We visited a gorgeous castle with our neighbors the Michael, Noah and Joe. The castle is called Chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_du_Haut-K%C5%93nigsbourg). We read about the castle in our book Basel Family Fun. The castle is located in the Alsatian region of France just outside the city of Colmar.
We threw the kids in the car and headed into France. The drive was gorgeous! The boys played and talked in the back of the car and once again cars, truck, trains and planes changed hands at record rates. Joel and Joe even “read” for a little while. We drove up the twisting, winding road towards the castle and it was then that we noticed the traffic. There were cars everywhere! It turns out that the Castle is a popular tourist destination for the French. We parked the car at the 15 minute walking walk marker. While 15 minutes is not a big deal in normal day, it is tough with three kids walking up a mountain. By the time we got to the top, it was time for a Coke and snack. (I also bought post cards, so get excited about getting some new postcards!)
The Castle was AMAZING! There were TONS of stairs and lots of gorgeous furniture. It was tough carrying Joel up all the stairs, but the views from the top of the castle was worth all the schlepping. In the future, I would love to take people back to the castle, just with Ross… I think it could be fun to have help moving Joel around!
We spent about two hours at the castle. We let the babies spend a little time playing in the courtyard. Joel was in heaven! He loved the water cistern. After two hours of schlepping the babies around the castle, it was time for lunch.
We drove from the castle to an adorable restaurant with a play ground. We walked into the restaurant with all three of the hot, hungry and tired babies. They were holding it together and were acting very happy. The restaurant was busy, but there were empty tables. There were even high chairs! (This is always a pleasant surprise in Europe!) We walked in and saw an empty table with two high chairs and we sprung on it! (That is where the problems started!) We waited and we waited and we waited! It turns out that we were wrong in sitting down. The owner of the restaurant was peeved by our actions and told the waitress NOT TO SERVE US! Yes, a nice French family who was sitting in another part of the restaurant came over to let us know that we would be waiting for at least an hour to eat. They told us that the restaurant owner told the waitress to serve us in an hour… Needless to say, we thanked the French family and left the restaurant.
By this time, we were all so hungry and cranky that I would have been happy to gnaw on some Quick Burgers and head home, but that was not in the cards. Rather, we headed into the charming French town of Ochwiller for some yummy tart flambé. Joel adored the tart flambé and he even ate ice cream. Lunch took about 2 hours, which was fun. Joel stayed awake and was rather quiet… for Joel! By the time that we left, we were all fat, happy and ready to go home!
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