Europe Wine Adventures: Alsace Day 3 and 4

If you’re reading this, I appreciate it. But, mostly it is for me so it may get a bit boring. Here I am, cataloging 2 days of activities, and it is amazing what I’ve already forgotten from yesterday. Hence the reason for the blog… I want to get as much mileage as I can from these trips and writing down the memories so I can relive them is one of the ways to do that.

First, let me complain a bit… France is in the middle of a heatwave. Today it was between 90-95 Fahrenheit most of the day. 80 is nice, and would make Amanda happy, but 90 is hot. And, of course, none of our hotels have A/C. The room is bearable, but warm. On the flip side, I’m sitting on our little balcony, surrounded by flowers, looking ahead at the remains of a castle, surrounded by Alsatian hills and cute little houses on a quiet street. So, enough complaining.

Yesterday we decided to head into Strasbourg, the biggest city in the Alsace region. It has about a million people, I believe, but the main downtown area is pretty contained and surrounded by canals. We had directions to a place we could park and take the tram into the city; and, with our new found confidence in reading street signs, we were off.

Parking was a little challenging, as we drove through the city a bit looking for our pre-determined spot. Although we saw hints of it (on signs), we never found it; we were finally able to find a spot within walking distance of the city for only a few Euro more than we’d have paid for the other spot.

First stop was the cathedral, an amazing structure with beautiful flying buttresses, ornate gothic type artwork and inscribing around the outside, and tall spires. Amanda and I climbed up to the top of the observatory and got a birds-eye view of the city. From there we made our way over to Place Kleber, the shopping district, and then Le Petit France for lunch. We ate at a nice outdoor café complete with music from a couple street entertainers; followed by a showdown between the head hostess and the entertainers when they went to ask for donations from the patrons.

After most of the day in Strasbourg, and the sun, we felt a bit wasted. We went back to Obernai and our hotel and rested a bit. Then, we took a drive up the hills above Obernai; it was gorgeous. On the way home the Obernai Tourism office was putting on a little town square party. There was beer, wine, food, dancing, a polka band; so, of course we had dinner and stayed for a bit. By the end of that the FIFA semifinal game had started and we returned to our hotel room to watch it. Unfortunately there aren’t any sports bars or pubs to watch these kind of events. We found one place, but it was a restaurant with a TV and it was already full.

This morning we got up and headed out for a run. On our drive yesterday we had found some trails and so we headed there to explore… what we found was a beautiful trail system designed for horses, bikes, and people. The trails meandered through wonderfully green wooded (and shaded areas) with little bridges crossing back and forth across a creek. It was nourishing for the body and soul as it was quiet and squirrels and birds flitted around us the whole time.

Obernai has a weekly market so before checking out we went up to that. Calling this thing a market does not do it justice; it is more like a travelling supermarket and tradeshow. People have these big trucks they drive in, full of clothes, and the open them up. The market filled many streets and had everything from clothing to kitchen gadgets to all the good food you’d want to buy for dinner that night. It was packed with people all over and I think we were on stimulus overload after going through half of it.

After checking out we headed back out on the wine route to Keyserberg, our next hotel location. The drive was surreal – cruising along narrow French roads surrounded by fields and fields of vines draped across rolling hills; about every 5-10 km there is another adorable little town with cobblestone streets that you navigate through, only to burst out of it back on the main road. Amanda says I went full French because I can’t help but cycle through the gears quickly to reach top speeds… the narrow roads only accentuate the feeling of speed and it is exhilarating. I can only imagine that’s what they French are thinking, also… otherwise, they wouldn’t tail me so closely if I drop below 100 km/hr!

We tasted some wines and had a classic Alsatian dinner, but I’ll have to write about that more later. Also, along the way, we found Monkey Mountain and a massive restored castle. But alas, the temperature has cooled a bit and I believe I’m ready to go to bed. More to come…