Mosel Wine.

Hello from Bernkastel-Kues on the Mosel River.

We are here for four days with Ulf and Heike (Carsten's parents). Our big plan is to relax in between wine tastings and seeing castles.

We travelled by train as far as Frankfurt and then rented a car for the final drive. The Autobahn is crowded and really you cannot drive very fast at all.

Anyway, we arrived and found our apartment overlooking the river.

I had a small panic attack when I got into the apartment building. I was unable to open the first door I tried but I did "meet" an angry German man who got up to see who was trying to get into his flat. Oops! Sorry! 😬 The second door I tried the door opened and I found myself looking at a room containing one twin bed and a toilet - umm this cannot be it - if it is, we have a major problem! 😳 Like Goldilocks I tried again. A third door, upstairs opened and I found the right place. 😊 Whew!!

We went to the Brauhaus for dinner last night that is inside the old train station. The food (and wine) was delicious!

Wine tasting and finding a castle was high on the agenda.

First winery was Kerpen. One of the owners shared ten(!!!) wines with us for €15. Napa eat your heart out. He (Mattias) was super knowledgeable and nice. We bought four bottles on the way out.

The view across the Mosel River. Vineyards cover the hills in this region.

They invite an artist in each year to exhibit their art in exchange for a special label.

Lunch was tasty, I ordered the "spicy" shrimp cake burger. I asked the waitress if she had tasted this item and she was like No, No - why do I ask Germans if they have tried anything spicy - the answer is always No. LOL

Dear Reader: it was not spicy (but it was good)

The bathrooms are always interesting -

A Polaroid camera as a toilet paper holder is an unusual idea. There is a little sign there assuring you that the camera does not function. 

It is cold and a little rainy - this is good for grapes but not so good for us.

Oops. Just found out that rain this late in September is terrible for the grapes. They start to "rot". Boooooo....

Today (Thursday) we drove to Traben-Trarbach about 30 minutes of windy-road away. We found a little shop to have a wine tasting. It was run by a nice lady named Heike (are they all so nice?). She was widowed and running the winery, picking the grapes and hosting the wine tasting! Superwoman!!

We had a lovely time.

A coffee and cake break was needed so we walked up the road a bit. I tried the local Zwiebelkuchen (onion cake), it was similar to quiche - delicious!

Dinner was at a castle! Burg Landshut. The food was good but the castle and the scenery were the icing on the cake.

Now we are back to our apartment for an evening of games and wine 🍷.

The sun came out so we headed into town to walk around and see the sights and shops.

The little town of Bernkastel is quaint with plenty of shops and restaurants.

We tried the local favorites: Federweisser, which is basically unfermented wine - like they couldn't wait to drink it so they just took it straight out of the barrel early, and Flammkuchen which is a fancy name for flat bread pizza. 

These guys did a little concert.

We ended our time in Bernkastel with coffee and cake (and ice cream for me) before heading out.