its streets are neither a grid nor a single high street but concentric rings turning around the castle at the centre, because the village grew inside circular walls and expanded ring by ring. That gives walking it an odd and pleasant feeling: you go round and find yourself back where you started without noticing, and the coloured timber houses curve with the street instead of lining up. In summer the frontages are so covered in geranium boxes they almost hide the stone. It is the **birthplace of Pope Leo IX**, born here in 1002, and a fountain and a chapel in the village centre commemorate him. Above it on the hill stand the **Three Castles of Husseren** — three neighbouring ruined keeps reached on foot in about half an hour, with a view over the whole Alsatian plain. Like its neighbours it is on the list of **the most beautiful villages in France**, but it is usually **quieter than Riquewihr** — its great advantage.
Rings turning around the centre instead of a grid or high street.
Three ruined keeps on the hill overlooking the plain.
Boxes covering the timber frontages in summer.
68420 Eguisheim, Haut-Rhin