The fortified bridge
A 16th-century bridge with a chapel over the Weiss.
โ Wladyslaw [Disk.]. Taxiarchos228 โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท W. Bulach โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Jean-Pol GRANDMONT โ CC BY 4.0 ยท Jean-Pol GRANDMONT โ CC BY 4.0
No, and it is one of the best things to do here because it is **free and takes about ten minutes**. The way is steps and a short sloping path from the edge of the village, ending at a massive medieval round keep you can climb inside. The ground is **uneven and the steps unrailed in places**, so it is no good with a pushchair and needs care with very small children. But anyone of ordinary fitness manages it without effort, and the view over the red roofs, the vineyards and the valley is unquestionably worth it.
The logical geography from Colmar: **Eguisheim** to the south (nearest, 6 km), then north to **Kaysersberg** (10 km) and **Riquewihr** (11 km) โ three villages comfortably covered in a day by car. Start with the furthest in the morning before the coaches arrive and finish with the nearest. With regional buses it is hard to fit more than two villages into a day because of the timetables. And if it is the vineyards themselves you want, the bike is the best way: short distances on nearly flat ground.
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Its name means **"the emperor's mountain"**, which is an accurate description: the village stands at the mouth of a narrow valley guarded by an imperial castle on the rock directly above, because this pass was the crossing between Alsace and Lorraine and had to be closed. The small river **Weiss** runs through it, spanned by a **fortified bridge** of the sixteenth century carrying a little chapel โ one of the best-known images of Alsace. Timber houses line both banks, many of them fifteenth and sixteenth century. Climbing the **castle** is free and takes about ten minutes up steps and a short path, and from its massive round keep there is a view over the village, the vineyards and the valley. It is the **birthplace of Albert Schweitzer** โ the doctor, philosopher and musician awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 โ and his house is now a small museum. In 2017 the French voted it **their favourite village** in a national television poll, which has multiplied its visitors ever since.
A 16th-century bridge with a chapel over the Weiss.
A free ten-minute climb and a view down the valley.
A small museum where the Nobel laureate was born.
68240 Kaysersberg-Vignoble, Haut-Rhin