Sunday, August 19, 2007

Alsace and Black Forest with the Obitts'


This past weekend I took off Friday to head north-east from Geneva by train to Basel, Switzerland where I met Tim, Krista, Samuel, and Amelia Obitts (my VA family/friends) who were with family in Germany. We journeyed to the vineyards of Alsace, France (still part of Germany depending on whom you ask). We toured many of the towns dotting the hills of the region, such as “les plus beaux villages viticoles de la route des vins” (i.e., the beautiful wine-producing villages on the wine road): Beblenheim, Bennwihr, Mittelwihr, Riquewihr (1st picture with Brian and Samuel at Riquewihr gate; 2nd picture Amelia sliding; 3rd picture, Samuel at park right outside town walls), Hunawihr, Zellenberg, Bergheim, Ribeauvillé, Rodern, Rorschwihr and Saint-Hippolyte. We settled in a small pension at the vineyard of the Earl Kress-Bleger family in Rodern, France where Samuel found the forklift of the viticulturist (Guido from the "Cars" movie was a forklift who saved the day with an uber-quick Pit-Stop during the Piston Cup; Samuel made sure there were no Piston Cups hiding in the garage at the vineyard). We stumbled onto a festival in the next village (it was the holiday weekend for seemingly all of Europe (5 points if you can tell what's wrong with this picture of the cellar) The next morning we went to visit the Castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg; the castle was reclaimed by Kaiser Wilhelm II as part of the re-Germanization of Alsace (later re-re-claimed by the French after the war), and restored at the beginning of the 20th century. Heading over toward the Black Forest across the valley in Germany, we found another B&B (Samuel told me several times he was collecting rocks for me to give to Miss Diane [mom] when I go home) to rest at before we went hiking the next day finding fresh blackberries along the route on the way to a small town where Tim ran 5km back to the car while the rest of us enjoyed ice cream and a drink.

1 comment:

Chrissy said...

Aw, so cute! I love the pics of you and Samuel :) He just adores you...so sweet.