We wound our way to Alsace along the twisting, mountainous Route des Vins. Nikos (Mr. Pants' father) drove. I maintained composure by digging my fingernails firmly into the vinyl of the backseat and stared wide-eyed at the views of the steep drop-off and tiny, church-steepled villages with names that sounded like Snuffleheim and Fluffernutten.
We stayed overnight in the home of the stinkiest cheese (Munster) and had a room across from the church where storks were nesting amidst the turrets. We ate like portly kings. Alsace is all cream, white wine, dumplings, meat, and decadent goodness. We shaved years off our lives dining on cheese dumplings in a cream sauce WITH bacon, below.
We made it to Strasbourg, and its impressive, rosy-stoned cathedral. Winding streets spiral out from the cathedral, from whose heights you can see copper-topped roofs of other churches, and steep-slanted roofs of houses with tiny windows.
Sadly, this picture is blurry (blame it on the Cremant D'Alsace) but I'm showing it anyway. This large copper pot was completely misshapen, beat up, and well worn. We had no idea the portions would be so large. OH well.
Highlights: Strasbourg's gorgeous cathedral, stinky cheese and insanely cute villages in Alsace. Also, storks!
Disappointments: In Alsace: If you can have too much cream, then I guess, that MIGHT be a disappointment to some. We didn't stay quite long enough to explore more of the region.
Mr. Pants: Digging greedy spoonfuls of jam out of the tourist jam store samples, stomping around saying "I want Kugelhopf"(an Alsatian cake) in a mock Alsatian manner and enjoying the ridiculously quaint buildings and the cheesy dumplings. With bacon.
Alsace was quite nice. Like typical Americans, we rushed through everything to exhaustion. In Strasbourg we slowed down a bit and had some fun.
ReplyDeleteThe food is so different from the rest of France, that it's refreshing, eventhough it was cream, butter, bacon, rinse with white wine, and repeat.