Day 42 Wine

June 27 -- As I mentioned in the last post, we are in wine and vineyard country, and we decided to do a hike from one village to another through some vineyards. We parked in the town of Riquewihr. While we were looking for change for the parking meter, two French gardeners started talking to us, and they picked some bunches of lavender for us. I can't imagine a German gardener ever doing something like that, so it's again interesting to note that even though we are so close to Germany still, we are in a very different culture. We started our hike through town and made our way past souvenir shops, creperies, and wine cellars. Then, we exited town into a wooded area and then finally out into the vineyards. The grapes were still quite green, but the vines were loaded with grapes. We walked about an hour and a half until we reached the town of Ribeauvillé, where we ate a lunch of baguette sandwiches from a bakery. Then, we headed back the way we came. Not only did we see grapes on our walk, but we also found cherry trees, what I'm pretty sure were capulí trees, black berry bushes, and wild strawberries growing along the road. It was a lovely (though also hot and humid) walk. When we got back into town, we got some ice cream and we went into a wine cellar to sample a few wines (and by sample, I mean taste but not drink due to Baby Trotter's being currently underage for drinking). Then, we had dinner at another creperie. The forecasted hail and thunderstorm thankfully never manifested itself today.