Vineyards & Vide greniers

Since we now live in the Alsace region, we figured we need to get to know about Alsace wines! So, we took a trip along the Routes des Vins over the weekend, and got a bit of a "taste." We decided this is a lovely place to live! 

We don't have a car here so we rented one from the train station in Strasbourg. Bucky mapped a few "must see" towns prior to the trip so we followed Google Maps' lead. Our first stop was Bergheim and there was practically no one there. We wandered around the streets and ogled at the precious store and home fronts. We stopped in one of the quaint storefronts for our first tasting and left with three bottles of wine. We learned here that Riesling is always dry (which is different from what I thought in the States, but I am now informed). 

The next two towns we stopped in were Ribeauville and Eguisheim, both of which were precious, but definitely full of tourists. We wandered around, bought more wine and had a lovely lunch al fresco. Fun fact, Munster (where Munster cheese comes from) is in the region so Bucky enjoyed a Muster tarte flambee for lunch! 

We stayed the night at Hotel a l'Oriel in the town of Riquewihr. Again, it was precious although the cobblestone streets are precarious! We definitely focused on picking up our feet while wandering around, especially after some wine! 

On Sunday, we had a traditional French breakfast (think baguette, butter and jam) and headed out early for some vide-greniers. For those of you who are not familiar with one of our favorite past times in France, vide-greniers are like garage sales for the town. Vide grenier means empty the attic so you can imagine some of the treasures you can find. There is also lots of junk, but we love going through it all. 

These were some of the biggest vide greniers we have ever been to and we went to four in four different towns: Friesenheim, Avolsheim, Truchtersheim and Monswiller. We ended up getting back to Kehl at about 4pm, exhausted but with lots of wine and a few finds from the vide-greniers. Definitely a wonderful weekend!

The entrance to Bergheim

Bergheim


Our first wine purchase




More wine

Our charming hotel

View of vineyards from Riquewihr


A stork in a nest! This was cool! Saw it at the last vide grenier. Now sort of obsessed with storks!









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