Hiking Deidesheim-Wachenheim-Deidesheim

This past Sunday we went for a little 9-mile hike through the forest and vineyards near Bad Dürkheim. The town just to the south of Bad Dürkheim is called Wachenheim and the hike started a few more towns south of that in Deidesheim. From there it looped up to Wachenheim through the forest, then back south to Deidesheim through the vineyards. So you got a little bit of everything in this hike.

Here's a little shack and picnic bench in the middle of the woods:

A little beyond the picnic bench we found a little restaurant where Martin had some new wine:

New wine is made by harvesting the grapes, mushing them into juice, then letting it ferment for a week or two. It's pretty sweet, like drinking juice but with a little kick. You don't drink a lot of it because it's obviously high in sugar and calories but a little glass just hits the spot.

After our break for new wine and lunch of packed sandwiches we climbed a tower above the little restaurant to get a view of the surrounding hills to the west and the towns to the east:

I'm not sure why they planted trees in rows like you can see in the above picture. Maybe when they got done planting all the vineyards in perfect rows they decided to keep it up in the forest by planting trees in rows. That's my current theory. The picture below is looking east towards the vineyards and towns.

We found these really pretty mushrooms:

A pic of some trees:

Finally at Wachtenburg castle (in Wachenheim)! Still have a ways to go after this though ... plus we can see our apartment from this castle, it's so close, but we had to turn south instead of north and head back to Deidesheim and our car instead.

Martin had some real wine at Wachtenburg castle. They served it to him in a little schörle glass instead of a wine glass probably because the castle was absolutely packed full of people enjoying the beautiful day and drinking wine and the kitchen had run out of wineglasses. It was so packed that we had to sit in the tent area where there was no view of anything but tent walls and people. But it was okay because we had cookies and wine:

I like that everybody is outdoors when the weather is nice on a Sunday afternoon instead of sitting inside watching football. Americans should learn from this example.

And I got a pretty decent shot of Wachtenburg castle from between two houses after we came down the hill into Wachenheim: