Monday, Sept 17

We left early to go to a little village close by to a bakerei and had a piece of zwiebelkuchen...it's a bread with carmelized onions on top. Joan...it was really good!

So off we went to the mineral spa in Bad Krozingen. It was really nice. It was mineral water and sparkling water...it had little bubbles coming up...and it wasn't from the jets of water...that happened, too. There were 6 pools...all different...some indoors and some outdoors. Here's a map of the place. We only went to the therme pools...not the saunas.



We got in a little easier than the other spa, but I couldn't figure out how to turn on the faucet in the shower...and you have to take a shower before entering the pools. I tried and tried and then finally asked a lady in German how to turn it on. She told me and it turns out that the shower in my stall was broken...so I went to another and all was ok.

The first outdoor pool that we went into was the Erlebnis pool. It was beautiful outside...the sun was shining and slightly cool. In the pool there were different areas...one where you stood and powerful jets of water came out. You had to hang onto the rail or you would have been blasted out. In this one, Leo found out why Speedo suits work better. He got what he called an "atomic wedgie".

Then there was another area that was an open doored tiled in circle with arm-pit high walls. Here the jets came up and bubbled all over the place. I thought it was like a giant Alka-Seltzer going on and Leo thought it was more like a hot tub on steroids!

Another area was another flume, but this one was a bit more manageable...and lots of fun. There were several other areas where you lay back on tiled chairs and then the bubbles blast all around you. Here are some pictures I took from a brochure that I got:
Straight ahead in this picture...where the bubbles are all around a line of people...that's where the atomic wedgie happened!






So after feeling very relaxed and very clean, we continued on down the road...heading west to France.


Leo had hand selected this patisserie (same as a conditorei...only with French pastries) long ago on the internet. We got some delicious items in there for lunch. The crust in the pastries was amazing...really flaky. We also got some bread, but the Germans have it going away as far as bread goes. The French bread is good and crunchy, but the German bread ...at least the kind that we get...has lots of good whole grains and seeds and is much denser and chewier. If you want to see why it was difficult choosing which wonderful pastry to try...see for yourself: http://www.paul.fr/shop/fr-FR/Category/Viennoiserie_3.
Anyway..we enjoyed our visit to Paul's!


So the city in France we chose to explore is called Colmar and it was very quaint. Here are some of the sights that we saw there.











This was part of a display in a clothing store there. Tap on this photo and look at the detail of the license plate!!





I got a bit carried away with windows, but they were just so interesting!









We stopped at a little cafe because my goal was to have some hot chocolate that I had heard of...I thought it would be like melted chocolate and maybe a little cream. So I ordered a chocolate chaud, but it was just a regular hot chocolate...nothing special...so I took a few sips and that was enough sweetness. Darcy and Joy...I don't know if that was the right thing to ask for or what...any suggestions?

I had to dig real deep to use some of my long lost French speaking ability (or lack of it!) I fumbled through some, but found myself mixing up German with it. Let's see...there's Spanglish...and then there's Freutch!

We did notice a difference when we crossed into France...with the general appearance...the German towns are always immaculate...and here in Colmar there was some litter around and just a different feel. But it still was a very pretty town. Here's one last picture of France:


So we crossed back over into Germany and headed for Endingen where the winery, Schatzle is. Joan...this is for you. For all others, this is a winery where Joan and Frank have been to and bought several cases of wine and somehow got it shipped to Illinois or somewhere other than Nebraska. (For some reason you can't ship this to Nebraska...darn!). Joan had shared some of the Schatzle wine with us...some dry red...and it is the best red wine I've ever had! So of course, we had to come to the winery to see for ourselves. Here is the road we turned onto that led to the winery:



We were greeted at the door by Cacilia Schatzle...daughter-in-law of owner, Leopold Schatzle. She was very warm in her welcoming us...and I'm sure it helped when we told her that we were friends of Joan and Frank! She remembered them well! She spoke very little English so I resorted to entirely German and it went pretty well. I apologized for my limited German and she told me that it was very good! Anyway, we did some wine tasting of some of their amazing red wines. Here, the grapes are grown in the kaiserstuhl...the volcano region, producing fantastic red wines. This winery was voted the best red wine in Germany in 2006,2007,2009...and I can certainly see why!

Here is where we did the wine tasting:



And this is what we bought: 2 bottles of this wine. I would have bought a case, but there was no way to get it back home...very sad. Leo and I will have a few more nights to polish these babies off! Joy, you're going to miss out on this...you can only hope that I attempt to write a post on the night we drink one of these bottles!







So we left Schatzle and continued on towards Frieburg. Leo forgot his sunglasses so had to borrow mine. Bling!



We stopped somewhere and I bought a very small bottle of Schwarzwald Teufel liquor...as told to me by Joan. This is a different brand, but is the same thing. Teufel, by the way, in German, means "devil"...I think you'll know why when I tell you this. By the way...here's a picture of it:




You're supposed to put a small amount (less than 1/4 C.) in a little crockery cup and then set it on fire. You let it burn out and this burns off some of the alcohol content and then you drink it warm...at least that is my understanding of this...but also know that this was told to me in German...very fast German. This drink is made with 42 different herbs so it's got to be good for you, right? Oh and one other detail...it's 102 proof and 50% alcohol (I don't think it gets much higher than that). I'll keep you posted as to what happens when we attempt to light it ...and drink it!

We went to Freiburg and we were going to have dinner there, but the city was too big and full of traffic, so we just left.
So we stopped at one of the small villages on the way back and found this really cute cafe to have dinner and ate outside. We didn't get home til after 8:30...which is pretty late for us!

Location:France!