A Wander in the Woods

It so happens that we live on the eastern edge of the largest forest in Germany - the Palatinate. And it also just so happens that that forest is filled with trails to walk or bike on. So we have started researching which trails might be of interest to us and today we went to the one closest to Bad Dürkheim. We had grand plans to drive further away and do a 7-castle 22-kilometer hike but we stayed up too late last night and didn't have the energy for all that today.

Anyway, long story short, here are some pictures from our wandering today. We happened by this little pond:



And when we got to the pond we saw this:



A little restaurant in the middle of the woods with tons of people at it! We of course had to get a wine schörle to go with our picnic lunch so that we fit in with the locals:



We really just ended up walking in circles and being lost in the woods for the next hour or so after the lake because Martin wanted to take an unmarked trail to get back to the car. We eventually found the trail we came in on and left that way. It's good that we took our detour because we saw tons of these pretty purple flowers:



And even got a nice view from some rocks though my iphone did not capture the view part of this picture so well (it was cloudy):



Here's a little view of part of the forest:



This walk made us think we were in Cape Cod because the trails were so sandy and there were lots of short pine trees and it just kind of felt like you were on the Cape. And if any of you know what is wrong with all the pine trees in my pictures, let me know! Something had stripped off their bark and branches ... not sure if that's just how they grow or if there are some sort of beetles or other pests at work here.

The World's Largest Wine Barrel

Guess what else is in Bad Dürkheim? Not only does the world's largest wine fest occur here, the world's largest wine barrel is also here! It was built in 1934 and can hold 1,700,000 liters of wine. Today it is a restaurant but it is also open for tours and it can apparently hold up to 430 guests on its two levels. How fun and exciting is this town???

Wachenheim Weinfest

This weekend (and next weekend) is the wine festival in the neighboring town of Wachenheim. Yesterday we hung out at the castle and this evening we went into town to enjoy the nice weather and some dinner. In the middle of town is the Schloss Wachenheim winery which supplies ten percent of the world's sparkling wine ... more than any other winery in the world. And it's quite tasty! We'll have to try to bring some to the US for some of you to try.



Here are some tables set up for the festival with the Wachtenburg castle in the background. We can see this castle from our southwest-facing balcony at our apartment and it's a pleasant walk up to the top of its tower for a nice view:



Martin with his schoppen glass of riesling and sparkling water:



Here's a pretty white church in the evening sunlight:



Biking home. It's only about 2km from our apartment to the wine festival because we live on the border between Bad Dürkheim and Wachenheim.



A view over towards Ludwigshafen (you can just see a few of the smokestacks in the distance):

Balcony Flowers 2012

Thought I'd post the pics I've taken of my balcony flowers this year. I think this is the best year of balcony flowers so far ... maybe because they get so much more sunlight here than in Zürich. Not sure what else is different; several of the flowers are the same ones I had in Zürich but are much happier here.

I have impatiens, sunflowers, petunias, geraniums, and some sort of wildflower-looking flowers.





This picture is dark but it has the Wachenheim castle in it, way off in the distance (it's actually only a few kilometers away):





There are several chairs and a large table out there too but I didn't get them in the pictures of the flowers. The balcony is bigger than our kitchen.

Slovenian Sausage!

Back at the ETH, there is this well-known Slovenian chemistry postdoc by the name of Dr. David Sarlah (his last name is missing a funny letter in it that I can't make with my American keyboard). He is supposedly one of the most brilliant chemists ever to grace the planet (seriously, he has an excellent reputation). He does work hard but he also knows how to have a good time. And by good time, I mean sausage. And alcohol. I also love the way he talks; his accent sounds kind of Russian to me. And he has a lot of funny sayings. But that's an aside.

This past weekend David (il)legally imported 10 kilos of salami and prosciutto into Switzerland from Slovenia. Then he invited all his friends to a party to try them all out. They were all delicious. Some of them were homemade by his parents' neighbors. I think it's the one all the way on the right in this picture:

Here's the full spread. Bread, cheese, salami, and a bunch of side salads. Interestingly, all the salads were made by our friend Sebastien who lives in the same apartment we lived in when we first moved to Zürich - the teeny tiny one-room with a kitchen in a closet. So, kudos to him for cooking and putting together all those salads!

This is a Slovenian pre-dinner drink made from blueberries. It had real blueberries floating in it. It was pretty sweet and flavorful with just a little bit of alcohol taste ... just right for me. David said he'd bring me back a bottle and I'm going to hold him to that. I don't think you can find it in Germany.

This is another Slovenian drink, but for after dinner. It's made of unripened green walnuts. Pretty tasty, it reminded me of the Godiva after-dinner drink ... very sweet but with good nutty flavor. The Slovenians make my kind of drinks!

Some of the boys played soccer for a little while. It was super hot so it didn't last very long:

Relaxing on the grass in the sunshine. The guy with the arm cast, Simon 2 (not to be confused with Simon 1), got an arm filled with glass in a lab accident. Many pieces of glass will remain in his arm forever. Finally somebody who is more accident prone than Martin!

More relaxing and chatting. David is the guy in black on the right.

CuliVino

Last Monday was a holiday here (Pfingsten, aka Pentecost in English) and so we decided to bike down to a little festival, Culivino. Our friend Hans who owns a winery was there and it's hard to resist the opportunity to drink some of his tasty Secco (sparkling white wine). It turned out to be a 1.5-hour bike ride for us to get to CuliVino (only 15 miles and it looks flat in this area but there are actually a lot of rolling hills and the last half hour was all uphill ... any time you go west you end up going uphill). It was a beautiful day and we got to bike due south through a lot of little towns so we got to see a lot of the area. Some of the towns are really cute and they are all filled with wineries that you can stop in to and taste at. We will definitely be doing some more exploring of these towns at some point, and hopefully I will get some pictures of them. I didn't take any on this trip because we were on a mission to get to the festival. Here's Martin on one of our stops to look up directions. We do love our iphones! And our bikes!

Here are some pics from the festival. There were only 6 wineries there and some food booths. There were special cheese plates there where each piece of cheese was paired with a different wine and also chocolate plates where each chocolate had a different wine to go with it. We weren't really up for chocolate when we got there and they were out of the cheese-and-wine-pairings so we just got a regular cheese plate. We figured we biked off all those calories, right?

Here's the view, looking east out over lots more vineyards and a little town called Hambach:

There was also a castle up the hill behind me but I didn't get a picture of it. It was neat though. Sorry.

And some people enjoying some food and wine: