But ended up going taking advice from Brittney and Jon from Interlaken to head to their little town near Colmar on the eastern border of France close to Germany. When we arrive in Eguisheim we basically entered into a fairytale town that looked like it was still 500 years old.
We checked into our hotel and then headed to the hotel that Brittney and Jon stayed at for dinner (They said the food was good :) We sat down to a menu where we couldn't find a thing on it that we either understood or wanted besides some vegetable mix! The food was definitely different and, which makes things more fun. Its also interesting because Americans rarely get out this way to the undiscovered wine lands at the border of Germany and France. This means that very little English is communicated here and and often the servers would have to go to get someone else who spoke English to serve us. This can be cool though because the servers in a lot of small towns like this rarely have to deal with it and thus are nicer and more patient with the process.
The food we got was great! I had a meat and cheese salad thing, Candace had a vegetable platter and then we split an awesome steak meal that had a great sauce. The town is known for its "fine food and wine" tradition, and so throughout the meal we had started ordering all the glasses of wine we could find that had the grape names that we had never heard of. Great wine! The rose and the Gewurztraminer were our favorites and we were ready to view them at the winery tomorrow in more detail!
But we definitely didn't want to go to the Disgusting one -
Just kidding, its spelled differently, but we both thought it said that at first when we saw it and so joking around we kept saying in deep tones "Degustation!"
The next day I posted Prague on the blog, then we had lunch at the hotel we were at which was delicious - an awesome shrimp dish and Duck over hash browns next to a vegetable pie.
We ordered another Gewurztraminer that was a little older than the one we had the night before and it was excellent. Candace was surprised with the excellence -
Hahaha, That really is her "thats awesome" face.
We started our walk around town with our map of everything in town
It was funny how big the city looked on the map but how small it was in reality. We quickly found this as we went from one point to another in a matter of sometimes 30 seconds. Often the walk was literally almost in view, so we started having fun with it and it became "oh no, I don't know if we can make it to #7, its so far! =)". The town was very majestic. It has won each year a "flower" award and the people that live there are very proud of it so flowers adorn many of the buildings. The buildings themselves are very old and have a unique, fairy tale look to them
Around the 1st few stops we found a winery and entered into their "wine barrel" room to check out the huge barrels of wine down in the cold "cellar" like area.
I climbed up one to get a closer look through the cobwebs
And Candace took pictures of the parts along the barrel
Back up in the sunlight, we grabbed a seat and tasted some wines, buying a bottle of Gewurztraminer for the rest of our walk.
We spotted a cool store and went inside to find a great score - those coconut ball things that get baked somehow and end up soft and pastry-like. We grabbed a bag of those to munch on and soon were at the prettiest small church we'd seen on our trip.
Most of the smaller churches we had seen were also smaller in elegance. Usually they would have less decoration inside or perhaps they just haven't been upkept like the bigger and more important ones. Well that was definitely not the case with this church and it was great to walk around inside and out of it admiring the beauty.
We moved on, checking out little "courtyards" labeled on the map. Each one generally had a small story to go with it or a unique name, so we imagined those things as we entered each one and let the town take us off to fantasy land.
Passing by a restaurant, we saw some kids eating pizza at one of the tables so we grabbed a seat and asked for a pizza. The French woman replied "we don't have pizza". So I pointed and said I'll have that then. When it came, it tasted just like pizza, haha. But thats cool though, we enjoyed the two different kinds of "pizza" that we had and the nice outdoor seating that we were taking advantage of.
Earlier in the day I asked my waiter at the Hotel what type of wine was her favorite. She replied that she didn't like wine, and preferred beer instead. I asked what kind of beer and she stated that there was "only one kind of beer." I then chuckled and thought to myself "That's right I'm in France again". So later, at this pizza joint, I had to try the "only beer" and I ordered one and it turned out to be OK.
It turned out to be a bit chilly as the sun went down so it became a game of "finding the sunlight" to walk through for Candace. Sometimes there were little strips of warmth for her =)
Continuing our tour of the city, we passed a bigger church where we went inside, checked it out, and I went into one of the confessionals to see what it was like.
By now some of the courtyards we were passing were closed off, and I actually couldn't have even climbed over the walls if I had wanted to…
Passing by some beautiful fountains,
we saw 3 decent sized and round castle tops on a hill in the distance as proceeded to finish the numbers on the map and therefore complete our tour of the city.
Candace found a little friend along the way and we thought about Sputnik and how we missed the little guy.
We hopped on back into town to a place that we passed earlier that was very busy because we knew that it usually was a good indication of a special place when its packed and the other restaurants are empty or slow. We weren't all that hungry, but we did enjoy the environment, our Escargot, and the Trout dish very much
We then wanted to find a place to stay for the following day with a hottub. Since Candace had seen one through her research, and we weren't too far away, we decided to walk north towards it to check it out while I read Fight Club to Candace from the Kindle. She guided us to the Hotel and were confused when they said that they didn't actually have a Hot Tub, but they had a room available if we wanted. We started walking back through town and later found out that the place DID actually have one, but that person didn't understand the English word "Hot tub"! Everything happens for a reason though and we are very glad that the person didn't know English and that we didn't stay there and you'll see why later.
As we approached our hotel we sat down across the street in front of a small fountain that was sprouting water out in a unique pattern and we passed some time watching it before heading up for the night!
In the morning, breakfast was great with kiwis, apples, chocolate croissants, bread, meat, cereal, fresh jarred yogurt, and fresh jarred applesauce. We made little sandwiches for a picnic for later.
We decided that we wanted to spend the night in a nearby town called Munster, which we later found out is home to a great cheese but NOT the Muenster cheese, the more famous one that's from Germany, and further away - 7 hours. Candace asked me what I wanted for lodging, her being our expert lodging booker, and I told her to book "whatever makes you happy." So she booked the place that turned out to be a super awesome location and amazing value that I almost wish we had went to sooner. We were soon in a Taxi heading to Munster, France!
JJ & CJ
Great pictures! Enjoying our new stainless ware and additional knives. Also, my pocket knife has been put to good use several times. It is so light weight, yet strong and sharp.
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