Alsace, France

Back to France and more importantly, to meet up with our good friends Chris and Christine. Chris was my roommate in college. It was great to reconnect with friends and explore a new area of France! Alsace borders Germany and has been the proverbial ping pong ball of a table tennis match between France and Germany in the past. For now, it is part of France, but benefits from the amalgamation. (I totally got that word from a girl with a masters in English that Katie and I WWOOF'd with in Beaujolais. Thanks Kelly, for me and everyone, else- here is the definition of amalgamation)

Le petit France in Strasbourg at night. C'est jolie!

Traditional Alsacien food restaurant. Showing its German influence - Sausage, sauerkraut, sausage cooked in beer and more sausage.

A local brew. Definitely German influence.

More of the le petit.

Christine and Katie, yep we are lucky guys!

The Cathedral.

The main square by the cathedral.

Heading down the Route du Vin (Route of wine) Stopping through Barr for some tasting.

Hmmmmm...Prom pictures in the wine region???

Picking cherries right off the tree at a winery we stopped at.

Love this pic.

The happy gang.

One of the best vineyards in the region, forget the name. d'oh

yeah!

Playing with the water.

beautiful.

Vogue

The road ahead. This was along a short hike up the hills and through the vineyards.

The city of Sélestat, which was a stop the next day on the way to a castle.

Next stop, Château du Haut-Keonigsbourg...

Don't make me go medieval on you.

Ooh là là!

Beautiful view from a tower on the ramparts.

The knighting in the gift shop of brave Sir Benjamin by Queen Katie.

Happy couples.

Back in Strasbourg, here is a poster outside a wine bar saying "thank you for not smoking." Thought it was quite clever.

Not even going to try and pronounce this one?!?

Definitely French influence here on this parking job. Drive with your eyes, park with your ears. Nice that this person left some space for the person in front to get out. ;)

Daytime view of Le Petit France.

Happiness in the form of a gelato.

Back at the cathedral in Strasbourg.

Inside of it.

I like this pic of a marble sculpture of the crucifiction in the cathedral.

At the city hospital there was a wine cellar.

The oldest wine in the world still in existance from 1472!!! That's before Colombus sailed the ocean blue. Crazy!

We got to smell the wine and it smelled pretty good. The cellar worker said that it tastes pretty awful though.

And with that, we left Strasbourg, in search of our next (mis)adventure into Germany in search of Bretzels (pretzels to us Americans) and the Black Forest.