Exploring Alsace

Saturday, June 13, 2009 - Off to a French castle!

I met up with Mark and a group from Jet for a tour of a French castle on Saturday. We had two wonderful French guides, Sophie and Joseph, also from Jet - they shuttled us to lunch, the castle and then on to a wine cave. We are very thankful for their hospitality, as we could never have gotten all of this done as a group! After stopping for a wonderful lunch at a French restaurant, we headed further north to Colmar - home of Haut-Koenigsbourg, the only restored castle in the region, if I remember correctly... We had a great guided tour (in English...) that made the visit so much better than just roaming around would've been. Tons of pictures follow:
The short but steep hike up to the castle:


The view of the valley below was magnificent - as are most views we've had so far:

Our first glimpse of the castle:


This is one of our French friends/tour guides/chauffeurs, Sophie (on the left):

Another breath-taking view - this one from inside the castle:

A ceramic "oven" - very inspiring for the ceramist in me!

Weapons, anyone?

Some furniture from the 1500's - not original to the castle, but cool none-the-less:

French dorks:

And what trip would be complete without a picture of a door?

This really was a great day. After the castle, Sophie and Joseph hauled us all back to a border town of Switzerland for a wine tasting! See part two of today's blog for the wine story!