Gingerbread making, wine and church art offer three distinct ways to experience a stay in Gertwiller. The focus is on both specific visitor activities and historical records: you can decorate your own gingerbread Mannele, discover collections about life in Alsace, and explore wine through tastings and the surrounding landscape. This makes it possible to discover the town according to a range of interests.
Make Your Own Gingerbread and Discover History
The Palais du Pain d'Épices offers a lively, interactive experience across more than 800 m². Visitors can decorate a gingerbread Mannele with icing and colourful dragées, then take it home. The chance to decorate one yourself makes this a hands-on activity. Maison Lips has been making gingerbread by hand since 1806. Together, the history of its production and the opportunity to decorate your own gingerbread offer two different perspectives on the craft.
The Musée du Pain d'Épices et du Folklore Alsacien de Lips is housed in an 18th-century tithe barn. The Lips Museum covers 350 m² and houses more than 10,000 objects relating to the history of sweets from earlier times and rural life in Alsace. Its themes therefore extend beyond a single speciality to include the region's rural way of life. The collection offers a different perspective from decorating your own gingerbread at the Palais; the tithe barn adds a historical setting to the museum visit.
Wine: Tastings, Film and Vineyards
Maison Zeyssolff offers tastings of five or six of its wines. In its century-old wine cellar, it also shows an immersive film projected onto barrels. The two experiences have different focuses: the tasting centres on the wines themselves, while the film offers an immersive presentation with the barrels as its projection surface.
The landscape is also part of the story of winegrowing in Gertwiller. The vineyard lies above the village and faces south-southeast. The Vosges massif, particularly the 826-metre-high Maennelstein, shelters it from the prevailing winds. The clay-siliceous soil allows all Alsatian grape varieties to be grown. Alongside the tasting, these details about the vineyard's location and aspect offer two different points of interest if you are interested in wine.
Historical Traces at Saint-Barthélémy Church
Saint-Barthélémy Church preserves the lower levels of the choir tower of its Romanesque predecessor. The sculpted decoration is probably dated to the third quarter of the 12th century. The church also features a cycle of wall paintings: its oldest scene, from the 14th century, depicts the Adoration of the Magi. In the 15th century, it was painted over with a scene of the Dormition of the Virgin. The history of the choir tower and the story told by the wall-painting cycle thus mark different historical periods; the date of the sculpted decoration remains probable.
Getting There and Planning Your Stay
Gertwiller railway station can be reached from Strasbourg and is a five-minute walk from the Palais du Pain d'Épices. This gives you a practical travel option if you plan to visit the Palais. When looking for a hotel in Gertwiller, you can first consider whether gingerbread, wine or historical sites will be the main focus of your stay.
Discover more destinations: Waldhambach, Bellefosse, Lampertheim, Rottelsheim, Wittisheim, Geispolsheim, Reichshoffen, Souffelweyersheim.
View the broader travel guide: Bas-Rhin.
