Colmar and the Route de Vin

We decided awhile ago that if we got a day off we would day trip to Colmar, so when we realized we had two we decided to stay overnight and spend two days down in the Alsace area. Too bad the weather did not cooperate, cold and rain, oh so much rain.
Colmar is a tiny version of Strasbourg but with 100x the personality. There is a rule in the Petite Venice section that you cannot paint your house the same color as your neighbors, as a result the streets are a rainbow of red, yellow, blue, and green houses. Very fun. Colmar is the birthplace of the man who sculpted the Statue of Liberty, hence the replica below:

How can you not love a town that has a cafe with these tables:
We took a train tour of the city to stay out of the rain, plus it made the girls happy, so it made the adults happy.
We spent the night in a great B&B (which by the way, I'm totally sold on B&B's now, we have not had a bad experience). We stayed with a cute older couple, no English, but we made due with the little bit of German we can get by with. That night we went out for dinner. When the waitress asked if I wanted anything for dessert there was no way I was going to say no. I ordered Creme Brulee and then died and went to heaven.

Here is the B&B, we stayed in the top two rooms on the third floor:
This was the view out our bedrooms:
The next day we toured the Route de Vin (basically the French wine street), all the little villages are so picturesque and super cute. The streets are all cobblestone, pedestrian only and totally french but with a German flair. I guess the Alsace region has been fought over by the German and French forever, hence the half timbered houses like those you find in Bavaria, but everything in them is French including the food, thank goodness.

Something unique to this area is the way they do their roofs, it is really artistic using green tiles with a spattering of other colors. Look closely at the roof over the entrance, there is a lot of red tiles in that one:
This is the souvenir that I wanted to take home, unfortunately we did bring enough euro, or a big enough vehicle to put it in:
On of the little villages along the Route de Vin had a market that day and this booth really caught my eye. It is full of dried fruit, cherries, strawberries, kiwi, mango, apples, peaches AND dried tomatoes. The tomatoes threw me a little, they were sweet, covered in sugar, then tart at the end.
Here is a shot from the market:
And a shot of the vineyards that are all you can see when driving from one village to the next:
Alot of the small village restaurants are located in a courtyard that you walk through a big entrance to get into. One such courtyard called our name later in the afternoon and this is what we saw walking around, not one but three. McKenna of course remembered the scene in "Leap Year" where the guy breaks the chicken's neck so that they can have him for dinner. She is beside herself when Mark says, "Betcha that's what's for dinner here tonight". Her "protect the animals at all cost" kicked in and she begged us to take him home to save him. No deal little one. We have had a hard time with putting chicken on the menu since, she always asks, "Did you break the chicken's neck before you cooked him?", I say, "no dear, I just bought it this way, it is a different kind of chicken". She seems okay with this for now, but she is smart and will figure it out . . .
We ended the day at one of the coolest castles we have been to. Usually you think of Germany having the best castles, but this one gives them a run for their money. It is on top of the highest mountain looking down on all the vineyards and villages. It has been restored so you can get a feel for how they lived here back in the day. When we arrived it the cloud coverage was right on top of us, fog all around, but it added to the personality. You can see the haze in this picture by the cannon.
Luckily when we finished the clouds had lifted and we got to see the view before the next storm. You can see that in the video at the end.