If you didn’t catch word, my favorite (free!) activity these days is wine hiking! Also known as vineyard walks or Weinwanderung in German.  Untertürkheim is our starting base and only a 10 minute S-bahn ride away from downtown Stuttgart.  You basically walk up the big vineyard hill behind the town and from there, go exploring!  The routes are endless.  By the end of our hike I’ve already plotted another route to take next time. 🙂

So this weekend we were walking through the vineyards, you know, as we normally do

and we then stumbled upon a little apple tree grove nestled against the vineyards.

The sky turned a misty grey behind us, the tree limbs hung heavy with the weight of hundreds of plump apples on them and the fall foliage started to peek out against the thick dark branches.  It was such an eerily beautiful scene, straight out of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale.

I couldn’t help but walk towards the trees.  Their juicy fruit beckoned me over.

As I was reaching out for a beautiful red apple, a powerful image struck me: the Garden of Eden.  I imagine this must have felt similar and I actually debated what to do in my head.  To pick the apple, or not?

We let the apples be, but it did make for some seriously stunning fall scenes.  How gorgeous is this?!  It will always remind me of my own little Garden of Eden.

We explored some more vineyards and eventually headed down the hill to go home.  Those misty grey skies turned into raindrops!

Until next time!

xx

Know:

To get here from Stuttgart, take the S1 towards Kircheim and get off at Untertürkheim.  Walk through the town to Rotenberger Steige, a pathway on a hill.  From there, you can take any path you’d like – the vineyards are yours to explore!

When:

The fall is my favorite time to explore!  There are still lots of plump grapes to see, and over the next month or two the vine leaves will start to change colors.  It’s magical!