History of locks 2 Rives 3 Ponts trail

Kembs (marina or place de la Mairie)

Route: Niffer - Petit-Landau (church) - Hombourg - Ruines de Buttenheim - possible detour to Ferme St-Martin - Abbatiale d'Ottmarsheim - Bantzenheim - Chalampé - Pont Chalampé/Neuenburg am Rhein - Bad Bellingen - Blansingen - Huttingen - Istein - Barrage de Märkt/Village Neuf - Kembs

Quality: sandy and tarmac tracks, road

The Kembs marina parking lot, with its typical drawbridge, is the starting point for this tour. Following the canal, it takes you north from Huningue, past the locks of the Rhine-Rhone Canal to Niffer and from there to Petit-Landau, then on to Hombourg. Shortly after Petit-Landau, you'll see the Ferme Saint-Martin on your left, with its small chapel and the former briqueterie (brick kiln), which was in operation until the end of the 19th century. Two kilometers further on, on your left, in a grove in the middle of fields, you'll discover the ruins of the medieval Buttenheim castle (11th/12th century). From here, you can enjoy breathtaking views of the Markgräflerland wine, horticultural and market-gardening region, and the mountain foothills. In the background, behind the wooded hills, rises the Hochblauen (1165 m).

At the junction of the D 468 and the Petit-Landau local road is a small restored chapel. From here, return to the village and turn left towards Hombourg. The Habsburgs built this castle in Buttenheim at the same time as the Ottmarsheim abbey church (11th/12th century), but it was the Counts of Andlau who last occupied it in the 16th century. From Hombourg, the route takes you across fields to Ottmarsheim and its abbey church of Saints-Pierre-et-Paul, built in 1030 by Rudolph von Altenburg, an ancestor of the Habsburgs. You then pass through the village with its old half-timbered houses and head north, passing through Bantzenheim and Chalampé, to cross the Rhine at Neuenburg am Rhein. On the way to Bad Bellingen via Steinenstadt, you'll see a chapel famous for its miraculous cross, the 13th-century Heilig-Kreuz-Kapelle (Holy Cross Chapel) in Neuenburg. After Bad Bellingen, the path climbs to reach the old Roman road, which offers splendid views over the Rhine plain and the Black Forest. From here, you pass through Bamlach to Blansingen, where you can admire a church decorated with 12th-century frescoes. Then on to Huttingen and back down to Istein, where you'll find Veit's Kapelle and the Istein Rock (Isteiner Klotz), before returning to the dam at Märkt.
Cross the dam and continue along the Rhine Island to the Kembs lock with its hydroelectric power station.