Maison du Pain d'Épices

Ribeauvillé is one of the best-known towns on the Alsace Wine Route, in the Haut-Rhin department, with a long main street of half-timbered houses, fountains and old towers, set at the foot of the Vosges and below the ruins of three medieval castles. The Maison du Pain d'Épices is a specialist shop in the Grand'Rue, the main street, devoted to the gingerbread for which Alsace is known, and it sells the spiced honey cake in many forms, along with pastries and other sweets. The shop is not a museum, though it is sometimes linked to the gingerbread museum in the nearby village of Gertwiller, which belongs to a separate site, and it works as a place to taste and buy the local product.

Pain d'épices is made from honey, flour and spices such as cinnamon, ginger, cloves and aniseed, and it was brought to the region by the trade routes that ran along the Rhine. In Alsace it became a speciality of towns with a long tradition of beekeeping and spice trading, and it is associated especially with the winter festivals, the Christmas markets and Saint Nicholas Day on 6 December, when it is baked in the shapes of hearts, stars and little men. Gingerbread keeps for a long time and has a spicy and sweet flavour that varies with the recipe, from soft and moist to firm and dry, and it is often eaten with foie gras or cheese as well as on its own. A shop of this kind lets you compare types and buy a gift.

The Grand'Rue is the centre of the town's life. It is lined with houses of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, with painted facades and wrought-iron signs, and it is punctuated by the Tour des Bouchers, a medieval gate tower, and by fountains. The Hôtel de Ville and the Église Saint-Martin are on or near the street. Ribeauvillé was the capital of the Lords of Ribeaupierre, whose castles, the Saint-Ulrich, the Girsberg and the Haut-Ribeaupierre, stand on the hill above the town and can be reached on foot through the vineyards. Every year, on the first Sunday of September, the town hosts the Pfifferdaj, a festival of the pipers, a medieval procession in costume.

The vineyards around the town produce white wines of high reputation, among them Riesling and Gewurztraminer, and wine cellars offer tastings throughout the year.

The shop suits food lovers and visitors who want to take home a traditional product. It is open during normal shopping hours, and the town centre can be explored on foot in a couple of hours. The Sentier des Vignes, the vineyard trail, and the town walls are good additions.