(no subject)
Kathy and I arrived in Colmar from Paris and were immediately surprised at how much cheaper everything was. Signs in the area were in both French and German, owing to the town's proximity to the border. The local dialect sounded a little different. Alsace is a region known for producing white wine (90% of the production is white), so Kathy was in heaven. We ended up staying in a pretty nice place called Beausejour, which is a fairly luxurious hotel which all things considered was reasonably priced for what we got (but it was pricy). Kathy and I both took a bath (as opposed to a shower) for the first time in forever. We tried Tartes Flambees for the first time, which is the Alsatian mix between a pizza and crepe. Super thin crust, creme, cheese, and ham with no tomato sauce.
The next day, Kathy and I went on a guided tour of the region. We almost didn't because it started to rain like a motherfucker just after lunch. We were walking around town and got caught in it. We tried to get a refund for the tour but we couldn't. It ended up working out since the rain cleared up almost as soon as we left town. On the tour, we ran into a guy named Rich, who worked for Rick Steves and Co. The tour guide, Frederique, must've been nervous. We visited a sweet restored castle called Haut-Koenigsburg, which was restored in 1915 by the KAISER after being ruined for over 250 years. The castle was built out of red stone from the region and looked really awesome. We then went on the a tour of the Wine Road. In Riquewihr we had a free wine tasting, which consisted of a surprising amount of wine (8 pours of different whites!) and I bought some munster cheese.
Munster cheese is different than the cheese we get in the states in that it's softer and STINKY. People (Kathy) despaired quite a bit at the scent of it so I held it outside the window as we drove back. That night we had dinner at the hotel restaurant, which is quite nice. I ordered the steak tartare, which may have been the thing that made me sick. Raw beef, raw eggs. Tasty, but very possibly food-poisoning inducing. I wouldn't feel it until the next afternoon.
The next day, we wandered around town taking pictures of the town in the daytime. Up until then that hadn't really been possible since we arrived in the evening and had a tour the day before. After that we were on our way to Gimmelwald!