Along the Ill and Dollerbaechlein rivers

Start and finish of the tour. Parking on the supermarket car park.

In 2002, the town hall of Kingersheim considered the future of the Schurch farm, the only building that survived the 30-year war and was in danger of being demolished. It decided to establish the House of the Citizenship there: deconstruction of the farm and re-implantation in the same place. Today, this project is a real architectural success! The building is superb, the heritage has been preserved and Kingersheim keeps its "village" aspect.

Between 1196 and 1202, the bishop of Strasbourg gave the Augustinian nuns of Schoenensteinbach the parish church of Wittenheim and the chapel of Kingersheim. At the end of the 12th century, the chapel received a relic of its patron saint and became a very popular place of pilgrimage. In 1829, the chapel of Saint Adelphe became the parish church of Kingersheim. Built between 1859 and 1861 according to the plans of the architect Jean-Baptiste Schacre in replacement of the old chapel, the church of St Adelphe is equipped with a clock system of which there are only 2 examples in Alsace. Inside, a real treasure is nestled, a Virgin and Child, a historical monument commissioned in 1515 by the convent of Schoenensteinbach. The statue has been exhibited in the Louvre Museum. The artificial grotto in front of the church was built in 1919. The inhabitants of the village had sworn to build it during the 1914-1918 war if their village was spared.

Restored by the City of Kingersheim in 1995 to accommodate the current school of music, the farm that was called "Nussbaumer" announced, engraved on its door, the year "1664". But it seems that it would be older and could indeed date from the Alsatian Renaissance and have been destroyed during the Thirty Years War. Major modifications were made in the 18th century. In 1863, it is the Mulhousian Charles Mieg who is the owner. It was not until 1937 that the Nussbaumer family moved in. The rehabilitation was completed in 1996 with the aim of preserving the building in its original spirit: the lower part in ashlar with its arched lintels and the upper part in half-timbering with its two pairs of inclined posts and a St. Andrew's cross in the spandrel panel of the double central window.

D'une longueur de 23 km, la rivière du Dollerbaechlein prend naissance à une prise d'eau de la Doller à 1,5 km à l'Est de Reiningue (sa diffluence). Il traverse ensuite les bans de Lutterbach, Richwiller, Pfastatt, Kingersheim, Wittenheim et Ruelisheim avant de se jeter dans l'Ill (sa confluence) à Ensisheim. Elle est alimentée par quelques mini-confluents : le Leimbach à Lutterbach, le Hagelbach à Richwiller et le Thürbaechlein à Ensisheim. Plusieurs minoteries ont été bâties et ont fonctionné jadis le long du Dollerbaechlein, notamment à Wittenheim au nord de la motte féodale.

This mound, planted with vines in the 19th century (hence its name: Reb = grape, berg = hill) and the plateau adjacent to the Rue du Bourg, is the site of a castle that was once built here. The first builders of the castle, probably made of wood, used a slope of land located to the east of the village to raise a hill and terraced a raised plateau, the whole surrounded by ditches or moats watered by a stream rising from the Nonnenbruch (its course followed the present rue des Mines and rue du Millepertuis). The castle was burnt down by the Swedes in 1632 during the Thirty Years' War. Subsequently, the site was heavily eroded and reworked to facilitate cultivation. Excavations carried out in the 1950s and 1960s by Désiré Renaud led to the discovery of a pink sandstone archway. The site is part of a public park created by the town of Wittenheim, which opened to the public in 2015.

The 223 km long river has its source on the Glaserberg in Winkel with a resurgence in Ligsdorf. Its source is to the east of the village at a place designated, in 1591, as the Illentsprung, i.e. the origin of the Ill. The latter flows into the Rhine at Offendorf downstream from Strasbourg towards Gambsheim. The commune of Illzach takes its name from this river.