Summer’s done. The Herbstdult came and went, and our neighborhood’s Weinfest with it. Time for a short break to the other corner of the country, to a similar-sounding place that sort of used to be Bavarian outside of Bavaria. ((But that Palatinate — Pfalz — should not be confused with our Upper Palatinate — the Oberfalz. Wikipedia knows more.))
The Heidelberger first convinced us to come try the Kulinarische Weinwanderung in Freinsheim with them in 2012. Ever since then, we’ve been plotting our return.
Back then, we used the ÖPNV ((Öffentlicher Personennahverkehr, or “local public transit”)) to get from Heidelberg in Baden-Württemberg over to Freinsheim in Rhineland-Palatinate and save us the trouble of trying to park in or near the tiny town and keeping at least one Genießer in reserve as a Designated Driver for the trip back.
This year, the Heidelberger are more accurately described as Birminghammer and pal Snooker trained it down from Berlin. We picked her up in Mannheim on the way to a Ferienwohnung within walking distance of the town of Freinsheim: about 5 kilometers, one way.
Freinsheim is a cute little town. Once inside the gate, we could already see the streams of people following signs to the start of the Weinwanderung.
From there, it was 7 kilometers of gastro-pilgrimage, and though we got started relatively early, arriving in Freinsheim on foot around noon, about 30 minutes after the Weinwanderung officially opened up for the day, the stream of visitors was already in full force.
Like on our last visit, there was a surprising variety of food on offer: everything from typical Germany-wide Fest fare (think Bratwurstsemmeln) to regional specialities (Saumagen) to gourmet-on-the-way stuff (exotic soups and seafood). The stands seemed to be separated into food and drink, which is great, because you shouldn’t try to sample something from every stand along the route: there were 20 stations, and most stations had at least a couple food items to try and three or four wine varieties on offer.
All of that local atmosphere, plus cooperative weather, led to miles of smiles.
Oh so jealous! The saumagen shall one day be mine again, all mine….
…she wrote, a mere few hours’ drive from the Land of Haggis.®
That’s the way to spend a day or two. And don’t those grapes look good! One of our local wineries has just opened again, post hurricane Ike, and I’m sipping a blackberry wine from them that’s far better than what Grandpa used to make — and his wine was good. Most fruit wines are too sweet, but this is lovely — fruity as can be, but light.
I even have the windows open — a first sign of approaching autumn!
Fun, envious, nice pix and summary. Almost like being there.
We would love to do this sometime.
[…] Bavarians celebrated Jesus’ Mom’s Sky Trip on a Monday this year, so we did a road trip of our own. We got an invitation from pals in two different corners of Germany to meet up in a third corner to explore and enjoy. We’d been to a few wine festivals before (with thanks to the Heidelbergerin/Brummagemerin for introducing us to Neustadt an der Weinstraße and Freinsheim, which we loved so much we went back again a few years later). […]