Alsace

Alsace, the smallest of all French regions, is rich in towns and villages crammed with half-timbered houses, splendid churches, old inns and courtyards decked with begonia. Sheltered to the west by the wooded slopes of the Bosges, separated from Germany by the River Rhine, and watered by its tributaries, the land is famed not only for its seven noble wines and its beers but also for its unique food. James Bentley describes the great city of Strasbourg with its magnificent cathedral and it intimate, water-lapped quarter known as Petite France. It includes a description of Colmar, whose Unterlinden museum contains Grunewald's celebrated painting of a pock-marked, crucified Jesus and Haguenau, where the castle of Frederick Barbarossa became the prison of Richard Coeur de Lion.