Alsace

When I first decided I wouldn't go back to Canada every vacation, cycling in Alsace was the first thing that I wanted to do. No idea why, no idea where it came from, but that was what I wanted to do. 

Never got around to it, so I was happy to hear that my friends had planned a little getaway in the region. 

We stayed in Strasbourg, in a cute boutique hotel. The first night we got thre too late and most restaurants were closed, so we walked downtown and had some local fare.

I somehow ended up with a plate of fried potatoes, some bacon, and a dill dipping sauce. I'm not complaining, but it was a little on the heavy side!

I woke up the next morning and couldn't sleep, do I went for a quick run through the city. 

After we all woke up, we tried to drive to Freiberg, but our GPS system is a drunk British lady and kept giving us WEIRD directions. So we did what every other (potentially not) normal person would do and went into a gas station and took a picture of the map we needed. 

After about an hour, we arrived, had to find a place to park, and then found our cafe. So there is such a thing as the Black Forest, but I'm not sure where the cake idea came from, except that it started in this region. So we basically took a day trip to eat cake. :D

We walked around town, dud a little window shopping and came back to Strasbourg, where we had dinner reservations at a very nice restaurant. 

First we did some picture taking.

Found our restaurant, 

and stumbled onto a little shop doing wine tasting from the Alsace region. I wish we could have stayed there, it was a good time! Many if the people there were the winemakers displaying their own wines. 

The restaurant was FANTASTIC and certainly not somewhere you could go on a regular basis. I had wine pairing with each course, and a sip of my friend's port. I've never been a huge fan, but I have to admit that the thirty-year old port was pretty fantastic. 

Three courses, three glasses of wine, plus a coupe de champagne as an aperitif...ummmmm, I was a little tipsy. 

The waiters actually go to school for four years to work in these types of restaurants!

And you know the bill will be equally fantastic when it comes on a silver tray in an envelope....

This morning we woke up to a rainy Strasbourg, drove around everywhere to find parking!!

 But it was all worth it because we found a chocolate brunch restaurant. Like seriously. 

I'm pretty beat, but it was a great weekend, and great to hang out with friends!