Alsace thru-hiking day 2

Our stay last night was a funky gite over a bakery. This morning's breakfast was included in the price, and it was yummy!

We started out early today, 8:30, as we expect to walk 14+ miles. It's cold and clear. Today's was basically walking on a bike path through vineyards, alternating with walking through towns (not as charming as yesterdays). We saw storks in the fields. And there are castles everywhere, seemingly one on every hill.

We walked through a medium size town around noon, and thought we weren't quite hungry yet, so we'd keep going two more miles to the next little town before stopping for lunch. In this part of France, lunch restaurants are only open noon to two, so we've been timing our lunch stops.

We keep walking to the next town, but as we start looking at what's open on Google maps ..... Not much. One restaurant. Because it's Sunday and most of the town is shut up tight.

We popped into the one and only open place, only to be told no go, as we don't have reservations.

It's now one, we're hungry. We look ahead to the next town (which is also our home base for the night), and see exactly one restaurant that closes in an hour.

So we start walking kinda fast. Luckily about halfway there, we passed a hotel/restaurant on the side of the trail. Bingo! We head in, where the wait staff mumbles about Sunday brunch/fixed menu. Sure, great, we're game!

It was really good - buffet salads, duck main for me, salmon for Bill. Then more buffet with cheeses, tartes, and other desserts. Wine for me, beer for Bill. We deserved it, we'd walked at least 13 miles at this point. Then we got the bill, and it was €33 per person, plus our beverages. Over €90 for our lunch, way more than our average. Oh well, we chalked it up to an experience and had a laugh!

We get to our town for the night, and into our cozy Airbnb. But it's still Sunday, so nothing is open. We find the one restaurant in town that is, and have a tarte flambe and a "strasbougiese" salad - which ends up being a cold white sausage and grated cheese. Weirdest salad I've had, I think.

Todays miles walked: 16 Czytaj więcej