With Every Passing Day...: Impromptu Trip to France Anyone??!

We were all thrilled when Robert out of the blue declared he was taking us to France! And come to find out… Stuttgart is only an hour from the French-German border! Just think… In less than the time it used to take me to drive from Richmond to Lexington I can now be in an entirely different country! I could get used to this European travel thing… Haha

So we set off for a day-trip exploration of the Alsace-Lorraine region (eastern border of France)… We started with Strassburg, which was absolutely breath-taking… We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful clear crisp day to walk around the city… Most of Strassburg was easy to manage on foot… We stopped for lunch at a little creperia in the city centre by the Cathedral de Notre Dame (not to be confused for the one in Paris). The Cathedral itself was one of the oldest in France and the detail of architecture was enough to keep me busy investigating all day. Drayton and my favorite part was actually probably the astrological clock inside. Describing it as massive would be an understatement…

We wandered the streets of Strassburg for several hours sampling the delights of this incredibly quaint historical city… It had an interesting feel given the back and forth influence of both French and German culture throughout it’s history…

After crepes, brie, french-baguettes, fresh chocolates, and of course gelato (And yes, given our family it is best to describe our time in any location by the quality/quantity of food consumed!) we headed onward south from Strassburg. We drove down the Rue De Vin (Wine Road) which was unbelievably picturesque… Every couple of miles we would stumble across a little wine town that looked like i was directly off a post-card. For as far as the eye could see we beautiful rolling hills covered in grape orchards… And I swear we saw at least one castle on every hill-top in the distance…

We made an impromptu stop in a little walled city called Berghaim… Then moved onto Ribeauville where the primary site of interest was a stork in a nest atop the local village church (We made several u-turns at Drayton’s insistence that we HAD to have a picture)… Our next stop was Riquewihr, and then Aumerschwihr where we found an elderly man, Monsieur Mendes, who owned a local vineyard. He was welcoming enough to invite us into his wine cellar where we tasted several delicious wines before purchasing several bottles. We were lucky that both he and Robert spoke German, although he seemed rather reluctant given the past history of French/German relations in the area…

We ended our day long trek with a short stop in Soufflenheim at an amazing little French restaurant called Restaurant Au Boeuf… The food was probably the most delicious we had that day, although it also might have been that by this point we were starving and would have eaten anything (Note to self: Little villages in France/Germany essentially close down after 5pm… On our search for food it was like driving through a ghost town) All in all, it was an incredible, albeit exhausting day. We had only been in Germany for 4 days at this point so wearing ourselves out before fully recovering from jet-lag was probably not advisable… But it was worth it to have a personal tour-guide/translator in Robert…

I have to admit… Although I haven’t seen much of Europe I think the demure quaintness and picturesque quality of Alsace-Lorraine might make it one of my favorite regions in Europe… It was absolutely breath-taking to explore the wine-country in person…

So now I’m onto planning my next adventure!… I’m thinking a trip to Salzburg?! Suggestions are welcomed! :-)

With Love from Germany… Mary Beth