The best traffic-free bike rides around Rüderbach

Beautiful half-timbered houses. Few public benches. Those in front of the church and in the adjacent playground are not sheltered from the wind. If you have a picnic area to recommend, go for it, thank you.

Next to the restaurant you also have a camping. The camping is quite rudimentary, but its most important asset is the restaurant. Unfortunately it is only open during restaurant hours. You eat well here, but beware, the restaurant appears to be very popular locally. The restaurant runs on its local guests and not on the camping guests. Both are owned by the same owner.

This region has hundreds of small fishponds, once created by monks in the Middle Ages. Today they form a patchwork of water, reeds and forest – a paradise for birds, cyclists and those seeking peace and quiet. You cycle along quiet banks, see herons take flight and enjoy local specialities such as fried carp along the way.

Oltingue is a quiet village in the Sundgau with a late-classical village ensemble around the church of Saint-Martin (1827–1831), the rectory and the former school. The Callinet organ (1843), the double staircase of the rectory and the facade details are striking. There are several historic houses in the village, including half-timbered houses from 1695 and a farm from the 16th century. To the east lies the chapel of Saint-Brice, a former place of pilgrimage with a baroque altar and an outdoor pulpit.

This former mother church of Oltingue and three disappeared villages dates from the 13th and 14th centuries. The location is idyllic: surrounded by fields, an old cemetery and often with storks on the roof in the spring. Inside you will discover surprisingly well (?) preserved wall paintings, including a rare representation of the sacrifice of Melchisedech and a Last Supper from 1741. In the choir you will also find a wall tabernacle and a niche for liturgical objects, silent witnesses of medieval rituals. The Gothic arched windows and the neo-Gothic vault are reminders of later restorations, while archaeological excavations in 1989 revealed traces of older sanctuaries and tombs from the early Middle Ages. simple but full of character.

Beautiful route, away from the roads so very pleasant

A few more photos and texts can be found in the corresponding hiking highlight in the komoot system, under the title "Chapelle Notre-Dame-des-Neiges" it can be reached with the following link =>>https://www.komoot.com/de-de/highlight/3297592

Many churches in France, including this chapel, are dedicated to the Virgin Mary under the widely used title "Notre-Dame" (in German: "Our Dear Lady"). A brief thought on the Mother of God from Albino Luciani (Pope John Paul I): "Mary is indeed our sister, as Saint Ambrose says. She led a life very similar to ours. It is of course beautiful to venerate Mary as the Virgin and Mother of God, as the one conceived immaculately by original sin and taken up into heaven; but she is also the Madonna of plates, brooms and cooking pots..." The visitor to the small Marian shrine can decide for himself which "Notre-Dame" he would like to venerate here.