Even the breakfast in hotels is delicious in Europe! That's how we started our seventh day at Hotel Europa.


Ashton, Stephen and I ventured off to Bad Dürkheim, home of the the largest barrel in the world, Dürkheimer Fass. Instead of holding wine, though, this barrel has a restaurant inside!


Naturally, we had to start the day with some wine tasting, so we got some flights with a light lunch. As usual, the food and wine were tasty.


On our way to our next destination, Weingut Schneider, we past some beautiful castles! I wish we could have seen them up close, but they were all on top of steep hills—guess that made for a good defense in the past.


Weingut Schneider was one of my favorite places in Germany. We relaxed on the patio sipping wine and enjoying the scenery. The vines weren't in season yet, so there were no grapes, but the flowers were beautiful. The wine was so good and inexpensive! Well, the one I liked the most was only 7-something dollars for a liter! Apparently, one of Schneider's wines, Black Print, is a favorite of Barack Obama. I had a taste of it, and lets just say it's not my cup of tea. I'm usually a sweet white wine drinker, though, and Black Print is a dry red.


Next up was wine tasting at Weingut Reichsrat von Buhl! The tasting was in the dining room of old house with the original fabric wall covering. It was a unique wine tasting experience. Our server was super enthusiastic about the wine, and we were feeling pretty good at this point.


Stephen, our faithful DD, drove us back to Ramstein, and we picked up Thai That, Laura's favorite Thai restaurant in Germany on the way there. Pad Thai, the can't-go-wrong choice, was superb.

We hung out for a little while longer until we got tired and drove back to the hotel. I FaceTimed my parents and sister—which was really neat all the way from another hemisphere! I missed my family, but Europe felt like home, too.

Continue to Switzerland 2015: DAY 8 >>

There are 300+ more pictures I couldn't possibly fit into one blog post, so I uploaded a slideshow. Check it out here: Switzerland 2015: Photo Album