MEDIEVAL CHRISTMAS VILLAGE OF RIBEAUVILLE - OUR FAVORITE CHIRISMAS MARKET OF OUR VAN LIFE TOUR
all right I don't know how well you guys can see this but I just woke up to crank the heater on and feed the kitties and start my day it's still dark but it's snowing so exciting ah look there's some accumulated on the van I looked out and I saw some on the van and there's even some on the ground and it's snowing pretty good right now I hope you can see it well we were dreaming of a white Christmas it looks like we're going to get it [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] first let's talk about where we are we're on the alace wine route which skirts along the eastern border of France right alongside Germany the Alsace region has changed hands many times throughout history and has evolved into an amazing Fusion of History culture architecture food and wine this route that we are on is internationally known as the wine route but to many Europeans it's also quite popular as a route of Christmas Villages this small town in the Middle Ages was a seat of the Lords of riop Pierre hence the town being named raville and I am sure I am saying those names horribly wrong now today this area is nestled between some of the most famed Vineyards of France and these mountains you see right here behind us that are covered with forests I believe they're called The V mountains V oos GES but I know I'm saying that wrong too these French words and accents are really kicking my butt but back during the time of the Lords there were three fortified castles built on the mountain sides to defend the territ teritory and we can see one of them right up there there are hiking trails up to those castles but there's way too much mud snow and ice for me to be trying to hike up a mountain right now maybe if we come back when the weather's better now this town also hosts a Fiddlers Festival each year and that is to celebrate the meeting of the Brotherhood of Fiddlers who started Gathering here way back in 1481 in order to elect their King this Festival is the oldest Festival in all of the alace region and it's celebrated back in August or September I can't quite remember but the spillover effect from all of this Rich history is an authentic and an immersive medieval Christmas Market a tradition which only happens on Saturday and Sunday for two weekends in December and spoiler alert guys tomorrow is Saturday and just happens to be one of those weekends and we are here to show you how this town transforms into a medeval village so you guys need to get prepared for a Christmas Market like you would have never imagined but one more bit of interesting history about this area from more modern times back during World War II American troops actually helped to Li liberate this region from the Germans so just a little interesting tidbit that ties it back to home just a little bit I love when you see little pieces like this because they're telling of the wildlife and the nature around so you can see the birds the squirrels that looks like a badger I'm guessing and the deer and I've seen some of these birds but that's awesome and I got to tell you this city is just like out of a fairy tale it is just drop dead stunning with these Timber homes and businesses along here now I got to tell you if you're just walking down the Main Street it all just kind of looks like it's storefronts and shops but as you walk through some of these narrow Pathways back into you can clearly see their residences and so above these businesses and Behind These businesses people are actually living but this is a true medieval town and you can just see in houses sometimes the exposed beams that have been weathered over time you can see some of the the Rocks exposed where the stucco is peeled off and guys I recognize that some of it is kind of window dressing or maybe remodel or whatever I think some of it's probably original but in any case it is just absolutely gorgeous and I I got to tell you if you're here on a wine tour through this region you definitely want to stop in this town this is a place I I I can't think of a place we've stopped at where I would recommend more as you look off every once in a while through the through the city you can see up to the hills and you can see all the Great Vines and today we were lucky enough to have a dusting of snow and so it's just absolutely stunning but as you as you come here you can see where people drive through to deliver stuff and people drive through to park their cars cuz they live here so this is actually not just window dressing this is a place where people live and I I'm just stunned but whether you're coming here to see the wine region if you get the opportunity and I know it's something that a lot of you may not have the opportunity but if you can get here in the in the winter time and see these Christmas Villages I can't wait for tonight this Village is going to be special it's going to be special in a different way than anything we've seen so far and so I can't wait to experience and I certainly can't describe it to you right now before I see it with my own eyes hopefully the weather clears up a little bit it'd be nice if it kind of stayed cold so the snow sticks around but I think the snow's already turning into rain which probably means it's going to melt way I wanted to get out here this morning and show you guys what we saw this morning and there's a couple churches here and there's definitely some stuff here I'm going to save for when snow and I come out tonight when the village gets alive and active but gosh this place is just absolutely stunning and a must visit there are two places I would say so far in France that you absolutely have to visit and one is strawberg and the second is this place right here wow so it's Friday evening but this Christmas Market is special and only runs two weekends during the season now tomorrow starts one of those weekends so we're here a little early but we're taking a walk I know kurd already showed you through here today A little bit but we're headed up to the little grocery store to pick up a few things just taking a sneak peek of some of the lights and the up where they're starting to get ready for tomorrow for the medieval Christmas Market all right it is Saturday we've been waiting on this since we found out this Market was only open on Saturday and Sunday and yesterday we showed you the sneak peek where there was some people in the streets but today this place is hopping with people that have come to see this beautiful little Christmas Village now this one has a Medieval theme and we've already spotted a few little added touches that you wouldn't have seen at the other markets let's go check this thing out guys oh and it's snowing what is the name of this town I call it rville rille I don't know how to say it we'll put it on the screen and maybe we'll figure out how to say it today it's R riverville I think but it is definitely going to get medieval up in here guys yeah I think they bring tour buses in from Kar which is a larger sized tourist city with a lot of hotels and stuff so I think a lot of these people are coming in on the buses and uh they're pouring in let's go a lot of them let's go see this thing now as we've seen in this part of France in medieval times there was a lots of different kingdoms and F foms and all sorts of villages and each of them had their own kind of dress their own kind of foods their own kind of traditions and I think as we stroll through this Village we're going to see that we're going to see the dress in the booths that serve the hot wine and the hot chocolates and some of the other things that we saw in some of the other Villages but here it's definitely going to have a medieval flare so I see what's going on here so they have this giant wheel and they drop the apples in there and it sort of pulverizes the apples and then they carry them up over here and dump them in the wooden buckets and up on top there's a couple guys there with a big old press a juice press and that's where they're juicing uh and so you get really fresh apple cider right there out of the press quality control so over here they're making apple cider in different ways they have these different Old Mills it's pretty cool and you can see all the apples right here that they're putting in these couple Contraptions and juicing up and I think they're going to be roasting a pig right here so it's a little bit early things are just getting cranked up the bo head in handed with b and [Music] rosemary and I pray my master [Music] [Music] be [Music] home the B head as I understand is the rarest dish in all the land when thus be de with a gay Garland let us in [Music] countyin [Music] our Steward has provided this in honor of the king of which on this day to be served is in pring name see all [Music] three great [Music] and roud [Music] is and we walked through here yesterday just to kind of get sense of the place and uh it was a bit hazy yesterday of course it snowed in the morning but it's snowing now but the haze is cleared and you can see down the road here and up on the mountain is a castle a fortress a fort of some sort and it just looks surreal as a backdrop to all these beautiful buildings and then I love this Christmas tree theyve made out of tree bark here and of course we have all the delicious Breads and pastries it's interesting because St Nick is definitely a different character than the Santa Claus we have back in the US in France it's definitely a saint and you can see here's the den of blie and still another you can see the flags and the the uh and the signages there which represent the different Villages and here they have some kind of soup and of course they all have like hot wine and hot chocolate and other hot drinks what do you think snow I love it I absolutely love it it's my favorite Village and I told Kurt earlier I don't know if it's because it's snowing or because it's got the Medieval theme but um it's my favorite I got a big old dog it looks tasty I thought I was getting in line for pork it's so crazy out there I got what they had is it good well it's good and I'm hungry well we're even eating medieval style we got a big old sandwich and we're just splitting it and sharing it eating right out here in the middle of the village it's so good it's also warm in our hands yeah and our bellies yeah one more Vibe for me so this is the musician so you can see he has all sorts of different pipes drums tambourines and different types of musical [Music] instruments all the other markets that we've been to have had the big fancy carnival rides that they just decorated up with Christmas stuff this one this one's a little different what a really really cool Vibe they've got going on in this town for this Christmas Market all right so we found a leather Booth but it's not your typical purses and wallets we've got wrist wraps I don't know the official name sword holders really cool hats hanging over our head the giant corset belt things and masks really cool belts look at that tall hat up top I can tell tell yall it is a sea of people and it is very easy to lose Kurt okay we've done it again for about the 10th time today already there he [Music] is so what we're what we're learning is there is one main street that runs up and down the middle of this town so you walk up you turn around and walk back out but there are little side alleys that all seem to have a different kind of theme they're own little kingdoms and fight them set up yeah it'd be cool if later they had a war a fake one of course I think they going to oh they might they might throughout the village you'll just stumble up on either bonfire type things or these big trees that they' just put in places and lit on fire from the inside and they're wonderful hand warming stations and when we're vlogging we have to take off our gloves so you may see me stop at more than one of these and you can smell the burning wood everywhere as you walk and some of it's from the hand warmers and some of it's just from cooking the food there's a lot of food being cooked on Fires chestnuts roasting and all sorts of other stuff so really kind of a full sensory experience yeah with the smells of the food and the and the [Music] drinks [Laughter] for they've stopped for a little mini break for me to rest and there are tons of people here and we think something pretty bad for this little town has happened we think the power's out oh we know the power's out yeah the power's out throughout most of the town at least all that we can see um I was watching a little Booth when the lights went out so I know there was an on and off moment the music stopped we really hope they can get it going back soon not just for us to be able to enjoy everything but I think this little town probably depends a lot on the tourism that comes in today and tomorrow and the restaurants well they can't serve food right now some of the places that are cooking over fire they're still doing a little bit of business but no credit cards and this place is packed shoulder toosh shoulder all up and down this one walkway I mean it is a sardine can yeah yeah there's a lot of people still my favorite Village but I am cheering for whoever's working behind the scenes right now trying to get these lights to come back on but it's like they blew the whole town [Music] ha down 3 [Music] [Music] what okay one so we're having two little tiny glasses of wine and some ESC cargo we are in France see how this turns out we're in Wine Country little reasing oh there they are guys to all right Kurt's going in oh they're little tiny stamps am I going to like them I love and what you got to do is take a little bread like this and you take the juice inside of it look at that you put it right there on the bread that's the secret sauce right here so good oh you don't dump the butter out you got to dump it on the bread you can dip it on the I did a fuxa I dumped out the Special Sauce she doesn't know about Asar go I don't I don't I think I've had it once before I'm going to try again like all [Music] right think you're looking [Music] good all right so we ordered a cup of pork a cup of pork to go with our es cargo they gave Kurt a little gift of some sort of maybe snobs or r [Music] or [Laughter] [Music] slowly you said slowly thank you all right that pork looks delicious want to give it a try while I got the pork out the camera out I think we have found the party side street you can't have any if you don't me c trying to try in on the party and what a fantastic Christmas [Music] Village think you get one and get up there and challenge her to a [Laughter] [Music] [Music] fight good news guys the lights and the music are back on what are you doing here Kurt well I'm thinking about getting some of these potatoes they look pretty pretty tasty he's been wanting potatoes for a week potato cakes this is the happiest little side street for sure earlier I called it the party side street and I think I'm on to [Music] something all right here we go [Music] thank you think about us thank you all right I got a hot chocolate and it comes with the souvenir cup that says the name of the village on the cup I have a question how do you say the name of this town [Music] is all right we learned from the nice lady it is pronounced re got to put the accent on the [Music] end we've been for almost 5 years in [Music] advance [Music] oh [Music] foreign speech fore [Music] wish [Music] 2 0:29:57.320,1193:02:47.295 [Music] for try to get on the way [Music] back much good morning we slap wore ourselves out yesterday touring around what is 100% my favorite Christmas Village of all that we've gone to this week I hope you enjoyed as much as we did was it your favorite curtain I loved it it snowed which was beautiful and the Medieval theme was awesome and made it interactive went here among all these great fields and so it was just stunning yeah it's a beautiful Village everyone was kind it was crowded like crazy and I didn't even mind that's how amazing it was but I hope you've enjoyed spending uh some Christmas Market time with us coming up on this holiday season and I hope we've helped spread some Christmas cheer in your house we are rolling right up on the actual Christmas day um we do have one more very small very beautiful Village we're going to take you to and that should come out right at Christmas time it's supposed to be the most beautiful Village of all Kurt we'll see I don't know how they do that but with that we're going to wind down this special video release right here and I see you I guess maybe tomorrow if you like this video be sure to subscribe to our Channel and hit that notification Bell so you guys know when we put out new videos and don't forget you can always follow us over on Instagram to see what's going on in between videos cheers guys
2023-12-26 14:57
