Bad Dürkheimer Wein-Nächte

A few weeks ago, we went on another nighttime wine walk, this time in Bad Dürkheim. And, I forgot to blog about it. Mainly because I tried to block it out of my mind. It wasn't a BAD wine walk. We just all had way too much. Waaaayyy tooo much.

Bad Dürkheim is a spa town, about an hour from us. There was a big group of us, so we had to take two cars.

Now, Josh did bring his fancy camera with him....but he brought the wrong lens...and for some reason, brought his flash. Sometimes I wonder about him. So we didn't get very good photos.

For this wine walk, we paid €17(ish) to get in, but that included a glass, and 15 tickets for wine tastings. This area was much bigger than the Freinsheim walk, and more hilly. We were guessing that this one was at least two miles long. Throughout the vineyards, there were 13 wine tents set up, along with some food tents. At each wine tent, there were at least 5 different wines you could try (typically a mix of white & red, sweet, half-sweet, and dry).

The BEST part about this wine walk was the lights. There was a huge beacon of light pointing to the sky, in the middle of the vineyard. Plus, there were a bunch of trees & a few buildings lit up with spotlights that would slowly change colors. One large building at the far end of the vineyard had green laser beams shooting out of it, across the vineyard and over the town.

Unfortunately we ended up going backwards around the vineyard loop, so for half the walk, the lasers kept threatening to blind us.

Here are some of Josh's (not so good) photos. Doesn't really do the place justice.

Looking out over Bad Dürkheim.

See? Pics not so great. Oh well.

I think the reason the wine hit me so hard is that these places aren't the most vegetarian-friendly. I ate a pretzel. I didn't have as much wine as the guys, but they all had stew, sausages, meat sandwiches, etc. I ate a pretzel. I could have had a crepe, but that was 2/3 of the way in, and I had just walked up a big hill, and the line was really long and slow moving, so I chose to sit instead of eat a crepe.

We have our very own Rainbow Coalition in Germany.

The lights that tried to burn our retinas all night.

As we're coming around to the last quarter of the wine walk, a lady hands us a bunch of tickets that she wasn't going to use.

Then, the guys get the bright idea to buy bottles with the tickets, instead of just tastes. I can't remember if it took 5 or 10 tickets to buy a bottle. But I do know that they bought at least 2 to share between four of us.

I think.

We finally made it back to the car (although I was really slow because of my stupid ankle, and I got slightly left behind), and the ride home was quick. I think.

The next morning, after sleeping til at least 11am, we felt fine. Just couldn't quite piece together the last hour of the night.....
It could have been worse, though. Some friends of ours that were on the walk with us had to be at the Frankfurt airport the next day at the crack of dawn. That wasn't the best morning for them.

And that's the last time I do a 15-wine wine tasting with nothing but a pretzel in my stomach.

Although, stay tuned for a post in about 2 weeks. We're going to a wine bar in Trier that has 150 wines (pour your own glass) that you can try for €15.

I'm not really looking forward to that one, to be quite honest...