Strasbourg -> Colmar -> Eguisheim -> Ribeauville without a car

Connections eat up a lot of time. Using public transportation works better when you aren't trying to stack up trips during limited time. You may miss one, or more, of your "must-sees" because you run out of time. If you were staying in Colmar and planned one town on one day and the other the next, it would be fine - you would just burn more time than you anticipate.

I'd suggest at least considering a car for a day from Strasbourg to Colmar. See Ribeauville and Eguisheim, AND have time for more (more towns or a castle) before arriving in Colmar before dark. Or train from Strasbourg to Colmar, then get a rental so you don't pay a drop charge.

The other option is a private Rue des Vins tour in a van, I don't know if there are any that start on one end and drop you on the other? Eguisheim and Ribeauville are more likely to be served on a tour out of Colmar.

Either option may be worth the cost because of time saved and the potential for missing something you really want to see.

We were just in Strasbourg for five nights in early June. I don't know how regular the buses are, but I think you could find yourself spending more time waiting for and on the bus than seeing the villages, especially since Ribeauville and Eguisheim are in opposite directions. I think your best bet would be either to rent a car for the day or to train to Colmar and take the Kutzig hop-on hop-off bus: https://kutzig.fr/en/

That would take you to Ribeauville first, where you could spend either 1.5 hours or 3 hours before hopping on and going to Eguisheim for 1.5 hours, and then it would return you to Colmar, where you could take the train back to Strasbourg. On a Wednesday or Thursday in September I don't think you would have any problem getting on the bus. I would reserve a day or two ahead of time, and I'd try to be at the Colmar bus station in time to catch the first bus. We caught the second bus on a Friday, but they oversold and we had to wait a bit. It worked out in the end.

As an alternative, you could look at Ophorus tours, but none do exactly what you want to do. There are tours from Strasbourg and from Colmar: https://www.ophorus.com/region/4/france/alsace

This is what we did in the Colmar area to see the other villages:

We reserved a village tour with Ophorus Excursions & Tours for the afternoon. Our half-day minivan tour to several small villages outside Colmar was very special. Our friendly guide briefly drove us to sites beyond the tour plan to thoroughly explain the significance of this area during WWII since it’s near the German border. His information, showing us bullet holes in stone building walls, and pointing out the American flag flown high up the hill at a memorial were very meaningful. He also provided lots of details about the wines & origins for this area. The villages were all so cute (he even drove us down to Eguisheim which was my favorite!).

Only wanted to add that we aren’t always big driving fans but for those towns outside of Colmar it was very easy to drive. You may park a distance from your destination. These towns are beautiful. Safe travels.

Train and bus will be fine for one day. I'd substitute Riquewihr for Eguisheim as it is on the same bus route as Ribeauville. Even though the famous villages are fairly compact, I think they deserve more time than a 'several villages in half a day' time slot.

Any time in Colmar itself?

If you are up for it, there's a nice walk between Riquewihr and Ribeauville. You may see a team of massive spotted pigs on the way.

After Saint Ulrich, head up to Château du Haut-Ribeaupierre if it is still accessible; there were danger signs hung up when I was there a few years ago. It's deadly quiet up there.

Thanks all so much for the replies!

I'm not particularly interested in a van tour for this part of the trip. I appreciate local insight but want this to be a "just us" day.

To be clear, if we did Eguisheim, I was figuring on a quick Uber back and forth rather than waiting for a bus. And we do want to spend some time in Colmar itself.

The Kutzig hop-on-hop-off is really interesting! But it seems like the route would take us through other towns that we weren't going to do on the way to Ribeauville. It would be nice to see more towns (even just from the bus) but I'm not sure if it will actually save us time and that's my bigger concern. Unless I'm misunderstanding their route map or the timing between towns, which is 100% possible. Maybe I'll reach out to confirm with them.

Denny, it's good to hear from someone that the driving was easy and parking not bad. I have a memory of driving down a street in Auxerre and being VERY worried about our passenger rear view mirror. But stashing the car at the edge of the historic part of town and walking from there sounds good.

Gunderson, THAT is a really interesting idea and might be my favored option right now. I had crossed off Riquewihr because it sounded a little over-touristed... but it also sounds beautiful and a walk between the towns by the vineyards sounds awesome. Do you have a sense of how long that walk would be? I'm seeing an hour and change but need to find something that describes the route better - not sure if that is a round trip time when we would just be looking to do it one-way. With this plan, the transportation would be an early train from Strasbourg to Colmar, a bus from Colmar to Riquewihr, and a bus from Ribeauville to Strasbourg... three legs sounds less scary than four. Or maybe I reverse the order so that the buses (generally less reliable) are at the beginning of the day and the easy train ride home (fingers crossed) is at the end.

We have visited this area twice, once in September and last year for the Christmas markets. Both times we rented a car and drove to all the cute towns (each one is very adorable). We had no problem parking at all, nor did we have to walk a distance. Riquewihr Is our absolute favorite and there is a huge parking lot right across the street from the main entrance. We have used Riquewihr as a base, and getting to all the other towns is easy and quick. Another town we really enjoyed that usually isn’t mentioned often is Obernai, outside of Strasbourg. We used that as our base for Strasbourg.

I considered using public buses for our trip but it looked like they only ran a few times a day. Have you been able to find a bus schedule for Ribeauville to Strasbourg? The reason we took the hop on hop off bus was that the very helpful Tourist Information office in Colmar told us it would be much more convenient than using public buses. It ran perfectly on time. We just rode through the villages we wanted to skip. I do think a car for the day is a good option.

Re Uber: Uber is most likely available. I also have the Bolt app downloaded on my phone. It's essentially the same but might be preferred in France.

I agree that you should plan most of a day to see two villages even using Uber. A half-day doesn't seem like enough. With a car, you could easily see three villages in a full day.

Ahhh, I hadn't really looked at what's involved in the Strasbourg <-> Ribeauville connection. That's the problem! It's a train and a bus - no direct. Okay... I'm gonna look harder at the hop-on-hop-off and what that schedule would look like. The advantage to that is now not only no driving but also that we could do the walk between Ribeauville and Riquewihr! But otherwise, I appreciate the folks saying that driving/parking won't be too stressful.

Thanks for all the continued help!!

Okay, I was being dense and now I understand the schedule on the Kutzig website. Sorry, I was initially turned off by it not going directly to the places on my list but now that I see the timing (and am cool switching to Riqueihr) I think that's how we'll go! Early 1/2 hr train to Colmar, Kutzig to Ribeauville, maybe walk to Riqueihr if the timing makes sense (otherwise Kutzig), then Kutzig back to Colmar and a later train. The bus looks really fun also! I'm liking this option a lot. Will run this by my husband and see if we're set!

You can catch the Kutzig "hop-on / hop-off" shuttle bus in front of the Colmar train station. We used it 2 days and had sufficient time to visit 5 towns on the circular route over the 2 days. Need to buy tickets ahead of time, not sold on the bus.

https://kutzig.fr/en/

Maybe consider using Colmar as a base, and make a day trip to Strasbourg by train?

We're settled on using the hop-on-hop-off bus!

I found this path suggested for the walk between the two. Will come back and update on how everything goes!

Use Strasbourg or Riquewehr as your base. Visit Colmar if you wish but with a full week that we spent outside of Strasbourg, Colmar was definitely our least favorite place.

A bit late to the game, but, maybe renting bikes is an option if you are riders.

I would not do it from Strasbourg to Colmar, but the distances between Colmar/
Ribeauville/Riquewehr/Equisheim are not that large, and the side roads lend
themselves to relatively easy and safe biking.

Just wanted to reply back that the Kutzig hop-on-hop-off bus worked out GREAT for us. We were able to hit up Ribeauville and Eguisheim. The drive between the two was beautiful and we got to see the countryside even where we didn't stop from the topless part of the bus, which was great. The early afternoon bus and the early evening bus were both right on time. The midafternoon bus was maybe a couple of mins behind and then fell a couple more behind as we went but nothing terrible. The app isn't totally accurate on the bus location sometimes but it contains a number to call and the woman who answered was happy to confirm how far out the bus was. The stop by the TI in Colmar is also unmarked - the bus pulls up onto the sidewalk in front of the water feature in that plaza between the TI and the museum. We didn't get to do the hike to the chateaus or between villages because we were feeling a little under the weather, but it was still a great day. We didn't have to sweat a car rental or driving after doing wine tasting. It was easy and lots of fun for anyone not looking to drive.

I’m so glad it worked out for you!

I am taking notes on all of this as we are tentatively planning to visit in February:)

Mikiliz--check out Mont's link and I do not believe the bus runs all year.