UBC October 2026 - Eguisheim

Today, I am taking you to a day trip to Eguisheim, which has been considered one of the “most beautiful villages in France” since 2003, and in 2013 it was voted “France’s Favourite Village” in a popular French television program. 

It owes much of its fame to an architectural ensemble that has survived remarkably well and has been carefully maintained over the years. What makes it particularly unusual is its layout: the medieval village is arranged in concentric rings around its central castle, creating a sort of enormous stone-and-timber snail.

It is small, wonderfully walkable and almost ridiculously charming, with colourful half-timbered houses, narrow lanes, little courtyards and flowers everywhere in summer. At Christmas, the village apparently becomes even more fairytale-like, with its famous Christmas market and decorations.

Well, we visited in early October, and Eguisheim was supposed to be nothing more than a stopover on our way to Colmar.

In hindsight, it was the main attraction of the day!

The moment you start walking through the old village, you understand why. The center is largely car-free, and the narrow little lanes curve around the village in a way that makes every turn reveal another postcard-worthy view. We took pictures approximately every two minutes, so our leisurely stroll took us about 75 minutes.

And then there is Le Pigeonnier, (above), a tiny former dovecote that has become one of Eguisheim's most photographed buildings. Its story has also become associated with Beauty and the Beast, although the claim that it directly inspired Disney's film is rather more folklore than documented fact. Still, look at it and tell me it doesn't look as though it belongs in a Disney movie.

And this is where Eguisheim completely spoiled Colmar for us.

Don't get me wrong: Colmar is beautiful. Here's a post I published talking about its Christmas markets. 

It has all the picturesque half-timbered houses, canals and colourful façades you could ask for. But after strolling through a tiny, car-free, genuinely lived-in fairytale village like Eguisheim, arriving in an Alsatian city where many of those beautiful ground-floor buildings are occupied by the usual retailers somehow changes the effect.

Eguisheim wins.

So, what exactly is “Alsatian”?

Alsace has a remarkably complicated history. Following the Franco-Prussian War, the region became part of the German Empire in 1871. It returned to France after the First World War, was annexed by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, and returned to France in 1945.

So, depending on which period you're talking about, people in Alsace could find themselves living under a different national administration and having to navigate changes in language, education, names and political allegiance.

The result is a regional identity that feels distinctly its own: French, Germanic, and neither quite one nor the other.

The traditional language, Alsatian, is a group of Alemannic dialects related to the German dialects spoken across the Rhine and, interestingly, to Swiss German. To my ear, it sounds surprisingly familiar, even a lot like Basel German.

Today, French is overwhelmingly the everyday language, but the Germanic heritage is everywhere: in the architecture, place names, food, wine culture and, of course, the language.

It also explains why Alsace can look as though Beauty and the Beast wandered across the Rhine and settled in France: Germanic half-timbered houses, French flags, and a cuisine that happily mixes the two traditions.

You get Germanic ingredients and hearty portions, sauerkraut, sausages and pretzels, combined with French culinary techniques and influences.

Which brings us neatly to the Winstub.

After our tour of the village, we sat down at one of the local Winstuben. The name is essentially the Alsatian version of the German Weinstube, literally something like a “wine parlour” or “wine room”, and traditionally refers to the cosy, informal wine taverns characteristic of Alsace.

And wine, naturally, is a big part of Alsace.

Wine-growing is hardly a niche activity in France, I realize that is an understatement, but Alsace has a rather distinctive wine tradition. Unlike Bordeaux and Burgundy, where wines are generally identified primarily by their appellations and places of origin, Alsace is unusual in France in that its wines are predominantly labelled by grape variety, Riesling being one of them.

So even before we got to Colmar (post to follow tomorrow), we'd already had a little lesson in Alsace: its history, its architecture, its language, its food and its wine.

And, quite unexpectedly, the little stopover turned out to be the highlight of the day.