Now that I have a few minutes, allow me to back up a few days. On Thursday, we left town for the second time...you know...the day that we were supposed to leave, and headed up to Alsace. That is the region that we were going to be visiting for two days. They say that Alsace is the "flower child between Germany and France." So true! The region has literally changed hands between France and Germany at least 5 times! They also say that the village is like a living working Hansel and Gretel village. Again, I could not agree more! It felt a little bit like we were in Solvang, or a movie set but we weren't! This was for real. People work and live here every day! This is there life! Jeff felt like if we were to peek in the window of someone's home, we would see gingerbread people running around!
We started our journey in Colmar. This is the second biggest city that we visited. When we approached the city I thought that I was not going to like it. That is, until we got into the "Centre Ville" or the center of the city. Once inside, wow. We immediately understood why the American and the British agreed not to bomb this beautiful area! Flowers line the half-timbered houses on cobblestone streets. Canals wind in and out of the rows of houses in the area that they call the “Petite Venise” and as in all of Alsace, when you reach your eyes to the sky you see not only church steeples, but 1000 pound stork nests on top of the steeples with little stork families! What a beautiful and quaint city. For being a big city, and having so many people walking around, it is really very interesting to note how relatively quiet the city is. As with almost all of our destinations, I felt like I could have stayed here all day, but was also looking forward to our next stop!
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| Could Jennifer look any more French? |
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| Colmar |
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| Petite Venise |
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| Stork |
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| Family of storks! |
After Colmar, we headed to the "Route du Vin" to take us to a few small "charming" villages. I don't know about you, but when you put "charming" and "village" in the same sentence, my heart skips a beat, and I just know that it is a place that I would like to see.
The “Route du Vin” did not disappoint us. We drove on highways ribboned through vineyards and dotted with small villages, castles and ruins dating to who knows when. I have never seen anything like it. The sky was bright blue, the clouds were puffy and white, the roads are perfectly manicured, and everywhere we looked was green plants lined up oh so strait (my anal retentive father would love this!) literally dripping with green grapes. I have included a picture, but you should know that I must have taken 20. I am just showing you one!
Our next stop was Kaysersberg. It’s claim to fame is the 16th century bridge that the town people convinced the Germans not to destroy when they evacuated the area, the hike to the ruined castle with million dollar views, the bakeries with pretzels (see – Germany!) and the Alsatian wines. We did climb to the ruined castle tower and the views from the top were some of the best that we have had. It seems like I am being repetitive, and I am, but the value of the beauty that surrounded me at the top of that castle tower will never be lost on me. Whether I am at the top of a highway, or the top of a castle. It was just beautiful! When we got back down into the city, there was music playing and horses in the streets…again…really? Jeff and I went into a recommended wine cave and tasted a few wines while the kids went to get a pretzel. We met a German couple that had been coming to this same place for over 20 years for each of their holidays! Well, if that was not a good recommendation then I don’t know what is. We could not believe how good the wine was, and how relatively inexpensive. I could not get over the fact that the German couple had their two big dogs in the wine cave with them! I love this place…and I miss my dog!
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The castle ruins that we hiked to and up.
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| One of the 180 degree views from the top of the castle ruins |
At the conclusion of the day, we drove to the little charming village that we would be staying in – Eguisheim. Believe it or not, there is an award in France for the village with the best flowers, and Eguisheim won it! Little tiny village, cobblestone streets, an old old walled city (although most of the wall is now gone) flower festooned village. Here, we stayed in a bed and breakfast that was not like bed and breakfasts in the States, but clean and comfortable. We walked 5 minutes to have dinner at a cave restaurant that we soon learned was a very good choice. You know it is good when it fills up with locals, and that is exactly what happened here. I was aching for an Alsatian dinner and we got it here!
We started with a tarte flambee. If any of you shop at Trader Joes, it is the French Tart with ham and onions! I knew that I was French before I came here! Anyway, they are very popular here and are not at all disappointing! I could have stopped there, but no. Makenna had poulet au Riesling, Jeff had a pepper steak, and I had rosti (an oven baked potato and regional cheese dish in the crock pottery that they are known for). Rachel and Soren had a “hamburger steak” off of the menu for “les enfants.” They loved it! Thank goodness, because we could not stop gushing about how good ours was! It was raining outside, and so this warm and “homey” meal was sooooooo good! We finished it off with a crème brulee that they lit at our table. We were all in culinary heaven now!
That night, we walked through the vineyards and all over the town. I have never seen a town like this, and doubt that I will ever see another one unless I come back. I will attach some pictures here, but I know that it will not do it justice. It is just beautiful!
The next morning, as we were walking through town, a woman called to us from inside of a biscuiterie (cookie shop), and handed me a warm, just out of the oven, macaroon cookie. Oh my word, will this never end? Will I ever get enough? To say that it melted in my mouth is an understatement. Making sure to be fair (although it took all of my strength) I caught up with the rest of my family to share. 20 euros later, we were the proud owners of several macaroons of which we only have two left. Pistachio, banana chocolate, orange, chocolate and natural. I will stop here. They are just that good.
We were all a little sad to leave this little town. We were truly just “charmed” by it. But, now we were off to one more small charming town, and one big lively town.
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Kids in front of one of the may fountains in Eguisheim
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| Typical street in the village. Look at all of the flowers that people have in front of their houses! |
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Ohhhh, the macaroons!
From here, we headed to Riquewihr. This town was also little and charming. Here, we were charmed by the Christmas shop that was two stories and larger than most of the houses in this area! That shop of course put the Brown family in heaven, and Daddy had to go back out to the car to add more money to the parking meter. That took most of our time here!
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| The wall surrounding the city |
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| You know that we had one! |
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| Main street of the town, strait uphill |
Now we were off to Strasbourgh. It is said that it is a big Colmar. That is an understatement. Everything here was big, and yet still beautiful and full of history! Here, we were shocked by the enormous Strasbourgh Cathedral (begun in 1176 and completed in 1429), along with the 15th century astronomical clock. Martin Luther’s thesis was posted on this cathedral’s main doors!
We rented bikes to ride around the city on, and took a boat tour that looped us around Strasbourgh to try and get a better feeling of what was here. We went through two locks on that boat cruise. That alone was very exciting and new! Again, compared to the previous day it was such a big city and fulllll of amazing history. Too much to go into here.
Before we left to make the long trek home, we were sure to stop at a café and have just one more tarte flambee. Oh man, those are sooo good! Then a café au lait and a long car ride home.
Now we have been home for a few days, and have all enjoyed relaxing. Like I mentioned, it has been quite hot. It makes us all appreciate the fact that we have, up until this point, been sightseeing in much more agreeable weather! But, for hanging out here, it has been nice.
Makenna and I went into Beaune on Saturday for a “smashing” farmers market. It was huge, and we had so much fun buying fresh veggies, bread and fish for a few days! However, I will tell you that although it is bigger than our Thousand Oaks Farmers market, we both agreed that neither this, nor the market in Autun, or the market in Paris was better than our Thousand Oaks Farmers market. We both agreed that if anyone from Europe were to go to our Farmers Market, they would not be at all disappointed. That felt good to us both. It means that we can continue a little bit of this lifestyle back at home!
Me, I just love that my 14 year old daughter had an interest in driving to a farmers market with me, knew what kind of vegetables and fish that she wanted to buy while there, and then was excited to come back home and help me to come up with some ideas of how to cook it all up back here. Joie de vivre! Life is good!
