Route de Vin (Route of Wine) & the Issenheim Altarpiece

Well, Saturday was an incredible day with wondrous weather! We have had nice stretch of foggy mornings leading to sunny afternoons and generally excellent weather around 65 degrees!

• The bus arrived and our tour leader for the day Vivian boarded with us and we were starting to pull away from the Chateau when our favorite chronically late student dashed toward the bus and made an excellent "sad puppy dog face" and boarded among jeers from his peers. He, once again, failed to read the information papers provided. : (



• Off we went into the beautiful countryside and incredibly vast "fields" of grapevines on the Route de Vin. The Alsace region is known for 7 varieties of grapes and thus 7 types of wine: Sylvaner, riesling, pinot gris, pinot blanc, pinot noir, muscat, & gewurztraminer.
  
  
• We arrived in the little town of Barr and visited the cellar and did a tasting at Domaine Klipfel. They offered us a leisurely and informative tasting with 4 wines from their collection, a Riesling, a Pinot Gris, a Muscat, and a Gewurtraminer.





• We finished our tasting and hopped on the bus to go to eat our picnic lunch in the lovely little town of Ribeauville. Walking around town for an hour we could see the ruins of a castle above on the foothills, half-timbered homes and businesses, and the charm of this part of the country.

Well, I am experiencing technical difficulties with uploading more pictures... more will come later when things are better...

• We then proceeded to the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar in which resides the masterpeice known as the Issenheim Altar painted by Matthias Grunewald. Vivian guided us through the amazing building which was a former convent and the incredible collection. The Unterlinden boasts that it is the most visited museum in the Provinces (outside Paris) with an average annual visitation of 350,000. Having visited once with the herd (we are a herd of 40) I plan on returning before returning to the US in December. WOW!
• I bought the catalogue of the museum and a little pamphlet about the altarpiece specifically. My photographs would never do the altarpiece justice. It was truly a unique and special museum experience.
• After the museum we went to Riquewir to do another wine tasting and have dinner. It was another cute little town with lots of half-timbered shops and surrounded by foothills of grapevines.
• We returned to the Chateau after our magical day and SIU Travel was celebrating their 10th anniversary with a party. Alan and I were invited to join in the festivities but exhausted after another 12+ hour day travelling and herding our cherubs we just smiled, shook a lot of hands, ate some desert, and then went outside for Fireworks!
• I didn't have a chance to grab the camera, I have taken pictures of fireworks before and I know they all look essentially the same. I would not regret my decision except that before they started shooting off the actual fireworks they lit little paper lanterns with candles in the bottom and they took off like little hot air balloons. About 10 or so quiet, peaceful, paper lanterns lifted vertically and then flew away in the wind one by one.
• Many of us were so taken with it that we hope to recreate the paper lantern launch at the end of our stay at the Chateau. Alan, who is of Chinese heritage, said in China they do it for New Years and you write your wish on the lantern and send it into the sky.

We leave for London on Thursday evening, England beat France in the World Cup of Rugby so we will be in London for the "Superbowl" of Rugby and if they win it will be a madhouse on Saturday night!!!

more later : )