What to do in La Petite Pierre in Alsace?

1. Visit the Old Town and Château de la Petite Pierre

La Petite Pierre is a small village, but is nevertheless interesting to visit. The main attraction is the old town (staedel), where the castle of La Petite Pierre, seat of the Vosges du Nord Regional Nature Park. The castle is not open to the public, but you can still enter the courtyard and visit the store of the Maison du Parc, which offers beautiful and good local products. The ramparts are also accessible via the Ramparts Trail, and the view is worth the detour!

To get to the castle, you will pass by the pretty Rue du Château, which has a few shops and restaurants. If you like religious frescoes, don’t hesitate to push the door of thesimultaneous church of Our Lady of the Assumption, whose choir houses beautiful frescoes from the beginning of the 15th century. The name “simultaneous church” comes from the fact that the church is shared between Catholic and Protestant worship. A great example of cohabitation! In the church, one can also discover the graves of former lords, including those of two counts of Lutzelstein.

Also in the old town is the Museum of the Alsatian Seal and of Popular Arts and Traditions (Springerle), dedicated to the history of the molds of these Alsatian Christmas cakes. The museum is very small, but nice, especially at Christmas time during the springerle making workshops!

2. Discover the Maison des Païens

Outside the old town, you can visit the House of the Pagans, a Renaissance house where some Gallo-Roman traces have been found, which gave it its name. It has a superb view of the surrounding forest. Some say that the place is magical… You go and judge!

3. Hiking in the Northern Vosges

For those tempted by a stay in La Petite Pierre, its location in the heart of the Vosges du Nord Regional Nature Park makes it the perfect place for lovers of peace and nature.

There are numerous hiking and mountain biking trails, or you can go horseback riding, for example. For example, I hiked the magnificent 3 rochers trail in La Petite Pierre, which I can’t recommend highly enough.

4. Ride an electric scooter

If I tell you electric scooter, what do you imagine? For my part, I immediately thought of the scooters that we see in the cities… When I heard about this activity in La Petite Pierre, I was initially rather dubious: what could you do there on a scooter? I changed my mind when I discovered the electric scooters from Loc’Bike & Trot. They are real all-terrain machines with big wheels, made to go and explore the roads!

All-terrain scooters

We can compare these electric scooters to the electric mountain bikes: it’s a bit the same use and the same sensations, even if obviously it remains different: we are not sitting but standing, ideally the knees slightly bent to absorb the shocks… It’s not the same balance! If you prefer mountain biking, Loc Bike & Trot also rents muscle bikes and electric bikes.

If you’re used to riding a bike, however, the balance is easy to find and I was immediately comfortable on it. It’s a little more difficult otherwise apparently, it takes a little time to get used to. If one is not very reassured, one can also easily adapt the speed of the scooters, which one controls well. When you put the scooter at maximum power, you get a really fun feeling on the trails, but it’s also nice to be at low speed and just enjoy it 🙂

Routes around La Petite Pierre

The courses proposed by Loc’Bike & Trot are however well adapted: you can take the time to be at ease with the machine, and there is no real difficulty. The paths are generally wide (the routes do not pass through small hiking paths so as not to damage the soil and disturb the hikers). Two routes are proposed, which you can follow thanks to a GPS provided: one route of 1h30 and another of 3h.

My good addresses in La Petite Pierre

Here are my good plans in La Petite Pierre:

• To rent a bike or an electric scooter: go to Loc’Bike & Trot just in front of the Tourist Office.
• For a beer on the terrace: go to the Biergarten La Cour du Grès. I recommend a drink, but not necessarily a meal.
• To buy leather goods: go to the Atelier de la Forêt, a local workshop
• To buy local souvenirs: go to the Maison du Parc in the castle, which has a store that exclusively sells products from artists, craftsmen and producers of the Vosges du Nord Regional Nature Park.
• To buy honey: go to the store of the Ruchers des Vosges du Nord, just next to the Atelier de la Forêt

Hotels and restaurants in La Petite Pierre

There are also many hotels and restaurants in the main street that are very welcoming and allow you to take a pleasant break before or after a hike, for example!