A small tangent, I had to go to the Automotive place on Ramstein with my friend and actually drill holes into the front of the Jeep to attach the front plate mount. Ryan was not a fan of this idea, but hey it had to be done and I rocked it! Then I had to take the Jeep to get inspected, which took about 5 minutes. Afterwards, I was free to buy our new plates, and then had to put them on the Jeep! We had to wait to get our official drivers licenses in the mail in order to get our International licenses. I ran over to the driving office to get a stamped paper and ran it to Kaiserslautern City Hall with 15.00 Euro and passport photos. It took about 5 minutes for the license too. Super easy!
Okay, now on to the fun part, France!! We arrived and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Cap Europe Hotel in Strasbourg. This was the cheapest hotel with parking that I could find last minute and it suited us just fine. It was about a 15 minute walk to downtown, had a small kitchenette, and a bathroom smaller than a cruise ship bathroom. It was more like an RV bathroom. The only other negative for this hotel was the wifi could only be used in the lobby. I had mostly everything laid out, but still sometimes you need to look things up and that was super annoying.
We walked downtown and saw some of the sites along the way. We decided to eat dinner in the Petit France neighborhood at a place called Au Pont du St. Martin. The waiter spoke NO English, which meant Jets had to refer back to her French days!! I actually really enjoyed being in France and being able to understand things and get by! I really want to relearn my French while we live here. We had a nice meal of salad au chèvre chaud (goat cheese salad) and I had the Alsacian traditional Munster cheese with a cheese sauce and potato pancakes. Ryan go a small chicken and wasn't impressed. We shared an apple tarte flambé for dessert and it was pretty good!
The next morning we woke bright and early to start the day!! We had to see the Strasbourg sites and hit the road to 2 villages on the Route du Vin. In terms of touristy things, there isn't much to see here. We stopped at a local market on our way to the Cathedral to marvel at the flowers,
meats, cheeses, fruits/veggies, and yummy desserts! I picked up a rose macaroon
for the road!
We started at the Notre Dame Cathedral had a Coffee and shared a pastry at a local Pattiserie.
The astronomical clock in Notre Dame, Strasbourg
We decided to have lunch in the Petit France neighborhood
because we found a few good daily specials.
I got 2 glasses of wine and a tarte flambee for 8.00 Euro, and Ryan got
onion soup, the local Baeckoffe, and dessert for 15.00 Euro! It was a delicious
meal, but I the dessert was the best.
Seriously, the best dessert both of us has ever had!
After lunch, we headed out to explore the first part of the
Route du Vin!! We decided to stop in Barr first and then made our way to
Obernai. The Route du Vin is a long
stretch of wine country in the Alsace region of France and lines the Rhein
River. They specialize in mostly white
wine but also in Pinot Noir.
Specifically they produce: Sylvaner, Muscat, Pinot Gris, Reisling,
Gewurztraminer, and Pinot Blanc. The
countryside along with the wine are breathtaking!! Each village has their own
local vinters who produce some pretty cheap and incredible wine! It’s really fun to walk through the vineyards
and also stop in the cellars in each town to taste the local wines. This is a huge biking region, so if you have
a bike bring it so you can ride from village to village! If you don’t have a bike, most villages have
bike rentals for the day! Also, on the other side of these villages are the
Vosges Mountains, which lend to amazing scenery and some great hiking!
Barr was a cute small village. As far as touristy things it is more quiet
and off the beaten path. We walked
around, had some ice cream, walked around the town and some vineyards. We maybe spent an hour or so here and made
our way over to Obernai.
Obernai was bigger than Barr and more touristy and
busy. The best thing to do for these
trips is to stop into the local Tourist Information place to pick up a map,
hiking trail maps, and info on what’s hot in that area. In Obernai, we saw the old Medieval wall fortifications
around the city, which are pretty cool.
We went through the pretty church and walked around the square and
town. We found a few local wine tasting
rooms and tasted some amazing wine. Wine
tasting here in this region is free with the intent to buy a bottle! We bought
5 bottles because Ryan and I don’t have the same tastes. I am obsessed with the Cremant d’Alsace,
their sparkling wine.
Most of these villages have a touristy train you can ride, so we decided to pay the 7.00 Euro and get a little 45 minute tour of the city and up into the vineyards before dinner. If you want to hike there is the Schenkenberg wine trail that takes about 1.5 hours, but we didn’t have time.
my cheesy man tourist!
My love bug!
After the train ride, it was time for dinner!! We ate at a cute
little place that the wine tasting gal recommended to us called Winstub- La
Dime. We tried Fois Gras for the first
time (swollen Duck Liver). It actually was
pretty good. This place got really busy
and our meal took 2.5 hours. It was
great, but took quite a while. That’s France
for ya! This was really yummy food
though and definitely recommended if you happen to stop in Obernai along the
Route du Vin.
Fois Gras
Chicken stew and Ryan's steak
Alsacian Coffee... horrible! I had to seriously choke this down! I thought it was like an irish coffee, but the Brady in it was terrible!
Well that sums up our first few days in France!! Strasbourg is cute, but doable in a half day to a day only. The Route du Vin is really cute, but most of the villages are similar, so there is no need to go to a billion of them! We went to 7 and that was more than enough!
Cheers!
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