River Cruise Sept. 29/14

On Sept. 29, we did a bus tour of the Alsace wine country, with stops in 3 Medieval towns. I loved it!  We think of things around here as being old if they are 100 + years old, but we're talking many more centuries in Europe, and I found it fascinating!  Here are a few pics from those towns, where people are still living in the same houses.

The streets are so narrow, and built with bricks or cobblestones.

I love this sign outside of a house - wish I would have shown the cat better.

Such colourful homes!

This is "Peggy one".  Would you believe that among the 63 passengers, there were 3 Peggy's?

They are trying to rehabilitate the stork population in this area, and we did see a few storks, but more evidence of where they had been.  They often build their nests on or near steeples.

This is not a very good picture, but I found the story interesting.  Apparently there were 3 sisters who could not get along, so they built 3 separate castles.  They are just ruins now, not sure how long ago that was.

This is Deb from North Vancouver, along on the cruise with her aunt and her sister (we called them the kids), and we soon discovered that she knows our son Jeff quite well.  Small world!

On to another town, where we saw a load of grapes going by.  It was just the right time to see the grape harvesting.

This is the town where we had lunch, and this is the dessert we enjoyed - a floating island.  It was a big block of meringue, floating in a liquidy custart, with toasted almonds sprinkled on top - yummy!

This was part of the original wall around this town - ancient!

 

 And some grapes waiting to be picked.

This cake is called "Kougelopf",cost 5,50E, and is probably the cake that Little Red Riding Hood would have been taking to her grandmother.

More colourful buildings, and flowers abounded everywhere.

Lots of tourists as well!

This is part of the wall which was built around this, the 3rd town we visited that day, built in 1291.  There was an outer wall that was built in 1790.

The Canadian tour company we traveled with is a small, family run company called "Journeys With Jerry Van Dyke", and son Jeremy was our "journey manager".  We were really fortunate to have him along on this fateful trip.

 
 Looking through an entrance in the inner oldest wall.

Just too cute to pass up!

Kind of funny to see the square axle (or whatever) in this big old wheel.  Don't know what it would be used for.

Just because.....