A Visit to the French Countryside

Bon Jour Mon Amis!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Today I thought I'd share with you more photos of our trip to the Alsace region of France.
The city of Colmar was full of amazing half timber buildings, and like much of the region, was heavily influenced by nearby Germany.  As a matter of fact, a large portion of the area had once belonged to Germany, and Austria at one time, too.

I was ooohing and aaahing over all of the flowers, and pretty shutters, too!  Especially the blue and turquoise ones!

Aren't the flowers amazing?

A river ran right thru Colmar, making it even more picturesque!  I called all of these towns and villages "fairy tale villages", as it felt like we were walking right thru a story book!

The next shots were taken in the quaint little medieval walled village of Bergheim.  Isn't this painted shutter just adorable?!!  It even has their initials on it!

I was having so much fun just soaking up the details, such as this sweet little shuttered window filled with pots of succulents.

I thought of all of you when I saw this neat old mannequin in a winery.  Sure wish that I could have taken her home!  Speaking of wineries, the Alsace region is known for their many vineyards.  We followed the "Route des Vins" (wine route), and visited a bunch of wineries and had fun doing lots of wine tasting!

We didn't have any hotel reservations til we got to Paris, so we just played it by ear each day as to where we would spend the night.  Like many of the other pretty little villages that we visited, most of them we just happened to stumble upon, including Bergheim, which was one of our favorites!  We managed to get the very last room available in the hotel below for one night.  It was amazing!  The building was once a farm, and they've kept much of the original features, such as the old stone walls and interior beams.  We loved it so much, I could have spent an entire week here!

Our room was on the 2nd level, and this interior open air courtyard was right outside our door.

We had the best dinner that night at their restaurant, below!  Notice the old fashioned pumpkin?

Love!

I was interested to learn that family who owns the hotel (and also a winery), has been making wine in this same little village since 1737!

The lower level had the most amazing pool (piscine) that we took a dip in.  Notice the old stone walls and beams?  It's hard to tell from the picture, but the sides of the pool are old wine barrels.  How neat is that?

Here's hubby at the entrance to the village.

And yours truly (having a bad hair day, I might add!  What on earth happened to my usual bangs?!), enjoying the sunshine and flowers.
That's it for now.  I'll be sharing lots of photos of our trip to Paris in upcoming posts.
Hope you all have a tres magnifique week!