16 May 2017
Alsatian Wine Tasting

A large distinctive bird with a white head and black wing tips and a long straight bill, the stork is walking through a grassy field searching for food. Stork gathering food

We gathered our things, checked out of the Hotel Rohan, and headed for Colmar.

There was beautiful countryside filled with fields and pastures with the Vosges mountains to our West. Every now and then we could see a castle or an abbey on a hilltop. Every now and then we could see a stork, either flying or on its nest, feeding babies. The nest was built on a platform on top of a house's roof top, upon which the large straw nest sat. Why hadn't we noticed storks on all our previous trips to The vineyard is visible on the hillside framed between two village houses in the foreground Vineyard on hill Europe? They are definitely large and noticeable and very popular with tourists and locals alike. Stores are filled with stork dolls and stork cushions and stork baskets!

We took the wine route, where white wines and some reds have been produced for over a thousand years. By morning's end we had stopped to visit our first Alsatian winery. The owner was working on something else because it was just noon, the classic break (12 till 2). But she opened the office and offered us tastes. The nesting platform is situated on the top of a pointed roof, and the stork has added vegetation to make a nest. The stork is in the nest looking down, no little ones are visible Stork in nest

We had picnic lunch under a tree near a vineyard, after which we proceeded down toward Colmar. Stopping in Mittelbergheim, we looked for another winery. This time the proprietor was busy painting some shelves but graciously let us visit. We met his mother, who invited us in and set up a tasting for Donna and Elsa (Bob and Bryan as assistants). We tasted some wonderful wine from sylvaner grapes and also some pinot varieties. A lady in the foreground is walking down the narrow twisting street, with half-timbered houses on either side. Street scene in Rique-Wihr

We stopped at Rique-Wihr, a walled city which is determinedly medieval. It's beautiful. Bob and Elsa ate ice cream while Bryan and Donna walked through the city, and Donna found a Christmas ornament store at the top of the hill.

We continued on to Colmar, and the Hotel Turenne. It's a very nice small hotel just outside the wall to the old city, and currently becoming a huge hotel with workmen building a new wing which will have 40 rooms and an underground garage, just about doubling its capacity.