Day 8 - May 23rd - Bike ride wine tour

        

         Today was the famous and highly looked forward to bike ride wine tour day. Stevie decided not to come, so it was Heather, Suzanne, Lori, Kaitlyn, Nicole, and me. 

          We started early at 8:45am, without much make-up and ugly ponytail hair, yay! So we took the U-bahn to meet a train, which we rode for an hour and I slept most of the way. 

          It was at this time we learned the ride was 18 miles long, not 8, and that it would last all day, and that we would have to ride in car traffic as well….. Then we walked to the garage holding all the bikes, we each chose one, and we were off. 

Don't we all look so cute? sort of?

We rode through vineyards a lot

          There were 27 people, and it was crowded, making it difficult at stopping and going times. So we rode for a while and stopped a few times while the guide told us things about the area, and wine tasting, and grape growing, and wine making and stuff. The first winery we stopped at was situated on a little hill below an old castle. 

         We could have hiked up to the castle, but our guide said it would take about an hour and was pretty strenuous, so we decided not to. So they tasted three different wines, and we five Mormon girls had delicious grape juice instead, it even looked like wine! 

       That was pretty dang fun. Then we were off again.
  We stopped for lunch soon after that and I had a delicious salad with grilled turkey pieces on it. It was sooo good. It came with a delicious roll and some strange potato salad too. 

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        There was the cutest yellow lab there named Jimmy. It looked like he loved the attention he got from everyone in the restaurant.  

         When we were finished, we walked around that little town some more, tasting some chocolate and browsing the souvenirs.

   

We kept going for awhile, then stopped at the second winery. We had grape juice again, and it was also very good. After this we crossed the Danube on a cool, energy-less ferry. On the other side we rode some more, then stopped in a park-like place for pictures, volleyball, and playing in the water. 

            The river was cold, but it felt good after awhile. I stubbed my toe on a nice hidden boulder though. Nicole, Kaitlyn, Lori, and I played on a cool tire swing thing with four tires rigidly attached to arms the swiveled and pivoted around a pole; that was quite entertaining for awhile. After this it was finally time to ride back to the bike garage, then walk to the train station. We got some drinks for the train home because we were sooo thirsty. I got a wonderful yogurt smoothie drink that I basically chugged. The day was so hot sometimes that we were all drenched in sweat and dehydrated from not very many water breaks. 

        After we got back to our Westbahnhof stop, we went to Okay Pizza and got a Doner Kebab, which was delightfully good; these ones had cucumbers in them, which I’d never had before and I really liked it. Those things have got to be introduced to the States. We also stopped for some fruit at a little grocery market on the way home.