Night at the Wine Bar

From Cologne, we made our way along the winding Rhine River to the tiny tourist town of Rüdesheim am Rhein -- recommended by a coworker. The trip there had to be one of the most picturesque stretches of road I have had the pleasure to travel on. Not only was there the wide river and the hills covered thick with trees, but dotted along the entire way were terraced vineyards and cozy towns and towering castles. We had to keep stopping to take pictures.

By that evening, we arrived in Rüdesheim am Rhein and checked into our hotel. From there, we made our way to the river to scope things out and stop at a small wine bar we had seen on the way in. We thought it would be a tourist trap but good enough for a cool drink of one of the local wines.... ... ...

... fast-forward 4 hours later. We had now seen only one other non-local and everyone except for Boo was a bit tipsy. Every one there was someone local from town and they get together at this place every night. This was far from a tourist trap. The wine never really stopped flowing and everytime we turned around another glass was there to try. The white wines were quite good, the reds were best avoided.

The barkeep spoke about 50 words of English and one of the ladies spoke English well. Between the two of them, we had many broken conversations with the folks around the bar. They were surprised that we lived in Denmark -- and maybe this came across as more critical than intended but their overall opinion of our current home country was that it's a bit odd, said with some eye-rolling. Huh. Hmm.

At one point, I ordered what was apparently 'wine cheese' and bread (not many food options here, only this and chips and pretzels) and my handling of the bread and cheese was apparently good amusement for the locals. I still fumble with using a knife and fork for just about everything here -- what's the point of a sandwich if you are going to eat it with knife and fork?

It wasn't long before we had tried all of the wines, I think, and moved on to the schnaps -- some I ordered, some were just served. These are nothing like what we call schnaps in the States -- these are strong spirits without sugar and the light fruit flavor wafts (burns?) up through your nose as you drink it down.

We hadn't eaten dinner yet, so we polled the locals for the best place in town and were given a few options. We finished our wine and I went to pay the tab. Four hours of drinks came to 20 euros (about $30) -- I think more than half of our drinks had been on-the-house, especially since at one point I would order a schnaps for me and another for the happy barkeep.

The next day we started a bit slowly -- Boo especially (seriously, she wouldn't get out of bed) -- and backtracked to some of the towns we had driven through the day prior, including a long stop at Bacharach. From there it was on to Frankfurt for the night.

Prost!

“How could drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on” -
Antoine de Saint-Exupery (French Pilot, Writer, and Author, 1900-1944)