Mont Sainte-Odile
Clifftop abbey founded by Alsace's patron saint, wrapped by the mysterious 'Pagan Wall'. A classic road-cyclist climb from Barr (a good 550 m up); the terrace view spans the whole plain.
History
Alsace's patron saint was born blind — the story the sanctuary tells begins here.
According to the tradition the sanctuary recounts, Etichon, duke of Alsace, hoped for a son and was given a frail, blind daughter. Baptised at twelve by Bishop Ehrhard of Regensburg, she regained her sight and was named Odile, "daughter of light." After she refused the marriage he chose for her and fled, her father relented and gave her the castle of Hohenbourg; many women joined her, and she founded a second monastery at Niedermunster, at the foot of the mountain. Her sarcophagus can still be seen in the Chapelle du Tombeau.
Sources: mont-sainte-odile.com › lieu-avec-une-histoire, alsace.catholique.fr › 385663-grand-jubile-de-sainte-odile-sanctuaire-du-mont-sainte-odile-2020-2021 · checked 14 October 2026
Burned, abandoned and rebuilt — the buildings around you date from the 8th to the 20th century.
The state's heritage inventory records a religious house thought to have been founded by Duke Etichon in the second half of the 7th century, with three buildings raised in the 8th, perhaps at Odile's instigation. After a fire, the second half of the 12th century brought intense building under the abbesses Relinde and Herrade — the Chapelle de la Croix, the Chapelle des Larmes and the Chapelle des Anges date from then. The abbey was abandoned in the 16th century and revived in the 17th by Premonstratensian canons; after another fire in 1681, the east wing was rebuilt in 1683 and the church between 1687 and 1696. The buildings stood unoccupied from 1791 to 1853. The large building in the entrance courtyard went up between 1904 and 1908, and from 1930 to 1937 the architect Robert Danis led a complete renovation to receive pilgrims.
Source: pop.culture.gouv.fr · checked 14 October 2026
It was on France's 1840 list of historic monuments — and it stands inside a "pagan wall."
The Chapelle Sainte-Odile, the Chapelle de la Croix, the library, the cloister sculptures and the Chapelles des Larmes and des Anges were classified on the 1840 list, the first published list of historic monuments in France. The protection record describes the mountain as a place of pilgrimage and memory, with buildings from the 8th to the 20th century, set at the centre of the enclosure of a "pagan wall."
Sources: pop.culture.gouv.fr › PA00084884, culture.gouv.fr › les-grandes-dates-des-monuments-historiques · checked 14 October 2026
From the route
Leaves the route in Barr on day 2; 10.8 km one-way with 570 m of climbing on paved road.