Saturday, June 13th continued...

Part two of Saturday - the trip to the wine cave...

We were late getting there, but fortunately Joseph's friend kept the place open for us. I'd never been to a wine tasting before - much less a wine tasting in an authentic "Wine Cave" in France. We tasted 5 different wines in all - and purchased 4 out of the 5 to bring back to the apartment. I seriously doubt any of them will make it back to the States...

Mark in front of one of the barrels:

This particular wine cave has been owned by a family for generations. The pictures carved into the barrels tells the story of the family members through the years. Elise, one of the daughters of the most recent generation, is the person who explained everything and hosted the tasting. We even bought two bottles of the wine that was named for her and developed the year she was born. It's very good!

A picture of the village we were in for the wine tasting:

We made it back to Basel around 8pm and 5 of us headed to a fantastic Italian restaurant for dinner. Then home to bed - Sunday we had plans to hit the Medieval Festival in Germany! That, of course, is another blog.

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!