Mont Sainte-Odile

The monastery stands on a sandstone bluff at about seven hundred and sixty metres with the whole Alsace plain and, on clear days, the Black Forest laid out below. Odile, patron saint of Alsace, founded a convent here around 700; the buildings are largely seventeenth and eighteenth century after fires, arranged around terraces with chapels at the cliff edge. Around the summit runs the Mur Paien, a dry-stone wall of roughly ten kilometres built from large blocks joined by wooden dovetails, enclosing about a hundred hectares. Its date is disputed, with estimates spanning the late Bronze Age to the early medieval period, and its purpose is unknown.

History

The mountain, called Allitona in the 8th century, shows evidence of Celtic settlement, and it enters recorded history in Roman times, when a fortress here is said to have been destroyed by the Vandals in 407. Named after Saint Odile, it holds the convent of Hohenburg and the stone fortification known as the Pagan Wall, and since at least the 19th century its beauty has been celebrated in guidebooks such as Baedeker's (Wikipedia, Mont Sainte-Odile).

Highlights

• The cliff terraces - chapels and viewpoints on the sandstone edge.
• The Mur Paien - about ten kilometres of undated dry-stone wall.
• The plain view - Alsace and the Black Forest on clear days.
• The forest paths - marked trails linking the wall and springs below.

When to go

April to October; the site is open year-round and is a pilgrimage destination, busiest on Sundays and feast days. Autumn mist below the summit is a common and striking effect.

Things to know

The access road is narrow with tight bends and parking fills at weekends. The buildings are working monastic property with limited access. The pagan wall is overgrown in stretches and needs a marked path to follow.

Nearby

Obernai lies below; the Alsace wine road runs along the foot of the hills.