Father’s Day Weekend: Alsace and a Rhine Float

Yes, Father’s Day. I’m behind! And where are the other bloggers? It turns out getting 14- and 10-year old males to blog is like getting them to clean up after themselves. Painful. Hopeless. Ultimately requires bribes. Bribes are being negotiated and they will soon write about London.

Our Basel weekends have been lovely and Father’s Day weekend provides the perfect example. On Saturday, with our partners-in-crime Bart and Whitney, we took an hour-long train ride to Colmar in the Alsace region of France. We chatted and enjoyed a bag of Läderach chocolate along the way. Because we did not want to share our chocolate, we left our five boys behind. Also, we were going wine tasting.

Our first-stop was Riquewihr, a town on the Alsace Wine Route with cobbled streets and half-timbered shops and tasting rooms. We visited the Dopff Au Moulin tasting room to try the seven grapes of Alsace: Sylvaner, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Muscat d’Alsace, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer and, one red, Pinot Noir. Some of these grapes have a bad reputation in the U.S. The Alsatian wine-makers told us that they tend to export the crap. The U.S. buys the sugary wines that the French would never drink.

Dopff has a few Grand Cru vineyards, the top tier classification in France, and they were delicious. We especially liked the Riesling and sparkling Cremant and started researching how many bottles we could carry back over the French-Swiss border. These crisp whites have proved useful in our European heat waves.

After Dopff, we bought a quick pretzal snack and then headed to the Spielmann Vineyard in Bergheim. We tasted the same types of wines and liked them less, but learned a lot more about the terroir. Or, at least, we were told a lot more about the terroir. I do not recall much because I had tasted too much wine, but I remember holding several nice rocks.

From Bergheim, we drove to Colmar and took the one-hour train back back to Basel. We had Indian food with our boys at Bart and Whitney’s house before heading home to our un-air conditioned apartment. Europeans do many things right, but air conditioning is not one of them.

On Sunday, we made our Dad breakfast and gave him cards and the game Sequence. After breakfast and a run, we rode our bikes down to the Rhine to participate in the ultimate Basel summer activity: a float down the river. We left our bikes unlocked because it’s Switzerland and enjoyed a leisurely walk a couple miles up the river.

It was a 95-degree day and the crowds were out. Swimming or having drinks at the outdoor cafes on the banks of the river.

When we got far enough up, we tucked our belongings into bags that keep things relatively dry and also serve as floaties. We ventured into the water. It was wonderfully cold and moving fast. We were on our way!

It was exhilarating. The boys grabbed on to passing bouys to feel the water rush past. We floated under the old bridges and bobbed in the wake of the boats. When we returned to our point of origin, we climbed out. Our bikes were still there! We San Franciscans could hardly believe it! We ate paninis and drank cokes while drying off and then biked home, cool and refreshed.

We called our dads/grandpas to tell them we loved them and capped off a perfect weekend.