Bergheim

Bergheim is a walled village of about 2,000 on the Alsace wine route, between Ribeauvillé and Sélestat. It has something almost none of its neighbours kept: its complete medieval fortifications — a double ring of walls with nine towers, a gate and a moat, walkable right round.

It also has the darkest history on the route, and the village does not hide it.

The witch trials

Between 1582 and 1683 Bergheim tried and executed some forty women for witchcraft — one of the heaviest concentrations in Alsace. The Maison des Sorcières, in the former town hall, is a museum devoted to them: the records, the procedure, the names.

Outside the walls, a memorial garden called the Jardin des Simples is planted with the herbs the accused were said to have used. It is a small, serious piece of local reckoning, and unusual — most towns with this history say nothing about it.

The walls

The fortifications date from 1311, when Bergheim became a town. The circuit takes about half an hour on the path outside the walls, past the nine surviving towers and along the moat, now planted.

Bergheim had one further peculiarity: it held the right of asylum. Anyone who reached the town and stayed a year and a day was free from pursuit — a privilege granted in its 1332 charter and exercised often enough to be remembered.

The village

• Porte Haute — the fourteenth-century upper gate, the only one of the four to survive, with the town’s arms above it
• The lime tree by the gate, planted in 1300 according to the town, and one of the oldest in Alsace
• Église Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption — with a Romanesque tympanum reused in a fourteenth-century building
• The dated houses — as everywhere in Alsace, the lintels carry years and owners’ marks, mostly sixteenth and seventeenth century
• The German military cemetery above the village, from the First World War

The wine

Bergheim has the Altenberg de Bergheim and Kanzlerberg grands crus on the slopes above — limestone and marl, and the Altenberg is one of the few grands crus permitted to blend several varieties rather than bottle one. Gewurztraminer and Riesling are the strengths, and the late-harvest wines here have a serious reputation.

See the wines of Alsace.

Getting to Bergheim

• By car — on the wine route, 15 minutes from Sélestat and 20 from Colmar. Park outside the walls. See parking in France.
• By bus — from Sélestat and Colmar, infrequent; check the return.
• On foot — vineyard paths link Bergheim to Ribeauvillé and Hunawihr, about an hour each.

Around

• Ribeauvillé — 4 km, with three ruined castles above it
• Hunawihr and Riquewihr — 5 and 7 km south
• Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg — 20 minutes; see the castle
• Sélestat — 15 km, with the Humanist Library

When to go

May to October, and September–October for the harvest. Bergheim is one of the least visited villages on this stretch — Riquewihr four kilometres away takes fifty times as many people — which is the reason to stop.

See Alsace and the most beautiful villages in France.

Nearby

Other places on this site within easy reach, as the crow flies:

• Ribeauvillé — 3 km
• Châtenois — 8 km
• Kaysersberg — 10 km
• Katzenthal — 12 km
• Turckheim — 15 km
• Eguisheim — 18 km

Weather in Bergheim

This page in Russian: Bergheim (Бергхайм)

Updated: 14 October 2026